ACORN Conference

2008 Conference Success!

It's official - the 8th organic conference and trade show was a huge success!

From March 6-8, 2008, over 350 people came to the Memramcook Resort to see the trade show and dozens of workshops on organic horticulture, seeds, livestock, grains, food miles and more.

Speakers and participants came from across Canada and the Northeast, and left raving about the great learning and networking they experienced.

The sold out trade show took place in a spacious old chapel and exhibitors reported they left with pages of new contacts and customers.

Thursday's conference kick-off, featuring Dag Falck, from Nature's Path, and Pat Mooney, ETC Group, spoke to a standing room only crowd. Offering unique perspectives, Falck and Mooney raised significant awareness on the new threat of nano-technology. With many people expressing alarm, both speakers assured the room that the answer was "exactly what you are already doing–growing and supporting organic".

On Friday night at the sold out banquet, Karen Davidge (Good Spring Farm, NB) was presented with the Gerrit Loo Organic Achievement Award. The keynote address by Marc Schurman (Spring Valley Farm, PEI) provided a fresh and very honest perspective of a conventional farmer bring organic into his operations. The food was abundant and excellent, and the evening concluded with a celtic jam.

This great event would not have been possible without the dozens of volunteers and the generous support by:

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada & NBAC

Carrot Cache Foundation

Speerville Flour Mill

EcoCert Canada

AgraPoint

Centre for Systems Integration

Crofter’s Organic

Envirem Technologies

Farmer John Herbs

Fromagerie L’ancetre

Foxmill Ltd.

ETC Group

Java Moose Coffee Roasters

Just Us! Coffee Roasters

Les Fromagiers de la Table Ronde

Lundberg Family Farms

Maritime Certified Organic Growers

Nature’s Path Foods

New Brunswick Department of Agriculture and Aquaculture

Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture

PEI Department of Agriculture

Planet Organic

Pro Organics

OCIA

Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada

Organic Meadow

Organic Products Lanka Inc. - Nature's Cup

Organic Trade Association

Selwood Green

Speerville Flour Mill

Treehugger Organics

Yu – Soya World