Wow! What a lot of information, perspectives, experiences, and interesting conversations packed into one weekend. From the Swan Dance performances by the Yakama Nation to the keynote speakers Javier Zamora and Valerie Segrest, to eating those tasty mini kiwi…
Before attending the Tilth Alliance Conference I was unsure what “tilth” even meant. I am currently a senior studying organic and sustainable agriculture at Washington State University. I grew up on my family’s dairy farm in Southern Idaho where the majority of the farms are commodity crops and there is not much farm-consumer interactions. I knew that there would be great food and people who shared a…
“Honeybees are not as great as you might think.” This was said by a representative of the Xerces Society, Eric Lee-Mader. The Xerces Society, according to Wikipedia, is a non-profit environmental organization that focuses on the conservation of invertebrates. Eri…
Over the three days of the Spokane Tilth Conference, it was a truly wonderful experience to get a closer look at the organic farming that has begun to spread around the world. Organic crops have also begun to compete with conventionally grown crops. During the conference I had an opportunity to attend many lectures related to my specialty and interests, and I enjoyed listening to the discussion that resulted. Before attending the conference, my information about organic agriculture was very limited based…
It was my second time attending the Tilth conference. The diversity of talks and panels at the Tilth conference last year help me broaden my understanding of sustainable agriculture and it was no different this time. I am grateful for the CSANR sponsorship that made my participation…
My name is Derya Eroglu Karaca, and I have been a graduate student in the Crop and Soil Science Department at Washington State University for two years. First of all, I am grateful to WSU Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources (CSANR) for giving me a chance to attend to the 2018 Tilth Conference and for supporting the costs of my Tilth Conference trip. Secondly, it was my first time to attend the Tilth Conference in Spokane, Washington. It was a great opportunity for…
“I’m a doctoral student at WSU in the School of Economic Sciences.” The audience looked puzzled whenever I introduced myself with this sentence at the Tilth Conference. The connection between the dismal science and Tilth Conference perhaps was a little less…
Organic agriculture in Washington State, as with the rest of the country and world, experienced continued growth in 2017, as we documented in our latest report PDF. New records were reached for certified farms and…
Meijun Zhu et al. are investigating how manure-derived fertilizers impact the bacterial community and antibiotic resistance genes in Washington red raspberry fields. Photo: T. Zimmerman The BIOAg Grant Program is one critical way that the…
This year CSANR sponsored registration for several WSU students to attend the Tilth Conference. We will post reflections written by the students over the next several weeks. Please feel free to comment and give these students your feedback.…