The Annual VABF Conference of 2013, the first since the untimely passing of our Mentor and dear friend Andy Hankins. His efforts are largely responsible for the success of alternative agriculture in Virgina and certainly the grand success of the annual VABF conference all these years.
April 8 2011: news flash
Cooper Vineyards held their Grand Opening celebration of their LEED certified tasting room. Meet The Farmer TV was there and we will have video interviews coming up! Here we see the First Lady of Virginia, Maureen McDonnell, cutting the proverbial ribbon - in this case a real grape vine.
Virginia's First Lady- cuts the vine
*******40 min rough edit 1080p HD VIDEO UPLOADING MONDAY 4-11-2011- it takes a few hours to load the multi-GigaBytes******* drawings (Baskervill) and more detail photos to be added next week
The new tasting room incorporates numerous "green building" design features, such as: geothermal temperature regulation, solar power, SIPS panels, and recycled materials and reclaimed rainwater. The new building will also feature a unique tasting bar including a second outdoor bar on the new large deck overlooking the vineyards, a private tasting room for parties and other special events and a baby grand piano in the main tasting room. [info from Cooper Vineyards website:]
We will talk to Geoffery Cooper and Jacque Hogge, the mentors and owners, also to the architect Michael Pellis about designing such a wonder, and to Erin Hensley of Urban Grid Solar about the technical aspects of this green building and the grid tied 5.8kW PV array mounted on the ground so everyone can walk around to look at it.
The LEED green building Tasting RoomCooper Vineyards
Year-Round Vegetable Production Using Organic PracticesHD video is 1280x720 and will play broadcast quality on HDTV or large screen BUT it is a big file and heavy bandwidth hog. If you have difficulty watching the video, use the scale 4 way arrow on the lower right then right click and turn HD off - then you will get a smaller file and lower bandwidth. HD is color highlighted when it is on, grey when off
Eliot Coleman is one of America‘s most innovative farmers. His determination to grow organic vegetable crops during the winter for profit in Maine has started a revolution among small farmers and market gardeners throughout the temperate climate regions of the world. Thanks to Eliot Coleman‘s books such as Four Season Harvest and The Winter Harvest Handbook many Virginia farmers now look forward to the fall as a time to get started in crop production. Organic growers are learning that there are often better opportunities for economic success in the cool off season than there are in the warm summer months. Quite a few members of the Virginia Association for Biological Farming remember hearing Eliot speak about organic farming practices used by small farmers in Europe at one of the Sustainable Agriculture Conferences held in Charlottesville back in the 1980s. His first book, The New Organic Grower had a huge influence on thousands of aspiring organic farmers. It gave everyone practical systems to follow in organic vegetable production that really worked. This book brought a great deal of new credibility to organic vegetable production by creating order out of chaos.
Feb 5, 2011. The Charlottesville City Market annual vendors meeting lead by Stephanie Maloy the market manager. Also the election of advisory board, news from Brian Daily about relocation of the market and a marketing update from Will Bassett. An update about Market Central and the JABA snap and EBT token program.
The First Virginia Grown Papaya was cut and sampled and made into salsa by Chef Tony Geraci along with Dr. Reza Rafie, the VSU Extension Specialist who grew the papaya in a high tunnel greenhouse as part of a Specialty Crop research project.
Click on screen to play:
