By Felicia Cenca, CFSA Intern. Come hear Michael Twitty at the Local Food Feast where he will deliver the keynote at the 30th Annual Sustainable Agriculture Conference. Twitty will also present a Friday Preconference and a Sunday Workshop.

Michael Twitty, photo from afroculinaria.com

Michael Twitty, photo from afroculinaria.com

The Carolinas are no exception to the slow progress we’ve seen throughout the South to strengthen the ‘socially just’ leg of the sustainability stool. Michael W. Twitty, a talented writer, activist and culinary anthropologist, has made it his mission to shine a much needed light on these issues through his inspiring blog, AfroCulinaria, and his accompanying book, The Cooking Gene.

The Carolina Farm Stewardship Association is thrilled to welcome Michael as our keynote speaker at this year’s 30th Annual Sustainable Agriculture Conference. Twitty will share his extensive knowledge of the connections between food and deeper sociological questions related to the historical roots of American southern cuisine, and challenge the audience to seek out ways to express your complex identity throughout our food choices. Conference attendees will have several chances to connect with Twitty’s work as he will be giving an in-depth preconference presentation, speaking during our legendary Local Food Feast, and offering a workshop open to all conference attendees on Saturday afternoon.

Michael Twitty

Photo from www.afroculinaria.com

Twitty is rapidly gaining acclaim for his work as a food writer, independent scholar, culinary historian, and historical interpreter. He is motivated by a drive to prepare, preserve and promote African American foodways and its deeper historical traditions in Africa and her Diaspora through American southern food culture. Currently, Twitty is a Judaic studies teacher in the Washington D.C. area. His work includes two distinct categories: the Antebellum Chef which deals with the huge number of black chefs who have been left out of the history of American southern food despite their vital role; and Kosher/Soul which talks about “identity cooking” and how complex identities can be expressed through the way that we eat.

Twitty’s inspiration stems from his desire to trace his roots through foodways and their evolution in America. His website, Afroculinaria, is a food blog that presents his diverse interests blended into one engaging and dynamic site. Twitty’s thoughtfully crafted blog posts weigh in on a range current issues while also documenting his progress on his personal project, The Cooking Gene.

The Cooking Gene is a project that Twitty launched in 2011. According to his website the project is “the confluence of several major areas of interest that I hold dear–family history, Southern/African American food history, the cultural politics of identity, and intercultural connections and historical legacies.

We are traveling the “Old South,” in search of sites that are a part of my family history in slavery and segregation (plantations, gravesites, cotton gins, tobacco barns, churches, etc.) tracing the larger story of African American foodways through my Black, white and Native American ancestors and their personal stories.”

Afroculinaria documents Twitty’s journey through what he called the Southern Discomfort Tour, which was sparked by The Cooking Gene project. He travels to farms, zoos, places of worship, farmers’ markets, historic plantations and many more places in order to understand how history has evolved through these specific places for his ancestors while also doing presentations and conducting genetic research to discover his roots and food heritage. Due to the success in his personal mission, Michael is forming his experiences into a forthcoming book that documents the journey of The Cooking Gene which will be released in 2016.

Join Michael Twitty for his pre-conference intensive on Friday November 6th from 9 a.m. -12 p.m. to hear the full story of his journey and its implications for the destiny of the southern table. You don’t have to register for the full Sustainable Agriculture Conference to attend this exciting, personal workshop with Michael (but we hope you will!). Or, if all this talk about southern food history is making your stomach growl, join us for the Local Food Feast on Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. to hear Twitty’s keynote address. The Local Food Feast is a magical, mouthwatering meal made with only the best in-season, sustainably grown ingredients supplied by local farms. An annual highlight of the conference will be made even more memorable as Twitty talks about the role of Southern food in shaping our past, present and future.

CFSA’s Sustainable Agriculture Conference is a unique opportunity to experience Michael Twitty’s historical perspective on American southern food culture while surrounded by those who share common interests! Online registration is now closed, but you can still reserve your seat Friday morning onsite at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Durham, NC. Just check in at the CFSA registration desk to get signed up.

by Angie Lavezzo, CFSA Communications Coordinator | Friday, Sept. 10, 2021 – 

Seeds in open jars for exchange at the 2019 Sustainable Agriculture Conference

The art and practice of seed saving has seen an encouraging resurgence over the last decade. There’s been an uptick in seed swaps, the explosive growth of seed libraries, and the continued endurance of organizations like Seed Savers Exchange that facilitate the distribution of rare seeds.

Seed saving is an incredibly satisfying and valuable skill that can be easily incorporated into our seasonal growing plans.

Lee Barnes, who runs the Southeast Seed and Plant Exchange (SSPE), has been a longtime supporter of CFSA and a fixture at our annual Sustainable Agriculture Conference. The SSPE is a donation-based organization that provides seeds and plants to anyone who needs them, free of charge. You’ll often find Lee and his vast assortment of seeds set up at conferences and seed swaps all over the Southeast.

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by Angie Lavezzo, CFSA Communications Coordinator | Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021 –

A close-up of a cut-open kabocha squash

It’s no secret that as growers in the Southeast, unique challenges are present here that are not in other parts of the country. We tend to have more bug pressure than other regions. Our rainfall is increasingly unpredictable, waffling between drought and monsoon. The fungal issues brought on by our humidity levels are a special kind of frustration.

