How can a community garden be connected to economic development, environmental sustainability, healthier eating in schools and at home, and a sense of community?
It's one big circle. Cultivate community and ideas - with care and attention as with children, plants, or animals, watch them grow.
The Connecticut chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association, CT NOFA hosts a conference "Cultivating an Organic Connecticut: Closing Connecticut's Food Gap with Urban Agriculture, Small Farms and Gardens."
Featured speakers are Ian Marve, co-founder and director, Added Value and its Red Hook Community Farm (Brooklyn, New York), and Dan Ross, executive director, Nuestras Raices (Spanish for "our roots"), an urban agriculture/community gardens, Holyoke, Mass. (For a Boston Globe story about how Nuestras Raices is part of global change, see this link.)
The conference, with workshops and an exhibit area, is but one of the regional events set for 2009.
Anyone considering a community garden, niche business, organic lawn care, or wanting to learn where to get local food can find people who can help at CT NOFA.
Bill Duesing, executive director of CT NOFA, is president of the NOFA Interstate Council, and author of Living on the Earth: Eclectic Essays for a Sustainable and Joyful Future.
For details about membership, other workshops, or regional conferences, visit www.ctnofa.org or call (203) 888-5146.
