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| Photos from the 8th Annual Louisiana Small Farmer Conference held in the Felton G. Clark Activity Center March 15-17, 2018. |
Baton Rouge, La. – Three hundred and eighty small farmers
from throughout Louisiana gathered at the Felton G. Clark Activity Center for
the Southern University Land-Grant Campus’s 8th Annual Louisiana
Small Farmer Conference.
The three-day conference themed, “Transforming and Elevating
Louisiana Small Family Farms,” was held March 15-17, 2018.
Events kicked off on March 15 with a ribbon cutting for the
Southern University Agricultural Land-Grant Campus’s Mobile Education and
Technology Center.
The mobile center will be used to provide educational
training, bring Interact access, hands on testing and live instruction to
low-to-moderate income families residing in the most marginalized areas and
remote corners of the state.
Sessions held during the day included Grant Writing, Emergency
Preparedness and Integrated Pest Management.
The second day of the conference began with an address from
Louisiana’s Department of Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain,
DVM. The keynote address was delivered by Leonard Jordan, the Acting Chief of
the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Resources Conservation
Service (NRCS).
Session included Programs for Veterans, Intensive Small
Scale Farming, Agro-Tourism, Farm Liability Insurance, Social Media Marketing,
Biodiversity on Your Farm, Estate Planning, Record-Keeping and Urban Farms.
The Louisiana Living Legends Banquet was held on the evening
of March 16 following the conference’s sessions. This banquet honors
individuals who have made significant contributions to Southern University in
the areas of Agriculture, Family and Consumer Sciences.
The 2018 honorees were Winzer Andrews, retired County Agent/
Parish Chairman with the LSU AgCenter’s Cooperative Extension Service in Caddo Parish;
Dr. Barbara West Carpenter, Dean of International Affairs and University
Outreach at Southern University and Louisiana State Representative; and Dr.
Veeraraghava R. Bachireddy, professor emeritus of Plant and Soil Sciences at
the SU College of Agricultural, Family and Consumer Sciences.
The three join 24 others who have been honored with this
recognition since 2005.
Anthony Reed, Director of Special Projects for the School of
Agriculture and Applied Sciences at Alcorn State University, served as the
speaker for the banquet.
The conference concluded with a workshop on Managing Feral
Hogs. During the workshop Gene Cavalier, a biologist with the Louisiana
Department of Agriculture and Forestry spoke to the attendees about the rules
and regulations for feral hogs in Louisiana. Derrick Banks, Extension Agent at
Prairie View A & M University also made a presentation on managing feral
hogs.
Photos from the Small Farmer Conference are available here.
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