Maybe these are good reasons not to bother with the extra step of saving seeds on our farms. Still, I passionately make the case that these environmental factors we are always learning from are precisely why we should be saving our seeds. Sure, it’s one more thing to add to the long list of tasks to be planned and managed. With just a few additions to the harvest calendar, the job is very manageable, enjoyable, can save money—and can even make money, helping to diversify farm income.

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by Angie Lavezzo, CFSA Communications Coordinator | Friday, Oct. 15, 2021 –

Tarped field

Soil cultivation, particularly with traditional tilling methods, is so common, they’ve gone unquestioned for generations. Most farmers and gardeners are taught how and when to turn the soil to manage weeds and prepare for planting. Tilling offers relatively easy and instant results to turn in soil amendments, aerate and break up clumpy soil, and produce a loose and plantable loam. An increasing amount of research has come back, showing that this repeated cultivation comes at a high cost.

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by CFSA | Monday, Oct. 21, 2019 – 

Mbarara visit to Parental Care Ministires school and farm. Photo via Rhyne Cureton

When swine specialist Rhyne Cureton first worked with pigs he found them frustrating. No matter what he tried, the pigs kept breaking out of their enclosures. It took a dramatic escape by a 500-pound sow named Louise to eventually shift Cureton’s perspective and help him develop his “farmer’s eye.”

Since that experience, Cureton (also known as “Pork” Rhyne) has become a small farms swine specialist and advocate in the United States and abroad. For the last three years, Cureton has traveled to East Africa to train rural pig farmers on how proper livestock husbandry and health correlate to farm profitability.

We recently caught up with Cureton to talk about his interest in agriculture, his experience in East Africa, and his future goals.

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by CFSA | Thursday, Oct. 24, 2019 –

Two attendees at SAC taking a moment to chat in the hallway

The word “networking” gets thrown around a lot, but at the Sustainable Agriculture Conference, we think about it a little differently. For our attendees, it’s not just about meeting new people—it’s about coming together with an open mind and creating meaningful connections.

When you’re here, you’re a part of the community, and that’s one of the most valuable experiences at the gathering. We’re all in this movement together! Whether this is your first conference or you’ve been dozens of times, here are some networking recommendations to make the most of your time at SAC, so that you can share knowledge, conversation, and camaraderie and come away with new friends, mentors, and allies.

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by Laura Stewart, Haw River Mushrooms | Monday, Sept. 30, 2019 –

In 2010, when I met my now-husband, Ches, I never dreamed I would be farming, let alone that we would be churning out hundreds of pounds of edible mushrooms each week, three tons a month of spent substrate, and 100 pounds a quarter of mushroom substrate fed vermicompost. It’s been a long and winding road to worms and fungus! The farming methods we use for such intensive production require a lot of labor to control the mushrooms’ access to light, temperature, oxygen, and humidity so that we can provide a yearlong crop. However, as labor intensive as mushroom growing can be in a concentrated agriculture operation, they can be one of the most passive crops possible when grown on logs for outdoor production. This article will share a bit about the many benefits of mushroom cultivation—even if you don’t plan to measure your production by the ton!

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by CFSA | Thursday, Oct. 3, 2019 –

Kris Reid

A true advocate for local food, Kris Reid walks the walk. She keeps backyard chickens, tends a garden, makes her vinegars and pasta from scratch, and is currently fermenting ginger ale and sauerkrauts. Always devoted to the task at hand, Kris even started having contractions while working a catering job. She made it to the hospital in time. Two days later, she was back in the kitchen.

Since 2009, Kris has worked on-and-off as the food coordinator for the Sustainable Agriculture Conference (SAC). In the face of many changes and challenges, she always rises to the occasion to bring fresh, delicious local food to conference attendees—which is no small feat! 

We recently caught up with Kris to hear about her experience as SAC’s food coordinator and to find out what it’s really like to cook local foods for hundreds of people.

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by CFSA | Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2019 –

Having fun at a workshop at SAC

From gaining knowledge to getting inspired for the year ahead, the Sustainable Agriculture Conference (SAC) is THE place for new farmers to learn and connect with the sustainable ag community in the Carolinas and beyond. Have you thought about attending, but wondered how SAC might benefit you, if you could afford it, or whether it would be worth your time?

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by CFSA | Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019 –

An Interview with 2019 SAC Keynote, Dr. Allen Williams

Dr. Allen Williams is a sixth-generation family farmer and expert on regenerative agriculture and grazing, soil health, adaptive foraging, pasture-based meat production, the grass-fed market, and alternative marketing systems, among other subjects. He personally pioneered many of the first grass-fed protocols and forage finishing techniques. For these reasons and more, we are thrilled to bring Dr. Williams as the keynote speaker of our 2019 Sustainable Agriculture Conference.

Though he currently lives in Mississippi, where he owns a grass-fed beef operation, Dr. Williams has deep roots in the Carolinas. His ancestors first started their family farm in South Carolina in the year 1842. He began his education at Clemson, where he earned his BS and MS in Animal Science. He later went on to earn his Ph.D. in Livestock Genetics from LSU. He is also a longtime partner and Chief Ranching Officer of Joyce Farms in Winston-Salem. A respected researcher, (self-described) “recovering” academic, and writer, Dr. Williams has published over 400 articles and the book Before You Have a Cow. We recently sat down for an in-depth conversation with Dr. Williams about all things regenerative and adaptive in the Carolinas and beyond.

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