By Courtney Oldwyn

Journal reporter

2016’s Agricultural Summit is this Friday and Saturday on San Juan Island. This informative event will bring together 200 regional farmers, chefs, advocates, and community members for two days of agriculture based education at different locations around Friday Harbor.

“This is the only annual educational event that is entirely focused on agriculture in San Juan County and that brings together farmers from throughout the county, giving them a chance to network, learn new ideas, and share information,” said Peggy Bill, San Juan County Agricultural Resources Coordinator. “We hope to inspire, educate, and collaborate so we can work together to strengthen and grow our local food network.”

Local farmer Bruce Gregory, who co-owns and operates Mitchell Bay Farm along with his wife Colleen Howe is also looking forward to the summit. “It’s a chance for not only local folks who are farming, but consumers of local foods to learn about some exciting things happening in the agricultural world,” said Gregory. “The new science coming out has a profound effect on how we can and should manage our ag lands to be a part of the big picture of solutions to many of the world’s problems.”

Not just an event for career farmers, the Agricultural Summit is open to all community members county wide. Part of the summit’s vision is to bring together local foodies, restauranteurs, advocates and others in the food industry.

“We all need to work together,” said Bill.

“The Agriculture Summit has just done such an amazing job this year. It’s really important that we support any scale agriculture and to inspire people to learn and grow. No community can survive without food growth and the San Juans have always put out huge amounts of food. There’s a sort of (farming) resurgence that’s happening and we need to support that,” said Lori Ann David, owner of San Juan Island’s Aurora Farms and a participant in the Taste of the San Juans. David will be serving her farm’s signature dish made with her island grown organic lamb.

Oscar nominated film “Polyfaces: A World of Many Choices” will be shown Thursday evening at the Grange as a pre-cursor to the start of the summit on Friday. “This is really special. It’s only ever been shown in a few other cities,” said David who is also the lecture chair at the San Juan Island Grange Hall.

The film was made by Australians Darren Doherty and Lisa Heenan who spent their life savings to move their family to America to create this movie about visionary farmer Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm.

Throughout Friday afternoon multiple hands on workshops led by regional and national experts are being held throughout Friday Harbor. “Bread Baking with Local Grains” by Jonathon Bethony McDowell, resident baker at the UW’s Breadlab and “Curing and Charcuterie for home producers, chefs and fine cooks” with Farmstead Meatsmith are two of the favorites. There will also be workshops on orchard management, how to create your own farm plan, value added foods, ruminants and a young farmer’s round table.

One of the summit’s highlights are it’s nationally acclaimed keynote speakers, Dr. Courtney White and Severine von Tscharner-Flemming.

White will give a presentation entitled “Grass, Soil, Hope: Regenerative Solutions in Changing Times” Friday evening at the San Juan Community Theater. He is a nationally acclaimed author and co-founder of The Quivira Coalition, a non-profit dedicated to building relationships between ranchers, conservationists, public land managers and scientist around the idea of land health, will cover multiple topics relevant to local farmers such as innovative practices to sustainably intensify food production and reducing energy usage.

Saturday morning’s key note speaker Severine von Tscharner-Flemming, visionary farm activist, is the founder of Greenhorns, a grassroots organization who helps recruit and support young farmers. She is also co-founder of FarmHack, an online network of farmers who build and use their own tools, and the National Young Farmer’s Coalition. Von Tscharner-Flemming’s presentation will focus on ways to empower and connect new farmers to successful careers in agriculture.

More than 24 sessions on topics ranging from “The business side of poultry production” and “Nutrient recycling for fuel and fertilizer” to “Agritourism to increase farm revenue” being held on Saturday at the Friday Harbor Middle School. A summit social at the Grange will follow.

Finishing up the summit on Saturday evening is the Taste of the San Juans at Brickworks. More than ten local chefs and foodies will prepare small plates and drinks using local ingredients. Entry fee is $5, each taste ranges from $2 – $6.

“The Agriculture Summit offers us the chance to brush up on these new paradigms and perhaps have more folks experiencing ‘ah ha’ moments when they come to face the reality of soil, plants, animals, water, humanity and energy are all wrapped up in one big cycle that will make or break our society. What we do locally is global.” said Gregory. “The summit is important because agriculture even locally is, has been and will continue to be the foundation of society.”

Tickets to the screening of “Polyfaces: A World of Many Choices” Thursday at 7p.m. at the San Juan Island Grange can be purchased at the door. $12/ticket. $20 for two. Call 378-0233 for more information.

Summit events are individually priced but all day session tickets available for both Friday and Saturday and include the key note speaker presentations. A full schedule of events, including times, locations and ticketing can be found at the summit website.