CAFF State Conference Features Online Workshops and In-Person Gatherings

January 7, 2022

Land access and land trusts. Ecological and climate-smart farming. Scaling up healthy soils practices. Farming through wildfire season.

These topics — of vital importance to Marin County and other farming regions throughout the state — are just a sampling of the 50 workshops and forums on the agenda for the 2022 California Small Farm Conference, to be held online Feb. 27-March 3. The Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) organizes the event and this year’s theme is “Agriculture at the Human Scale.” In addition to the online workshops, there will also be smaller, in-person regional gatherings hosted in communities across California.

MALT is among the sponsors of the event this year. In fact, it’s sponsorships like MALT’s that “makes this important event possible” and accessible to a wider range of attendees, according to Holly Markham, CAFF associate director.

Small producers from across California will attend the conference to learn, network and empower their local food systems. In addition to farmers, the conference also attracts attention from chefs, policymakers, community advocates, food and agriculture industry professionals, farmers market managers, and conscious consumers.

Along with this year’s online events, attendees from Marin County can mingle — in person! — with fellow farmers, ranchers and advocates at the Small Farm Conference Regional Gathering on Thursday, March 3, from 3-7 p.m. at the Sebastopol Grange Hall, 6000 Sebastopol Ave., Sebastopol. 

CAFF expects an audience of more than 1700 this year. Prospective conference-goers can sign up on the CAFF website and there is no set ticket price — it’s “pay what you can.”

As a California-based nonprofit, CAFF builds sustainable food and farming systems through local and statewide policy advocacy and on-the-ground programs in an effort to initiate institutionalized change.