Featured Speakers

Debra Eschmeyer

KEYNOTE AT THE LOCAL FOODS FEAST

CFSA is proud to welcome Debra Eschmeyer as this year’s keynote speaker.  Debra  is an exciting new leader in the healthy food and farm movement.

Raised on a dairy farm in Ohio and an organic farmer herself, Debra brings her passion about farming and her knowledge about farm and food policy together for us.  She is co-founder of the nationally-celebrated  FoodCorps and its Director of Policy and Partnerships.   Food Corps works in ten states and places young people directly in school districts to organize farm to table projects.  Food Corps has a vision of a nation of healthy children who know what healthy food  is—how it grows and where it comes from—and who have access to it every day

Debra has been honored for her work on school food reform as a Kellogg Food & Community Fellow.  She has served as the Communications and Outreach Director of the National Farm to School Network.   Debra has been an editor for Food Justice Magazine, worked on the ground-breaking documentary “Lunch Line” and has created numerous campaigns and films to connect nutrition programs with local agriculture. Debra is a recipient of the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award.

Debra farms with her husband Jeff at Harvest Sun Farm in New Knoxville, Ohio.  In the middle of Ohio corn country, they grow an array of organic produce and sell at a farmers market and through a new CSA.

Don’t miss this chance to hear the positive message from one of our brightest new stars in the farm and food movement and be inspired.

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Michael Phillips

Author of The Holistic Orchard

Michael Phillips will give a talk on apples, orchards and deep ecology in soils and farm systems. Michael is a farmer, writer, carpenter, orchard consultant, and speaker who lives with his wife, Nancy, and daughter, Grace, on Heartsong Farm in northern new Hampshire. They grow apples and a variety of medicinal herbs. Learn More

Nancy Adamson

Pollinator Specialist

Nancy Adamson, Ph.D., works jointly as the Pollinator Conservation Specialist for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). She studied native bees important for crop pollination while earning her Ph.D. in entomology from Virginia Tech and has devoted much of her career to habitat restoration. Learn More

Ron Morse

No-till and cover crop expert

Ron Morse is a world-renowned expert on the use of cover crops for organic no-till vegetable production.  Professor Emeritus of Virginia Tech’s Department of Horticulture, Ron has been a pioneer inno-till research for over 30 years.  With the goal of achieving maximum farm profitability, Ron integrates cover crops, specialized small farm equipment, biological inoculants, and tillage systems.  Ron’s cutting-edge technology has been demonstrated to be effective on broccoli, peppers, potatoes, summer squash and other crops.  Ron will lead aworkshop on Saturday about organic no-till and cover crop practices.

Ellen Polishuk

Commercial-scale Soil and Compost Specialist

“Ellen started working at Potomac Vegetable Farm when she was 17 and now, she manages 25 smaller patches, ‘getting smaller all the time,’ plus a sizeable hay and compost operation started in 1995. Learn More

Ross Conrad

Organic Bee Expert

Ross Conrad learned his craft from the late Charles Mraz, world renouned beekeeper and promoter of apitherapy. Conrad is a former president of the Vermont Beekeepers Association, a regular contributor to Bee Culture – The Magazine of American Beekeeping, and author of Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture. Ross has given bee related presentations and led organic beekeeping workshops and classes throughout North America for many years. His beekeeping business, Dancing Bee Gardens, supplies friends, neighbors, and local stores with honey and candles among other bee related products, and provides bees for Vermont apple pollination in the spring. Learn More

Zev Friedman

Permaculturist with Living Systems Design

Zev is a leading permaculture designer, researcher, teacher and writer in western North Carolina. He grew up in Sylva, NC and received his B.S. in Human Ecology from UNCA. Zev’s specialty is forest agriculture; he now runs the Forest Cuisine Project, which helps land owners to start forest farms and to market their products. He is particularly passionate about assisting landowners in setting up mushroom farming operations and in using fungi as remediators for damaged environments. Zev also specializes in urban permaculture design and installation, including many private residences, as well as consulting on the design of the Mars Hill town hall and grounds.