Southeast Grazing conference set for Feb 17-18th

Lancaster County Graziers is planning another learning session for people interested in the grass-fed opportunity. This is planned for Tuesday and Wednesday, February 17-18, 2015. The theme for 2015 is Maximizing Energy Harvest. This is pretty much about working with nature instead of working against or ignoring it. Beginning Tuesday Morning at 9 am sharp Elam Stoltzfus (second time speaker) will discuss maximizing energy harvest through grazing management. Cliff Hawbaker will be with us again to discuss ideas in preparing for present and future. His second session will focus on financial sustainability and succession planning. Tuesday afternoon, Judy Mudrack, European tour organizer and book author, will take us on a video tour of Switzerland, showing us some interesting aspects about Swiss dairy farms. Last on for Tuesday are Brendon and Katia Holmes from Misty Brook Farm in Maine. This is a diversified farm founded in 2002 on rented ground and now owns 400 acres and employs 7-8 workers doing dairy, layers pork, and vegetables. The second talk on Wednesday will give some detail on the move from New York State to Maine in search of land security and ownership. Simeon Yoder, cheese maker and dairy farmer, will discuss his journey in revitalizing exploited soils and cheese making and marketing. Elmer Stoltzfus will end the day Wednesday with some thoughts and ideas on record keeping and benchmarks for success. Please see program above for times that speakers present. Each of these speakers bring experience that alone should be worth your time and registration cost, but together you cannot afford to miss this learning opportunity. If grain free dairy grazing is of interest to you this will be an opportunity to learn from four dairy farmers that are doing it and reaping a premium for it. See attached flier about a January meeting with Cheyenne Christianson of northern WI. That meeting is focused on zero grain/all-grass and forage milk production and will be a real learning opportunity for anyone currently feeding grain or not. Note that we are changing our meeting location to the Lancaster Ag headquarters located on Ronks Road east of Lancaster. Hope to see you there! Lancaster Co. Graziers, 1142 Gap Road, Kinzers, PA 17535 Roman Stoltzfoos, Secretary- 717-278-1070