LISA YOUNG: Joining KVNF's Farm Friday is Steve Hale, president of Shavano Conservation District, and Steve Woodis, farm ranch consultant and former NRCS employee to talk about this year's Western Colorado Soil Health, Food and Farm Forum. Steve Hale, tell our listeners about what's going to take place this year in Montrose.
STEVE HALE: Yes, we are excited to have this event that's happening in Montrose at the Pavilion on January 24th and 25th again this year, we've got a an amazing list of speakers and sessions. This has all been a very successful collaboration over the last several years between a lot of sponsoring agencies and groups. The roots of this organization that puts this on comes from both the Soil Health Committee that has the Western Colorado Soil Health conferences and then the Valley Food Partnership that helped promote and develop the food and farm form.
Now we have the partners that have always been with us like CSU Extension, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, Colorado Regenerative Network, so we have a lot of partners with this as well.
Steve and I both serve on the planning committee to put on this big event, and this is an amazing event for our community that attracts people from all over the region. We have people from several states flock into Colorado, into Montrose every year to see this event.
This year we have another amazing list of speakers and sessions. This kind of the purpose of this event, we feel, is to promote and to educate on the new agriculture. that's really taking hold in the form of regenerative agriculture. That's a it's a different paradigm and we we really strive to capture the very best speakers in the nation and around the world.
We have world renowned speakers come in every year and again this year. We have folks that are very interested in these topics and provide not just the theoretical, but some of these sessions are workshop sessions on the nuts and bolts of how to implement these practices into your own operation. So we're cultivating not only the theory behind these ideas, but the application of this into the farms and ranches in the in this region.
YOUNG: Steve Woodis, as a current farm and ranch consultant, what would you say to farmers and ranchers across the Western Slope about the importance of attending a conference like the Western Colorado Soil Health Food and Farm Forum?
STEVE WOODIS: Well, I just say that, you know, they have a lot of diverse speakers, so there may be certain topics that you're not interested in, but that's okay because they have so many different topics and so many different breakout sessions that cover that cover things that might be related to your ranching operation or your farming operation, whether you're, you know, growing grow crops or or hay crops.
I think you'll find that that there'll be speakers and topics that will help help you take some information back to your your farm and ranch with you and hopefully give you some additional tools to be successful at what you do.
YOUNG: Steve Hale, Let's talk a little bit about a couple of your keynote speakers and maybe a couple of the breakout sessions.
HALE: Great. Yeah, I'm really excited about this year's lineup. We've got Robert Sakata with the Colorado Department of Agriculture, who's an AG Water Policy advisor, bringing us news about what's new and for water in Colorado. That's such a huge topic always because, you know, without water, we really don't have much agriculture on this western slope of Colorado. Robert Sakata is an amazing resource there with the CDA.
One of our keynote speakers that we're really excited about is Jeanne Carver. You know, we sometimes overlook the big part of our agricultural heritage here is is our wool growers. We have a wool growers banquet actually Saturday night, the 25th. But sheep production and wool have been a big part of Western Colorado.
Jeanne is a rancher from Wyoming, and her family ranch started in 1871. She's going to be bringing the news about how she and her family have really revolutionized how wool is being marketed in the United States. Revitalizing is a big portion of that industry.
Then there's other folks from Northwest Colorado coming in, speaking on this topic and it's such an amazing story of revitalization. So that that's an amazing speaker lineup.
We've also got Nicole Masters, who is a return speaker. She was here several years ago. But man, she is an amazing soil guru, worldwide recognition. She helped recover thousands of acres of drought stricken, stripped out soils in in Australia and New Zealand and really has an amazing story to tell about how to recover degraded and soils that need to have new life brought into it. So not just the theory but actual practices that are working worldwide. So we are excited about that.
And like I said, we have a lot of workshops that cover the nuts and bolts of how to. We have speakers from CSU Extension, a doctorate level person talking about Do-It-Yourself soil tests. We have topics on weed management, we have talk topics on all sorts of things that apply, like Steve had mentioned about different aspects of different operations.
We have tracks that you can go down specialty crops like flower production, organic vegetable production. We have the larger scale farms. So I really think this year's lineup is going to appeal and be impactful for a wide range of agricultural producers.
YOUNG: This year's theme is Roots of Renewal. The event takes place January 24th through the 25th at the Montrose Pavilion.
Steve, I understand that this event is sold out, but folks can still get on line and buy some virtual tickets.
HALE: That's right. And, you know, one of our frustrations is the fact that we just can't fit more than 300 people in the Pavilion with the breakout rooms. It's amazing how fast that our tickets are in in-person tickets do sell out, but we really invite people now to get on line and to get a full package virtual ticket for only $30.
It's a good deal and you have access to those sessions all all year. So you go to this, the website is soil food farm dot org and then go ahead and research the whole thing and sign up for the virtual ticket.
