Event / Community Calendar

WI Farmland Access: Localizing Solutions

Aug 22, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM CT
Madison , WI | $
Join us at the Goodman Community Center: Lau Christensen Room, with the WI Farmland Access Hub and the professionals that support the buying and selling of farms. We will explore local policies and personal approaches that could increase the number of beginning farmers on the land. The day will include speakers, panels, and time to think together toward solutions.

This meeting is in collaboration with Renewing the Countryside and supported by NIFA, USDA Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program; Award 2021-70033-35718

Agenda:
Opening Keynote: Influencing Local Zoning for Increased Farmland Access with Brian Ohm

Community Knowledge Sharing on Promising Policy Solutions for Farmland Access with WI Farmland Access Hub

Panel: Funding the Farm with Tera Johnson, Paul Dietman, Fresh Roberson

Presentation: Building an Allyship Network with Nou Thao

Post-Meeting Field Trip (optional): Westport Farm (5143 Bong Rd, Waunakee WI) - Groundswell Conservancy staff will give a tour of Westport Farm, where HMoob family farmers have shared the land for decades. This project is part of Groundswell's work on Equitable Access to Land. You can expect to walk a few hundred feet on grass pathways. Contact sam@groundswellconservancy.org for accessibility options.

About your facilitators:

Brian Ohm is an expert in Wisconsin planning and land use law. He recently retired after three decades on the faculty of the Department of Planning & Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For many years he taught courses to graduate students in the Urban and Regional Planning Program and to students in the Law School. He was also affiliated with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and held an appointment as the State Specialist in Land Use and Planning Law for the Division of Extension. Through Extension, he worked on land use matters with many communities large and small around the state and assisted thousands of citizens, government officials, planners, attorneys, and nongovernmental organizations on a broad range of land use and planning issues, including issues related to farmland access.
Tera Johnson is a serial entrepreneur whose mission is to create the next generation of regenerative food and farming businesses. A Principal Consultant at Kitchen Table Consultants, Tera provides fractional C-Suite and financial consulting to food and farm businesses. Prior to joining KTC, Tera founded the Food Finance Institute (FFI) at the University of Wisconsin after the successful sale of her investor-financed food company, teraswhey, to a publicly traded company. Tera is a frequent speaker, investment committee, and board member for sustainable food and farming businesses, social venture funds and investors.
Paul Dietmann is Senior Focused Lending Specialist at Compeer Financial, a member-owned Farm Credit System cooperative in the upper Midwest. He co-leads Compeer’s Emerging Markets program, providing loans and business planning assistance to farmers who market their products directly to consumers. He also works with Compeer’s Young, Beginning, and Small Farmer loan program. He is based in Prairie du Sac, WI. Dietmann has been working with sustainable and organic farmers since the mid-1990s, first as a county agricultural agent, then as director of the Wisconsin Farm Center, and now with the Farm Credit System. He is co-author of the book Fearless Farm Finances: Farm Financial Management Demystified and author of Turning Grain Into Dough: Farm Financial Management for Organic Grain and Crop Rotation. He teaches dozens of workshops each year on a variety of topics related to farm finances.
Fresh Roberson, they/them & she/her. Born and raised in eastern North Carolina, Fresh is a transplant to the Midwest now calling Illinois home. An engineering and physics nerd turned farming chef, Fresh strives to make nutritious delicious food accessible to all. Granddaughter to sharecroppers her connection to land started early. While a long time grower, they are a beginning farmer. Fresh is the founder of Fresher Together, a collaborative food and farming project for healing, economic development, training and retreat; they currently farm a little over 5 acres between the city of Chicago and rural North Iroquois county. Fresh uses their background in Nonprofit management and community organizing to bring diversified funding techniques to their farm. Outside of farming, Fresh was named by Crain’s Chicago Business as a Notable LGBTQ Executive, serves as the Director of Chicago Bread Club, supports development for Transformative Justice Law Project, and is a proud board member of Howard Brown Health.
Nou Thao is an educator, an advocate, and community organizer. Food is a woven fabric of who she is. She is passionate in bridging communities through food and storytelling - working to increase food justice and land sovereignty. She has been involved with community gardens as a young child for decades, first volunteering as an interpreter between HMoob and English growers, then on payroll and now back to volunteering to help support, train, and manage community gardens in Dane County. She grew up on the eastside of Madison. Agriculture and vegetable growing is an ongoing legacy she and her family has cultivated for generations.

Additional information:
Space is limited. $10.00 is required to register. Please contact Sam Gutierrez (sam.gutierrez@marbleseed.org) if you'd like more information or are unable to pay the registration fee as some scholarships are available.