Photo credit: Courtesy of the Northwest Conservation District

On February 9 in Torrington, Connecticut Resource Conservation and Development (CT RC&D) hosted one of three speaker sessions for the CT Farm Energy Program on farm energy and smart agriculture. The CT Farm Energy Workshop is part of a larger Climate Smart Ag event, made possible by the collective efforts of the Northwest Conservation District (NWCD), the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Berkshire Agriculture Ventures. “Our hope is that the workshop allowed more farms to learn about the soil health practices they may want to adopt and about the opportunities available to them for renewable energy implementation on farms,” says Cynthia Rabinowitz, the Executive Director of the NWCD. “The ultimate goal is for farms to adopt practices after learning about these opportunities and techniques.” The Connecticut Farm Energy program began in 2009, and is one of the CT RC&D’s signature initiatives, aiming to provide technical and grant writing assistance to small Connecticut farms around energy efficiency and conservation. To date, they have helped implement over $25 million dollars worth of energy projects across Connecticut. This year, with more federal money available through the USDA’s Rural Development REAP program, the Climate Smart Ag workshops are all the more important; that boost in potential funding is a big deal for small farmers. The CT Farm Energy workshops will help farmers learn just that. —ctrcd.org