Join us on March 17, 12-1 pm on Zoom for an informative webinar focused on practical strategies to improve farm profitability. A panel of industry experts will share financial planning tools, real-world scaling insights, and approaches to product and market diversification that support sustainable farm business growth.

Speakers:
Chris Laughton – Director of Knowledge Exchange, Farm Credit East: Overview of key financial vocabulary, holistic farm planning (vision, finances, management, labor, marketing, profitability), and enterprise budgeting examples to help you evaluate economic performance.

Will O’Meara – Owner and Operator, Hungry Reaper Farm: Scaling up experience, equipment acquisition timing, commodity and market selection rationale, and work-life balance considerations.

Bruce Gresczyk Jr. – Manager/Co-Owner, Gresczyk Farms LLC: Approaches to product and market diversification, value-added opportunities, and how commodity and market choices have shaped his business.

Register to attend this webinar on March 17th!

Join us on March 19, 2026, at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, for a full-day conference dedicated to compost, soil health, and climate resilience.

Hosted by the Connecticut Compost Alliance (CCA), the CT Compost Conference brings together composters, farmers, educators, municipal leaders, policymakers, and sustainability advocates. Speakers from Connecticut and across the country will share innovative ideas and practical approaches to composting, soil health, and resilient systems.

We are pleased to welcome Didi Pershouse, as this year’s keynote speaker. Author of The Ecology of Care and Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function. An internationally recognized educator and organizer, her work on soil health and watershed function is used in over 100 countries. She is co-founder of Rehydrate California and hosts The Wisdom Underground on Substack.  Her keynote, “Growing Community and Climate Resilience through the Soil Sponge and Living Climate,” will explore how healthy soils strengthen ecosystems, communities, and climate resilience.

Lunch & Support

The conference is free for all to attend. Lunch is available for those who opt in, with a suggested $20 donation per person, which will be matched dollar-for-dollar at patronicity.com/compost2026. Attendees can also opt to bring their own lunch or venture out to the many dining options in Middletown, CT.  This conference is made possible, in part, by a matching grant from Sustainable CT (sustainablect.org).

More Details Coming Soon

Session tracks and additional speaker details will be available in February 2026 on the CT Compost Alliance website:
ctcompostalliance.org/ctcompostconference

With multiple sales options available to Connecticut farmers, identifying the best fit for your farm can be challenge. Hear from Rachel Berg, Farmer and Co-Owner of Four Root Farm in East Haddam, to learn how to align your products, scale, and goals with the right marketing outlets. Topics will include:

• Overview of Common Marketing Channels in CT
• Pros & Cons of Direct, Wholesale, and Institutional Sales
• Evaluating Market Fit
• Transitioning to New Channels

Register to attend this webinar on March 27th!

Solid Ground offers in-person training opportunities as well as e-learning tools for new and beginning farmers. These trainings are intended for production farmers in Connecticut. A sample of available trainings include topics such as Ag Mechanics, Business of Farming, and Risk Management.

See their full calendar of upcoming events: Solid Ground Farmer Trainings

We've opted to shift this webinar series to an online course that will be hosted by UConn and can be accessed by learners asynchronously.

Please stay tuned for more information. Thank you!

Online Course Offerings

Farm Risk Management Online Certificate
This unique program from the University of Connecticut's (UConn) College of Agriculture focuses on one of today’s most critical topics for the agriculture industry, farm risk management. Farm risk management involves understanding and mitigating factors that can impact agricultural operations, such as climate change, pest management, and financial uncertainties. Through this grant-funded 12-module course you will gain knowledge and strategies to enhance the resilience and sustainability of your farm. Knowledge is the key.

Designed for the Agricultural Industry
Serving livestock farms, dairy farms, crop farms, fruit & vegetable farms, or anyone seeking to develop a farm, this free course is a must for the modern-day farmer. View the listing of modules.

USDA Funded & Free to the Public
UConn’s Farm Risk Management Online Course modules are developed in conjunction with UConn’s College of Agriculture, UConn’s Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning, and UConn’s Academic Program Development & Support unit, and are funded by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Flexible & Convenient
Take one module or all twelve Farm Risk Management online modules. Learners will receive a course completion certificate for each module completed that can be downloaded and printed.

Courses are self-paced and offered 100% online and asynchronous; you can participate in the course at any time of day from anywhere with an Internet connection.

How to Register
Registration for UConn’s Farm Risk Management Online Course modules is facilitated by UConn’s non-credit online course registration platform. Register Here.

Conferences

December 15-17, 2026

Manchester, New Hampshire

More details to come. For now, visit the conference website to learn more.

Save the date!

Next year's conference is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, January 12th, 2027.

Community Programs

Becky Sideman at University of New Hampshire is once again putting the call out to recruit organic high tunnel growers as part of an OREI funded high tunnel cover crops project. This Fall 2025 trial will look similar to last year’s: growers will get sent seed, a free soil test and help interpreting it, and will be asked to complete a couple of short surveys to let the researchers known how it went. A biomass sample from the following spring would be ideal as well, but is not required.

These on-farm trials are meant to evaluate how legume cover crops perform in active farming systems. Farmers will not be asked to plant replicated arrangements of the trial plots on their farms. Instead, researchers will plant all of the cover crop options in replicated plots on a research station, while each participating farmer plants one plot of each of the cover crop options that they select. Farmers can select between two levels of participation and compensation, depending on the amount of time and effort they are willing to commit.

• Read the full trial instructions, detailed species and timing menu, and farmer expectations for each level here .
• Watch the recording of the High Tunnel Cover Crop Trial Webinar
• Sign up to participate  by telling the team which species you’d like to grow and how much seed to send.

Contact the research team with questions: hightunnel-cc@umn.edu

The new program, which is voluntary for CT farms, provides sampling kits to ensure contamination-free soil collection, and provides data on 14 PFAS directly to the farmers who submit samples. “Our hope is that PFAS data will help farmers protect their safety and that of their customers” says Jasmine Jones, the PFAS technician at CAES. PFAS found in farm soils may impact crops and livestock, and may pose a risk to drinking water wells on and near farms. There are no enforceable limits for PFAS on farms at the state or federal level, though high levels can be harmful to human and animal health. “Collecting data on PFAS concentrations at CT farms is an important step towards understanding the scope of PFAS contamination issues in CT” says Sara Nason, Ph.D., a research scientist at CAES. The new CAES program uses a certified EPA method for soil analysis, and has ISO:17025:2017 accreditation, an internationally recognized lab quality certification. “Data quality has been a big priority for our PFAS measurements” says Nason.

Additional program information can be found on the CAES website at:

https://portal.ct.gov/caes/about-caes/pfas-in-ctagricultural-soils/pfas-in-ct-agricultural-soils.

Detailed information on PFAS can be found on the following websites:

https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP-PFAS
https://pfas-1.itrcweb.org/

New England Soil Health Survey

Free Soil testing is available through a new program from AFT New England and the USDA ARS Food Systems Research Unit. Farms in Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts are eligible to receive free soil health testing on up to three fields after completing a short survey.

Learn more at: https://farmland.org/new-england-soil-health-survey/