| Hello members & supporters of the SW FL Small Farmer Network (SWFSFN)! I am very pleased to send you this announcement and invitation to the next meeting of SWFSFN on Monday, June 10, 2013. Following up our very successful April 29, 2013 meeting at Gateway Organic Farm in Clearwater with FL Organic Growers, we are continuing to provide you another event to support your sustainable, small farming and enterprises in SW Florida. We are very fortunate this time to being hosted by Ms. Yvonne Hill of Roots Heritage Urban Food in Fort Myers, Florida, with coordination by Roy Beckford of UF/IFAS Extension Lee County. For your information, The Roots Heritage Urban Food is a combined Community Garden and Urban Farm located in the heart of Fort Myers. The urban farm is built on the site of a drive-in cinema which served Lee County’s citizens for several decades. Part of the artistic appeal of the farm is its unique production system that utilizes weed block fabric on top of which crops are planted in compost (see an original photo below). The farm resembles an ordinary row crop venture in the middle of the city, producing an assortment of vegetables and herbs, and features a farm stand facing MLK Boulevard. Ms. Yvonne Hill is a regular attendee at SWFSFN meetings.
For a recent news story about Roots Heritage Urban Food see http://www.news-press.com/article/20130526/ENT07/305260039/Urban-farmers-market-freshens-neighborhood?nclick_check=1 We are also sure that you will not want to miss this opportunity for social and business networking with your fellow small farmers in SW FL. Come meet your fellow producers and purveyors who are making our local food systems a reality! Remember to bring seeds to share for our Seed Swap activity and help promote such collective actions of SWFSFN members. Finally, we are planning to have another spectacular pot lunch so bring your locally-grown foods prepared with you special recipes of your crops from the peak of our growing season! For your reference, here 's our meeting’s details and agenda (see attachment also): Date: Monday, June 10, 2013 Location: Roots Heritage Urban Food, 3903 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Fort Myers, Fl. 33916 (Just west of the Fleamasters Fleamarket). Cost: free RSVP: yes, please, to Peggy McDonough of UF/IFAS Extension Lee County at pmcdonou@ufl.edu Note: bring folding chair & eating utensils, and home-made food to share at the pot luck lunch Thanks, Robert Kluson For your perusal, here’s the agenda of this event:
10:00 am to 12:00 am - welcome and presentation - Overview and tour of the Roots Heritage Urban Food urban farm and community garden 12:00 to 1:00 pm - pot luck lunch & seed swap 1:00 to 2:00 pm - growers meeting - introductions & announcements a) news from attending county SWFSFN grower leaders b) growers sharing of events, issues, etc of interest to the 2:00 to 3:00 pm - a ) Extension county agents announcements & short presentation on summer crops for SW FL b) Update on 2013 Small Farms Conference- August 2-4, 2013 Please, feel free to pass along this announcement to your fellow small farmers and local foods advocates who would be interested in the activities of SWFSFN. If they are not familiar with SWFSFN, please, refer them to both our webpage (see http://sarasota.ifas.ufl.edu/AG/swfsfn.shtml) and Yahoo Group (see http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SW_FL_Small_Farms/) Thanks, Robert |
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Robert A. Kluson, Ph.D.
Agriculture & Natural Resources Extension Agent III
UF/IFAS Extension Sarasota County
Community Services Business Center
6700 Clark Road, Sarasota, FL 34241
(941) 861-9849 (ofc); (941-232-3090 (c)
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" - Robert Kennedy
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