Women for the Land Event Registration
Are you a woman farmer in Adams, Bedford, Berks, Chester, Centre, Cumberland, Franklin, Lancaster, Lebanon, or Lycoming County?
Do you want to build resilience and profitability through healthy soil?
Do you need help creating and implementing a soil health management plan?
Do you want to connect and problem-solve with other women farmers?
Join us for a series of in-person and virtual learning circles designed to provide you with foundational knowledge about soil health principles and practices, guide you through the process of creating a soil health management plan for your farm, and connect you with other women farmers interested in healthy soils.
We all know that healthy soils can have big benefits. But it can be challenging to incorporate soil health planning with all the other work that needs to happen on the farm. As a part of the soil health learning circle, you'll work with other women farmers to set goals for soil health on your farm that help you achieve your overall farm goals instead of creating another plan that will sit on a shelf! We'll provide a soil health management plan template and walk you through how to create a plan for your farm based on your goals. You'll connect with service providers from AFT, Pasa, Penn State and the Pennsylvania Soil Health Coalition, among others, who will help you create goals and choose soil health management practices to help you meet them.
Learning circles will take place from fall 2022 to spring 2023, and will include 2 full-day on-farm gatherings and 5 two-hour virtual study circles. The first in-person, on-farm learning circle is October 26, 9 AM to 3 PM; exact location will be provided after registration.
Women who join the cohort will be expected to attend all learning circles if possible. Our final curriculum will be tailored to the needs and experience level of participants, but tentative learning circle topics include:
- Soil health principles and assessment: how do you know whether your soil is healthy?
- Soil health practices like cover cropping, rotational grazing, mulching, tillage reduction, input reduction and more, and how your management can impact soil health outcomes on your farm
- Goal setting for your farm
- Creating and workshopping your farm's soil health management plan
- Learning from other soil health successful female farmers
No soil health knowledge or experience is needed to participate! No farm is too big or too small, and all production systems are welcome. You just need to be actively farming and play a decision-making role in soil health management on your farm.
Participation stipends and implementation funds are available.
Register below, and we'll get in touch with more information. Registering does not commit you to attending, it's just an expression of interest. We look forward to telling you more!