Sodak, I am sorry you have the opinions that you do.

This is not some event meant to anger the average person's opinion of the industrial food complex. It is literally about what the title states : Sustainable Local Food

The average item in a grocery store travels some 1200 miles - often due to ridiculous logistics of the supply chain (Whole Foods will buy flowers from the state of Washington, ship them to their warehouse in California, then transport them back to Washington to place in their stores).

Wouldn't it be much better for a community to grow their own foods locally? Eat seasonally? Cooking meals from produce picked that day within 5 or 10 miles of their home? Eat meat that has never left their county?

My wife and I grow and raise as much of our own food as we can (pork, beef, poultry/eggs, vegetables, fruits)and share with friends and neighbors. We wouldn't have it any other way.

Mono-cultures are disasters waiting to happen. Whether you have Roundup Ready soy beans, Confined Animal Feed Operations, or 1st graders jammed into an overheated, under ventilated class room - when sickness or disease enters that environment it adversely effects all in that paradigm, then, all in arms reach.

It's admirable that your family farms on 160 acres of land, and yes! Organic has been brutally watered down and muddied - mostly by large scale commercial operations cashing in on a catch word.

Sue is dead on the mark in her posts on this thread. We do live in the most agriculturally illiterate society ever in the history of civilization. Society has gone from growing and cooking most of their own food, to, well...cooking most of their own food, to ... heating prepared meals in a microwave and eating fast food as the bulk of their diets.

This conference is intended to get our local farming community motivated to reach out to the average consumer AND to get the average consumer to pay attention to where their food comes from: Who grew it?, and how did it get to my store?

You should be proud of what you and your family have achieved as an agricultural producer - for what sounds like many generations. How would you feel if your dominant crop faced competition that was suddenly coming in from over seas crashing the price of your crop? Wouldn't you be telling your neighbors to stop buying the imports and telling them why they should be buying your crops over the imports?

I wish you well.

Dennis