CRAFT-E

Hello Everyone interested in sharing each other's resources around farm education tours.
We would like to find some host sites for farm tours and a discussion around how education looks on your farm for the spring/summer/ and/or fall of 2009. If you are interested please let us know so we can put together a calendar of events and topics.
We currently have Land's Sake, Waltham Fields Farm, and Small One farm willing to host a group. So please let us know ASAP if at all interested.
Happy spring!

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Permalink Reply by Ben Grosscup on May 20, 2009 at 3:32pm

Hi Mark,

Earlier this Spring, I was looking into the possibility of doing a bus tour of community farms in Massachusetts for NOFA/Mass. I contacted both community groups who are looking to get a more hands-on picture of community farms that they can then use to take back to their own communities as well as farms to visit. Unfortunately, the project has been put on hiatus because NOFA/Mass is feeling a budget crunch caused by the overall economic crisis, so we've had to cut back somewhat on our ambitious plans -- at least for the immediate future.

But I still think there would be interest in a variety of formats for on-the-farm education opportunities. It sounds like you may be thinking especially in terms of the needs of current practitioners of farm-based education for what you're organizing. I think that in addition to this group, there are also people -- oftentimes not in the farming profession -- who are interested in starting farm-based education programs and community farms on under-utilized pieces of public land that their towns, non-profits, and land trusts currently govern.

I'd be able to help with this. Sorry about taking a while to get on this discussion board.

For one of the activities NOFA/Mass does have planned for our Community Farm Initiative, however, please see this link I just posted:
http://www.farmbasededucation.org/forum/topics/community-farm-track...

- Ben Grosscup: 413-658-5374