Women in Agriculture Conference registration opens

January 10, 2020

Marmian Grimes

Registration is open for the 2020 Women in Agriculture Conference on Jan. 25.

The one-day gathering will take place simultaneously in Fairbanks, Palmer, Anchorage, Soldotna and Homer.  Altogether, the event will include 32 videoconference sites in Alaska, Montana, Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Hawaii. This year’s theme is Healthy Farms.

The program will begin at 7 a.m. in Palmer, Anchorage and Soldotna and at 7:30 a.m. in Fairbanks and Homer. The featured speakers will talk about cultivating personal resiliency and positive psychology to handle farm stress. Each site will also host a panel of local women farmers, who will talk about the ways they balance their lives. A keynote speaker will talk about mindfulness and positivity.

Organizers from Washington State University Extension say, “You will leave this conference with new friends, new ways to farm and new strengths to do what we love to do every day.”

Registration and more information are available at http://womeninag.wsu.edu. Men are welcome. The early registration fee is $30 until Jan. 17 and $35 after that date. Agriculture students, farm interns and members of FFA or 4-H pay $20. The fee includes the workshop, a light breakfast, lunch and conference materials.

Conference locations will include the Murie Building at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Matanuska Experiment Farm and Extension Center in Palmer, the Loussac Library in Anchorage, the Kenai River Center in Soldotna and the Kachemak Bay Campus in Homer. Additional location information and local contacts are available on the registration site.

This is the fifth year for the conference in Alaska. Sponsors include the UAF Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, Alaska Farmland Trust, the UAF Cooperative Extension Service, Homer Soil and Water Conservation District and the Alaska Farm Bureau in Soldotna.