The 14th annual Farm & Food Leadership online conference will take place October 26 and 27. Presented by the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, the Council for Healthy Food Systems and Texas State University’s Small Producers Initiative, this unique conference focuses on the policies and regulations affecting our farms and our food, as well as the latest developments in sustainable agriculture. Farmers, consumers, chefs, local food business owners and nonprofit advocates will find useful information and tools to help support the growth of the local and sustainable food movement.

Speakers include two U.S. representatives that have championed small farmers and will focus on topics such as food policy at the state and federal level, building healthy soil, growing vegetables and fruits sustainably, raising livestock and poultry on pasture, and more.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed a light on our broken conventional food systems. Shortages of meat and other food products lingered for weeks. Conventional farmers dumped milk and euthanized livestock as the supply chain collapsed. But independent family farmers proved how nimble and reliable local food systems are, shifting to online sales, deliver, market boxes and other techniques to keep people fed.

Register for $40 at FarmAndRanchFreedom.org/farm-food-leadership-conference.