This workshop will highlight Billings Farm’s experience implementing on-farm milk culturing as a practical tool for mastitis detection and management. 

Participants will learn proper milk sampling and culturing techniques, how to interpret culture results, and how on-farm diagnostics can support timely, targeted treatment decisions. The session will also discuss how on-farm milk culturing fits into a broader mastitis management program and can help improve herd health, reduce unnecessary antibiotic use, and support sound decision-making. 

Join UVM Extension’s Small Ruminant Team for an in-depth presentation focused on milk quality management for dairy goat and sheep producers. Dr. Michelle Buckley of Cornell University’s Quality Milk Production Services (QMPS) will discuss the key components of milk quality, common challenges faced by small ruminant dairies, and practical strategies producers can use to improve milk quality on their farms.

otherWise invites you to a conversation about Dash Chat with Eric Bear of darksoil studio. Dash Chat is a secure messenger designed to work when the internet goes down — like Signal when connectivity is normal, switching to local networks (WiFi, Bluetooth, LoRa) during shutdowns, and bridging between disconnected areas and the global internet when possible. Authoritarianism is rising globally, and internet shutdowns are one of its tools. Access Now documented 296 shutdowns across 54 countries in 2024. Iran has been under a near-total information blockade for months.

Our Placedness cycle takes us next to a special aspect of place: Terroir. Terroir is the unique flavor and properties a food or drink develops depending on the unique regional conditions in which it was grown. When we experience or aspire to placedness, in many ways we’re aspiring the deepening of our relationship with cultural and physical terroir.

Adam Alexander has spent many years searching out communities that have still conserved their rare, endangered garden crops. His travels have taken him all over the world, from Albanian villages to Ethiopian farmer collectives, and he’s written two books on his research and the importance of locally-adapted, community-sovereign seeds; The Seed Detective and The Accidental Seed Heroes.

Understanding how to care for trees is an integral part of developing diverse perennial food systems. Perennial plantings are a powerful approach to reclaiming the essential labor of local food production, because there is the possibility continuous growth and harvest, without as much input of labor. A few key agroforestry skills for caring for our largest perennial kin are pruning, grafting and coppicing trees.