2022 Conference reflections
By Brenda Butka, Board President
The Summit slowly assembles on Friday afternoon, with vendors setting up tables, people asking directions, carrying boxes, and greeting old friends. I’m at the registration table, enjoying the friendly buzz–our first in-person Summit in three years, and our first as a formal organization, complete with a board, an executive director, and a set of challenges: How do we channel Jeff Poppen’s vision into the future? How do we carry out our mission, to educate and connect in ways that will radically rebuild our food system?
Our inspirational Friday night keynote speaker, Jim Embry, invoked the long history of earth and our human connection to the land, and left his audience in animated groups, talking about his optimism and hope for a worldwide shift towards a sustainable future.
The much-anticipated Ira Wallace and Pam Dowling both were unable to come at the last minute, and ecologist Ursula King quickly assembled a crackerjack panel for the Saturday keynote–Florentina Rodriguez, who started a seed library and works for the Organic Seed Alliance; Olivia Cleveland, with the Southeast Young Farmers Coalition; Tera Ashley, from Caney Fork Farms; and Jeannie Hunter, with the Society of St. Andrew, a gleaning organization.
A tour of the university’s impressively efficient Culinary Center generated admiration and enthusiastic comment : a small commercial kitchen which processes thousands of units of product every month.
I heard experts on the farm bill and learned about several styles of spinning wheels at the fiber exhibit, but the best was overhearing people, in the middle of an energetic conversation, stop to introduce themselves, new acquaintances. And the lively turmoil always around Jim Embry, with talk interrupted by laughter and hugs.
And we cannot praise Cumberland University’s hospitality enough–a catering staff which produced absolutely superb dining, full use of the Alumni Center, which was just the right size, and last but not least the ever-present Dr. Rusty Richardson, carrying cases of water, moving tables, answering questions and bringing the house down with his tale about Cumberland’s most famous football game.
We are deeply grateful to each of our sponsors. And, of course, Jeff Poppen, middle Tennessee’s charismatic visionary–it’s always a delight to hear a tiny bit of the farming wisdom he’s accumulated. And pass it on. And that’s our mission–to educate and connect.
