NOFA: A Formal Reflection

Northeast Organic Farming Association Summer Conference

The NOFA Summer Conference, held this year from August 10^th to August 12^th, is a symposium aimed at sharing and learning about sustainable agriculture through local organic methods. The conference includes workshops ranging from ones about permaculture to soil health to mindful eating and organic land care including a number of exciting workshops for teenagers and children.

The conference also included lectures by keynote speakers Chellie Pingree and Jeffery M. Smith. 

Chellie Pingree is in an ongoing fight to promote local organic farms across the United States. Carving her way from Minnesota to Maine, starting a knitting business that employed local community members, owning and operation a restaurant that features locally grown food, former national CEO of Common Cause, representative of Maine in the Unites States Congress and currently a member of the Agriculture Committee in Congress, Pingree epitomizes an incredibly inspirational woman marking her say in the agricultural system that is largely patriarchal. 

Jeffery M. Smith focused on the health risks associated with genetically engineered food. With a strong belief that stories leave a stronger impact than sheer numbers, Smith incorporated in his speech stories about instances where people have observed significant effects of GMF consumption along with encouraging stories about how switching to Non-GMFs could reverse the illness. In the Philippines when people were living near a particular BT corn variety, during the time of pollination, the people in the village experienced skin, respiratory and intestinal reactions. When the same seeds were used in four other villages, the consequences were the same, along with deaths of water buffalos, chicken and horses and unexplained human death. Not to mention the concerns that are raised by results obtained from scientific experiments. Yet time and time again, scientific data against GMOs has been suppressed and attacked by agricultural and food companies and the press. Smith also mentioned the political corruption that occurs within the walls of food and agricultural industries like the Monsanto and the FDA. Nine out of ten Americans want GMFs to be labeled but because the FDA is ordered to promote the biotech industry, they ignore the desire of nine out of ten Americans in order to protect the economic interests of the few GMO companies. In order to promote non-GMFs, Smith argued, it is less important to change the government policies than to have individuals change their market choices.

The first workshop I attended was called ‘We Become What We Eat’. Energies are transferred into and through the food we consume. Positive energies that go into a raising a local farm animal are transferred into our bodies when consumed. This makes us healthy both physically and emotionally. Commercially raised animals, on the other hand retain negative energetic vibes from the way they are raised and would consequently have negative impact on us. Another workshop, called ‘Mindful Eating’ emphasized on the spiritual processes of food consumption or simply the act of eating. It began with a very simple meditation technique called ‘Eat a Raisin’ which basically involved concentrating on the one raisin that we were consuming and thinking about not only its feel and taste but also recalling where it came from and the processes that was required to get one raisin on my plate. Mindful eating not only improves our eating habits but also helps us to live in the moment. My newly found interest in eating habits lead me to watching a movie at the conference called ‘Food Matters’.  While the medical industry is receiving more budget, conducting more research, developing new antibiotics and more so spreading the drug disease, ‘Food Matters’ documented health risks posed by the increasing consumption of drugs and accentuated the need for people to eat locally grown organic food and avoid symptoms as opposed to treating diseases with drugs.

Other workshops I attended included ‘Permaculture Techniques for your Garden’ that was about, as its name suggests, planning a self-sustaining permaculture garden in our backyards. ‘Urban Gardening’ presented the possibility of having ecologically friendly farms within urban areas like New York.

All in all, the NOFA conference was extremely meaningful. It gave us a chance to hear different views of people, learn about a number of issues, meet new people and share ideas with them, develop an increased interest in food production and consumption and eat delicious locally  grown organic food for three days.

Shristi