Press Manchester Journal
Author Danielle M. Crosier
Published Aug 16, 2024
Forest farmers viewing the forest botanical nursery at Smokey House Center.
Image provided by Smokey House Center
DANBY — Smokey House Center in Danby will be hosting the inaugural Northeast Forest Farming Conference next month. Running from Sept. 6 through Sept. 8, the event is made possible by support from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, an organization under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and by way of the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program.
“Hosting the Northeast Forest Farming Conference, in collaboration with the Northeast Forest Farming Coalition, aligns with Smokey House Center’s goal to educate regional forest farmers with best practices and connect them with essential resources – including their need for educational support, financial assistance, and planting stock,” said Danielle Zimmerman, development and communications director at Smokey House.
Forest farming, an agroforestry practice with roots in indigenous plant traditions, centers around the stewardship of non-timber forest products grown beneath the forest canopy.
The practice offers both ecological and economic benefits to farmers by increasing economic resilience and diversifying income streams, while also helping to restore at-risk plant species and maintain the health of the natural forest ecosystem.
By offering a more sustainable windfall to farmers than lumbering, forest farming benefits the environment in a holistic and comprehensive way.
The Northeast Forest Farming Coalition – an organization comprised of individuals, farms, universities, non-profits, businesses, and other entities with a shared vision of promoting the education and growth of the industry – aims to nurture grassroots farming practices that are grounded in economic resiliency.
Smokey House Center began it’s three year forest farming project in 2023, an initiative focused on conducting applied forest farming research and education in collaboration with researchers, forest farmers, and local youth. The initiative was supported by a Northeast Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education grant.
“The underlying objective of the project is to develop new strategies for providing planting stock of commercially valuable and at-risk native forest plants such as ginseng, ramps, and goldenseal,” explained Zimmerman in an email to the Journal.
The Northeast Forest Farming Conference will offer a comprehensive exploration of forest farming, featuring workshops that include a medicine walk with Stockbridge-Munsee herbalist, Misty Cook; a field session on the propagation of woodland botanicals with Margaret Bloomquist; an applied personhood, contextual sanctity, and stewardship poultice workshop with Curandere Eltón García-Sosa; a wild-simulated ginseng production workshop with Anna Plattner and Justin Wexler of Wild Hudson Valley; and a shiitake inoculation workshop with Corinna Steinrueck.
“In addition, there will be classroom presentations on the basics of forest farming in the Northeast, along with a session highlighting government resources and opportunities available for beginning forest farmers and those interested in agroforestry,” said Zimmerman.
The keynote panel, scheduled for the evening of Saturday, Sept. 7, will center on “exploring how to better weave the value of reciprocity into the forest farming movement unfolding across the Northeast.”
The event will include meals and live music on Saturday evening, featuring local musician Ida Mae Specker. Specker is a fiddler, folk singer, and songwriter from Andover.
“It should be a wonderful weekend full of knowledge sharing and envisioning a more resilient future,” said Zimmerman, who advised those interested in registering for the event to visit Smokey House Center’s website at smokeyhouse.org/happenings.
The inaugural Northeast Forest Farming Conference will take place at Smokey House Center in Danby on September 6-8.
The Smokey House Center is located at 426 Danby Mountain Road in Danby.
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