NOFA Conference

If you're looking for us this weekend, we'll be at the 34th Annual NOFA Conference, At UMASS, Amherst.

Keynote speakers are Dr. Arden Andersen, holistic medical practitioner, expert in human and agricultural nutrition, author, and educator and Mark McAfee, founder of the Organic Pastures Dairy Company in California.

The workshops cover the spectrum of topics of interest from farmers to eaters. It will be hard to choose!

NOFA is the Northeast Organic Farming Association. You don't need to be a farmer to become a member. Here's the site for CT NOFA.

Finding Farms

CT NOFA has a Google Map featuring the farms, farmers markets and businesses listed in the 2008 CT NOFA Farm & Food Guide. Very cool.

NOFA = Northeast Organic Farming Association.

Searching for Food

We live in interesting times. Neither hunter nor gatherer in the traditional sense, yet both in a contemporary sense. Armed with Google, a GPS device, or both, we can track and find much of what is locally available.

Here is my current list of places to find out where to find local food:
- Eat Well Guide. Search for local foods by entering a zip code and mileage.
- Connecticut Farm Map. Intended to be the online companion to the paper map.
- BuyCTGrown. Search by item, zip code, and mileage.
- Eat Wild. Find grass-fed food.
- CT Northeast Organic Farming Association Farms. Includes Farmer's Market information.
- DOAG Diversified Dairy Farms in Connecticut.
- Local Harvest.
- Pick Your Own.
- CT Farm Fresh. Farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area. Includes a catalog for items you cannot find locally.
- Connecticut Wine Trail.
- Edible Nutmeg. A quarterly newsletter that celebrates the harvest of the Nutmeg state. Publication includes directories.
- City Seed Farmer's Markets.
- Farm & Food. A New York Resource. (A significant portion of my foodshed lies in NY.)