New Location while Geneva AgriTech is Renovated:
Martin Auction Barn, 1036 NY-318, Waterloo, NY 13165

All meetings start at 10 a.m. The speaker line-up for this year’s NYCO meetings will be:

January 14^th:

John and Halee Wepking, farmers from Ridgeway Wisconsin where they grow and process organic grains. Their story is unique because they are new to farming; having met as chefs in NYC and then decided they wanted to grow the food they worked with. They were attracted to an ad run by a retiring dairy farmer in Wisconsin who wanted to transition his 950-acre farm into a diversified enterprise farm by reaching out to young farmers to make use of his acreage. They will share some of the challenges and benefits of getting started in this manner and also how they added value to their grains grown by starting a flour mill.

Dr. Margaret Smith with Cornell’s Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics. She will review her work and others on developing crop varieties whose physiologies ae best adapted to organic management. Her work includes growing foundation seed and providing farmers with tools to make wise seed choices.

There will be a panel of dairy farmers who will review the battle plans they have developed to get consistently good forage harvested and stored during these times when the weather is anything but consistent. The panel will be: Kirk Arnold of Cortland, New York, Ryker Smith and Jeremy Mapstone of Fabius, New York.

Speakers currently scheduled for the February 11^th and March 10^th meetings include:

• John Winchell from Alltec to discuss Mycotoxins in forages
• Cornell Professor Matt Ryan on organic no-till with Uri Menalled
• Cornell CCE’s John Hanchar will review four-year economic study on transitioning to organic crop production at Aurora Research Farm
• Heath Dewy, reporter with USDA Dept of Ag Market News Service of Greeley, CO, will talk about the world organic grain situation
• Shawn Kilpatrick, President of McGeary Grains, Lancaster, PA

These meetings are free of charge and no registration is needed to attend. A dish to pass or donation for lunch is requested. For more information contact Fay Benson at afb3@cornell.edu, or 607-745-3807. This year’s meetings were planned with the help of Emily Reis and Luke Gianforte.