Start Time: Wednesday, September 30, 10:00 am
End Time: Thursday, October 1, 12:30 pm
Address: 4965 Catawba Creek Rd. Catawba, VA 24070

Ready to take your agroforestry expertise to the next level? Join us for a 2-day immersive alley cropping training designed for conservation professionals, Extension agents, foresters, technical service providers, and others who support landowners across Virginia. This advanced, 200-level training combines classroom learning with hands-on field experience to strengthen your ability to design, evaluate, and support successful alley cropping systems.

  • Free of Cost and Lunch provided Wednesday, September 30.
  • Continuing education credits to include, NRCS Planner Certification Contact Hours, SAF Continuing Forestry Education Credits, and DCR Conservation Planner Credits.
  • Pre-requisite requirements include, completion of the alley cropping online module, attendance of a Alley Cropping 101 Fundamentals training, or equivalent experience. The online module takes about 8 hours to complete and a coupon code will be provided upon registration.
  • Limited funds available to support lodging needs for those traveling a distance. More information is in the registrationform. 
REGISTER

Speakers

Kaitie Adams (she/they) is the Demonstration Farm Network Director at the Savanna Institute. Based in the flatlands of East-Central Illinois, Kaitie's work focuses on the way demonstration farms, working farms, and rural communities can come together to make agroforestry possible in the Midwest. For the past 15 years, Kaitie has worn many hats: anthropologist, wine steward, organic vegetable farmer, farm educator, and paw paw fanatic. Now, she mostly wears the hats of agroforester and mama. She loves alley cropping so much, she didn't realize she was doing it until she started working at the Savanna Institute.  When Kaitie isn't talking about trees, she teaches community classes on seasonal cooking and fermentation and enjoys rambling around with her veggie-farming husband and rambunctious daughter named after a tree. Kaitie works as a guest on the ancestral lands of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Piankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sauk, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Chickasaw peoples.

Emilie Tweardy is an Agroforester with Appalachian Sustainable Development, an agricultural nonprofit based in Southwestern Virginia, where she works in education, outreach, and grant administration for silvopasture, alley cropping, and other Agroforestry practices. Outside of ASD, she is Co-owner of ShireFolk Farm, her family farmstead in Central VA that is home to a variety of animals, a plethora of perennial plants, a 9-acre silvopasture project, as well as an increasing variety of woodland natives. She serves as co-chair for the Agroforestry Coalition’s Nurseries Working Group. She also co-owns and is a Lead Instructor for Shenandoah Permaculture Institute, where she's been coordinating and teaching Permaculture Design Courses and consulting with landowners on systems design for over a decade.

Matthew Wagner, Farm Manager, Virginia Tech Catawba Sustainability Center. Matthew is a farmer manager with experience in sustainable grazing systems and diversified small farms. He manages the agroforestry and farming systems at the Catawba Sustainability Center. 

Continuing Education Credits

NRCS Contact Hours: 4 hrs (Day 1), 2.5 hrs (Day 2)
SAF Hours: Pending
DCR Conservation Planner Hours: Pending

For more information visit contact Katie Trozzo at ketrozzo @vt.edu. If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact Katie Trozzo at ketrozzo@vt.edu 540-232-2233 during regular business hours at least 10 days prior to the event.

Virginia Cooperative Extension is a partnership of Virginia Tech, Virginia State University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and local governments, and is an equal opportunity employer. For the full non-discrimination statement, please visit ext.vt.edu/accessibility.