For three Thursdays spanning late September into October, 150 of Champaign-Urbana’s food lovers visited a restaurant in town for a dinner curbside pick-up style. While this wasn’t how we envisioned our annual Artisan Cup & Fork taking place, it’s what the year of COVID brought to us. Reflecting on the experience and reading the many […]
Event Recaps
4th Annual Midwest Mechanical Weed Control Field Day – Recap
The 4th Annual Midwest Mechanical Weed Control Field Day is officially in the books! Yes, things were a bit different this year, and sure, we ran into some challenges, but it was all worth it to be able to talk cultivation and mechanical weed control for even just a few hours this September. Instead of […]
Farm Beginnings Collaborative Annual Meeting
This past week, I had the great pleasure of attending the annual meeting of the Farm Beginnings Collaborative hosted by the Organic Growers School in Asheville, NC. The Land Connection is one of thirteen organizational members of the collaborative, all of which offer Farm Beginnings®, a yearlong training program that provides farm business-planning sessions, on-farm […]
SWCD Conservation Series
by Erin Bush, Resource Conservationist, CCSWCD A recap of the Conservation Series, hosted by the Champaign County Soil & Water Conservation District, Farm Bureau, and supported by The Land Connection, February 24, March 3, and March 10, 2020, Champaign, Illinois. Earlier this year at a watershed meeting, the Champaign County Soil & Water Conservation District […]
Growing a Regional Supply Chain for Organic Agriculture
A recap of the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council’s Farmer Forum, February 25, 2020, Beck’s Hybrids, El Paso, IL What comes first, the chicken, the egg, or the processing plant? This question was posed by Cavan Sullivan of Petersburg Poultry Processing at last week’s Greater Peoria Economic Development Council’s (GPEDC) Farmer Forum. Cavan answered that […]
Tapping into Conservation: Our Night Sharing Beers, Experience, and Insight at Riggs Brewery
Last week we had a great time hanging out at Riggs Brewery, drinking beers and talking soil and nutrient retention with more than 40 of our region’s row crop farmers and farmland owners. The purpose was threefold: Grow your local network of farmers that you can turn to for insight and advice. Learn about the […]
