Morning tours at Grain Place to be followed by afternoon sessions at TLC
A panel discussion on the connection between soil, human and community health will be just one of the highlights of the Grain Place Foundation’s (GPF) annual Field Day coming up on Saturday, July 18. For the second year in a row the full day of activities will be split between the Grain Place organic farm near Marquette and The Leadership Center in Aurora.
“The schedule will be very similar to what we’ve done,” said GPF board member Allison Vetter. “We’ll do our tours of the farm and the processing facility in the morning, with kind of a networking break in between, when people can shop our retail shelves. As usual, the farm tour will focus on a lot of things we have tried. Some didn’t go very well, so those are the things that we learned from... That will be from about 8:30 to 11 or 11:30 and then we’ll move to The Leadership Center for the educational programming in the afternoon. The Leadership Center will do the lunch again for us, which they typically try to locally source as many of the ingredients as possible.”
“We’re really excited about the program this year,” Vetter said regarding the afternoon program at The Leadership Center. “We’re going to have Chris Helzer, who is the Nature Conservancy director of science and stewardship in Nebraska. He calls himself a prairie ecologist, and he’s also a photographer, and he’s going to use his photos and storytelling to talk about the complex interactions that occur on the prairie and how that complexity creates resilience for prairies. He’s a great writer, photographer and storyteller, and so the hope is that his keynote will demonstrate the importance of biodiversity and resilience in agricultural systems.”
A resident of Aurora, part of Helzer’s job is to conduct research and supervise the conservancy’s preserve stewardship program. He also helps develop, test and share prairie management and restoration strategies.
Dedicated to raising awareness about the value of prairies through his photography, writing and presentations, Helzer is the author of “The Prairie Ecologist” blog and two books: “The Ecology and Management of Prairies” and “Hidden Prairie: Photographing Life in One Square Meter.” He is also a frequent contributor to NEBRASKAland magazine and other publications.
Vetter said Helzer will make the case that biodiversity is important not just to native prairies, but to ag systems as well.
“Then afterwards we’re going to hear from Dr. Jesse Bell from the University of Nebraska Med Center,” Vetter continued. “Much of his work centers on the impact of climate change on human health. He’s very accomplished in this area... He’s pretty impressive and he’s done some really interesting research looking at nitrate levels in Nebraska’s water, again focusing on impacts of that on human health. So he will talk for a few minutes, and then we’re also going to have Dr. Matthew Sanderson from Kansas State University. He’s a sociologist and his work focuses on understanding relationships between people and their ecosystem... And he especially looks at interactions between water, agriculture and social structures. So he’s got some really interesting work on relationships between community support and farmer well-being.”
The Grain Place Foundation hosted a webinar with him a couple years ago, and the title was ‘Good For the Soil, Good For the Farmer. That dialogue is still available on the foundation’s website.
Following an afternoon break, Grain Place Foods CEO David Vetter will join the three presenters for a panel discussion and Q&A session, which will round out the day’s activities.
There is no charge for the morning session at Grain Place, however, Vetter said preregistration is requested so that enough refreshments (including Glenda Vetter’s famous cookies) can be prepared. The cost of the afternoon session, which includes lunch at The Leadership Center, is $25. Registration for both events can be completed at grainplacefoundation.org/field-day/.