Farmers Organize: Workgroups for Policy Change

Farming is a lifestyle, a calling, and a business. For OFA farmers, it’s also a movement. Groups of farmers working together to identify problems, learn from one another, and propose policy solutions builds momentum for farmer-driven solutions to food and farming system challenges.

Join Julia Barton, Organic Farmers Association’s Farmer Services Director, to learn from the workgroup examples OFA has organized and related outcomes in the policy arena. Learn how workgroups build community, encourage farmer-to-farmer learning, and farmer leadership. Take these examples to inform your own workgroups, or join one of OFA’s!

Contact Julia Barton at julia@organicfarmersassociation.org with any questions.
Registration opens in mid-June.

Bio:
Julia Barton serves as the Farmer Services Director of the Organic Farmers Association. Previously, she worked for the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association and OEFFA Certification, serving transitional, organic, and sustainable producers, most recently as Organic Policy Specialist. Julia loves working with farmers to identify challenges and find solutions!

Julia holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Science and German from Dickinson College and a Master’s Degree from The Ohio State University in Rural Sociology with a focus on local and regional food systems. In addition to her work at OFA, she and her husband, Patrick Turner and their two boys, run Octagon Acres, an organic vegetable and heritage sheep farm in Northeast Ohio.