The California Small Farm Conference is the state's premier gathering of small farmers and those who support them. The three day educational conference includes on-farm tours, focused workshops, general educational sessions and opportunities for peer networking.

The 2010 California Small Farm Conference was held February 28 to March 2, 2010 in San Diego.

The California Small Farm Conference wishes to express its thanks to all those whose volunteer hours helped to make the conference a success. Special thanks go out to the keynote speakers: Rayne Pegg, Administrator of USDA Agricultural Marketing Service; AG Kawamura, Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture; Russ Parsons, Food Editor of the Los Angeles Times; and Josh Viertel, President of Slow Food USA.

The theme of the conference – Sustaining our Bounty – reflects the incredible bounty of agricultural products that the state of California produces. California leads the state in the production of many valuable agricultural products and California Grown is a respected symbol of quality throughout the world. California's small farmers are an integral part of this agricultural system and are the leaders and innovators whose efforts are helping to prepare the state for the challenges ahead.

As the nation and the state continue to struggle in a weakened economy and with a statewide drought, small farmers, as well as farmers' market managers, are seeking ideas to help them sustain the progress they have made and find opportunities to continue to diversify, grow, improve and expand their operations. The 2010 California Small Farm Conference was designed to bring them those ideas.

Through day-long short courses and farm tours, intensive classroom workshops, engaging keynote addresses and numerous networking opportunities, the 2010 California Small Farm Conference offered small farmers, farmers' market managers and others in California's small farm industry the information they need to be successful.

The most 2009 California Small Farm Conference was March 1-3, 2009 in Sacramento.

Follow the link for more information about the 2009 conference including lists of workshops and short courses and profiles of the three keynote speakers.

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The mission of the Farm Conference is to conduct an educational conference on topics relevant to family farming, direct marketing and issues related to agricultural sustainability.