Speaker discusses sustainable practices for organic farming
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Paul Schiefer gives a keynote address to those assembled at the Grain Place for Field Day July 16. He explained his background in ag as well as Amy’s Kitchen trying to reach a balance between sustainable and profitable organic foods.
Paul Schiefer, vice president of Impact and Communication at Amy’s Kitchen, gave a presentation July 16 outlining his history with agriculture, the business he works for and the current retail environment for selling products using organic farming methods.
The man from California talked about a variety of topics related to the industry, from climate change to indigenous agricultural practices, and how they impact agriculture.
“There’s something simple in this concept that you grow food in harmony with nature, but when you actually understand what that means and the absolute complexity of all of these different biological and chemical systems, it’s beyond the power of imagination to even understand how they all work together,” Schiefer said. “Yet they must to do good things.”
Schiefer began with some history of his family. He told of his grandfather from the Netherlands who had just 80 hectares (about 200 acres) of land in Europe which he described as small by today’s standards. His grandfather had to dry out the land for 10 years as it was recently reclaimed from the ocean.
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