Webinar Schedule and Participant Guide
Webinar Dates
Live instruction for 2025 has concluded. You are welcome to enroll now to complete this course on a self-paced schedule and join our next live session in 2026. All webinars are recorded and posted in your online classroom to watch anytime. Once enrolled in this course, you will retain access to all materials indefinitely and may return to participate in future live offerings of the course as well. We hope you'll join us!
Weekly Topics
Our weekly webinars are designed to expose you to a wide range of farmers, farming styles, enterprises, and business models.
First webinar: Erica Frenay, Course Overview and Getting Started in Farming
Join course facilitator Erica Frenay for an intro to the course, farming advice from successful farmers, and an intro to holistic decision-making.
Second webinar: Erica Frenay, Shelterbelt Farm
Review of Week 1 homework and questions; then Erica will share Shelterbelt Farm's start-up process, focusing especially on how her family's values have shaped their decision-making and goal-setting.
Third webinar: Dan Rivera, Triple Green Jade Farm
Review of Week 2 homework and questions; then we will be joined by Dan Rivera of Triple Green Jade Farm. Dan farms in the Adirondack region of NY, raising pastured eggs and meats and also running a bakery using freshly milled local and local grains. Dan has embarked on a cooperative project also, which offers the opportunity for people of all ages to buy into land access, business partnership, and a small developing ecovillage on the farm. This sort of cooperation is becoming more common as the land is increasingly unaffordable and people realize the potential benefits of working together toward shared goals.
Fourth webinar: Cam Bremner of Cam's Urban Farm
Review of the Week 3 homework and questions; then we'll hear from a farmer who is breaking the mold of what we think of when we imagine a farm. A warehouse in Queens is not usually the first thing that comes to mind! Yet that's where Cam Bremner produces mushrooms. I'm really excited for Cam to share his story with us this week!
Fifth webinar: Alex Stewart and Tara Taylor, Unadilla Community Farm
Review of Week 4 homework and questions; then Alex Stewart and Tara Taylor will share the story of the Unadilla Community Farm being started by a collection of WWOOFers, and the recent transition of leadership and ownership to a new round of beginning farmers that includes Alex and Tara, as well as the recent preservation of the land by a land trust. They are excited to tell you how inheriting a not-for-profit, community driven food forest model has been a profoundly affirming experience of non-extractive food systems and share what they've learned along the way.
Sixth webinar: Alex Caskey of Barred Owl Brook Farm + Student Presentations, Wrap-Up, and Next Steps
This webinar will be longer than the others - please plan on joining us from 6:30-8:30pm! I'm excited to welcome Alex Caskey to talk about his agroforestry-based farm: how and why he produces and plants trees, and how the grazing, nursery, and tree-planting aspects of his farm are all integrated.
We will also have a couple of brave volunteer students from this course share their farm start-up plan so far, and allow time for a final Q&A at the end. This webinar may stretch a little longer than the previous weeks, depending on how many student presenters we have and how many questions you all want to discuss!
Zoom Participant's Guide
The below guide explains how to use the Zoom video platform for this course's weekly webinars.