Texas Farm to School Round Up

Presented in conjunction with Texas Department of Agriculture and Sustainable Food Center 

January 12, 2017   9am-4:30pm

Hampton Inn & Suites - Mesquite

1700 Rodeo Dr., Mesquite, TX 75149

The Texas Farm to School Round Up will be held at the 2017 TOFGA Conference.  It combines an intensive Pre-conference Workshop along with several sessions focused on specific components of Farm to School during the conference.

Who should attend:

Travel Stipends! Thanks to Sustainable Food Center in Austin, we have 18 travel stipends of $150 available to producers interested in the Farm to School Workshop. The stipend comes as a discount for the pre-conference workshop and the TOFGA conference. Interested producers should follow the link below and complete the application. Once approved, attendees will receive a discount code to register for the pre-conference workshop and the full conference together. Additional stipend information and an application can be found here:  http://tiny.cc/FarmtoSchool.    

What is the Round Up?

The Farm to School Round Up is an all-day, interactive workshop aimed to help farmers with tools and information for selling their local products to school districts. Below is the planned agenda.

9:00 - Registration

9:30-9:45 - Welcome and Introductions

9:45-10:30 - Farm to School Basics

• ·       Alyssa Herold, Texas Department of Agriculture
• ·       Emilee Feldhausen, Texas Department of Agriculture
• ·       Rachel Spencer, USDA Farm to School Program

10:40-12:15 – Business Planning for Farm to School Success

• ·       Susie Marshall – TOFGA and GROW North Texas
• ·       Andrew Smiley – Sustainable Food Center
• ·       Justin Tulley – Idea Public Schools
• ·       Tim Traister – Capital Farm Credit 

12:30-1:30 – Lunch & Learn – Farmer & Distributor Perspectives

1:45-4:30 – Dig In!

• ·      Break-out session discussions with presenters and participants, including these topics:
• -       Farm Financing
• -       Task Management for Farm Efficiency
• -       Introduction to Growing Farm Profits and Veggie Compass

4:30-4:45 – Closing & Next Steps

4:45 -              Networking

The Farm to School track of the TOFGA conference will take the learning a step further, offering conference attendees the opportunity to gain more in-depth knowledge about related topics during focused sessions. The workshops will be noted in the conference program with the round up logo.

Information on registration: 

Register for both Farm to School Round Up and TOFGA conference, 

• The pre-conference workshop will be a selection to add onto your conference registration. 
  
• Registration for the Farm to School Preconference is $25 (coffee, lunch, snacks and training materials packet are included).