Stay Informed

The 2024 Indiana Small Farm Conference and trade show will take place Feb. 29-March 1 at the Hendricks County Fairgrounds in Danville, Indiana.

This year’s keynote speaker is Michael Kilpatrick, founder of Growing Farmers and host of the top-rated “Thriving Farmer Podcast.” Kilpatrick will talk about thriving in challenging times and adding help to your farm.

Since 2013, the Indiana Small Farm Conference has brought together novice and experienced small-scale farmers to benefit from comprehensive, instructive and enjoyable programming about diversified farming and local food systems. This year’s conference will offer eight tracks from which attendees can choose sessions that interest them, including:

• Urban agriculture.
• Vegetable production.
• Business.
• Livestock.
• Resilient agriculture.
• Niche opportunities.
• Equity and food security.
• Flowers.

Among the many scheduled sessions are: Best Practices in Agritourism (business track); Let’s Talk Turkeys: Rotational Grazing, Thanksgiving and More (livestock track); Mushroom Cultivation (niche opportunities track); Expanding into Flowers (flower track); and Fun with Cover Crops and Vegetables – Experiments on a Small Farm (vegetable track).

“A new and exciting session called fiber farming will include a presentation about sheep, alpaca and rabbit farming for fiber,” said Amy Thompson, Purdue Extension’s beginning farmers coordinator and a conference organizer. “There will also be a fruit grafting demonstration during the social hour on Thursday evening and several farmer panels and opportunities for networking.”

For more information or to sign up, visit the Indiana Small Farm Conference website.

Follow the conference on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @SmallFarmPurdue, on Instagram at @purduedffs or on Facebook at @PurdueExtensionSmallFarms, with the hashtag #PurdueSmallFarms.