Released August 25, 2009
WOOSTER, Ohio — Learn more about selling meat directly to consumers in a free public seminar at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 18, at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) in Wooster.
Speaking will be Kathleen Harris, who started upstate New York’s Northeast Livestock Processing Service Company (http://nelpsc.com/), a new and profitable link between farmers and meat processors; and Leah Miller of Ohio’s Small Farm Institute (http://smallfarminstitute.org/), an organizer of a project studying grass-based feeding strategies and high-value meat-cutting methods.
“As more and more consumers choose to purchase meat products directly from farmers, a system of production, processing and distribution becomes important,” says noted chef Parker Bosley, one of the seminar’s organizers and a founder of Cleveland’s North Union Farmers Market (http://www.northunionfarmersmarket.org/).
Harris, among other things, will talk about how farmers can plan their harvests and market their animals, how processors can schedule with farmers and understand consumers’ needs, and how both can educate consumers on the differences between local and non-local meat.
Meet in 103 Research Services Building on the OARDC campus, 1680 Madison Ave. Come in the main entrance, turn left onto Payne Drive, and find the Research Services Building, a two-story brick building, immediately to the left.
Advance registration is requested. Contact Megan Shoenfelt of OARDC’s Agroecosystems Management Program (AMP), 330-202-3537, shoenfelt.9@osu.edu.
“Ohio: Our Farms, Our Food” — a program of Innovative Farmers of Ohio (http://www.ifoh.org/) supported by funding from the Rural Rehabilitation Council of the Ohio Department of Agriculture — is the sponsor.
AMP (http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/amp/), an OARDC interdisciplinary program aimed at creating sustainable agricultural systems, is serving as host.
OARDC (http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/) is the research arm of Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and is the largest university agbioscience research center in the United States.
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http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~news/story.php?id=5357
Source: Megan Shoenfelt, 330-202-3537, shoenfelt.9@osu.edu
Writer: Kurt Knebusch, 330-263-3776, knebusch.1@osu.edu
