Winter is that one time of year when farmers get to enjoy a little downtime from the farm, dive into the seed catalogs, and head to the classroom! Dozens of workshops and regional conferences are going on around the state on every farm topic there is. You can check out a complete listing of events on Maryland FarmLINK.

Staff recently attended and participated in Future Harvest CASA’s Conference in College Park, Maryland’s Best Expo in Annapolis, and On-Farm Food Safety and Recall Readiness Training for Agritourism Operators in Mechanicsville. It’s always nice to take some time out of the office and continue to increase our knowledge so we can better serve our community.

SMADC hosted three workshops back in November covering topics like small ruminant nutrition, farm labor, and liability for food products and agritourism. All three had outstanding attendance and received great feedback overall from participants. In January, our Lambing and Kidding workshop had a record attendance with nearly 60 participants! (Pictured right)

SMADC is excited to announce our upcoming workshops for February and March:

2/26 – Dig It! An Introduction to Farming in Southern Maryland (More information coming soon!)

3/5, 3/12, 3/19, 3/26, 4/9 – Ready to Take Root: Getting Started with Small Fruits – SMADC and University of Maryland Extension are partnering to offer a new series of workshops on everything you need to know to grow, sell and market small fruits and hops.

We hope to see you there and that you take advantage of some of these amazing opportunities this winter.