2024 Annual Meeting Breakout Sessions
NACD is so excited for this year’s lineup of breakout sessions. These informational sessions focus on the work of conservation districts and their partners across the country. From green infrastructure and restoration programs to outreach initiatives and new partnerships, these sessions provide a wealth of information about the agriculture world and the groundbreaking work from people across the nation.
The four themes for this year’s breakout sessions are:
- Community Outreach
- Climate Resilience
- Conservation Capacity & Partnerships
- Diverse & Small-Scale Agriculture
NACD’s breakout sessions and symposiums are some of the most popular activities among meeting attendees. Don’t forget to pencil in some breakout sessions into your Annual Meeting schedule! Read more about this year’s breakout sessions below.
Monday, February 12, 2024 | 2:30 – 2:55 pm | |||
Community Outreach |
Camp Ripley Sentinel Landscape – Shannon Wettstein will discuss the last several years in which the Morrison SWCD has been a partner in a Sentinel Landscape project, and how the last two years they have advanced their reach substantially through targeted outreach and partnership. | ||
Climate Resilience |
Encouraging Urban Green Infrastructure Practices for Climate Resiliency – Jennifer Fish will discuss how Green Infrastructure above the minimum stormwater standards is important to community sustainability. This includes designing for future storm events and better using existing environmental services. | ||
Conservation Capacity & Partnerships |
Vermont’s Journey towards Pay for Performance: Partnerships and Lessons Learned – Sonia Howlett will discuss how in addition to practice-based programs, Vermont offers a payment for ecosystem services program that funds modelled P loss reductions on farms and another that supplements NRCS CSP. | ||
Diverse & Small-Scale Agriculture |
Leveraging Aquaculture for Restoration: An Overview of the Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration Program – Sally McGee will discuss how through the Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration program, the Nature Conservancy and partners are working to support a resilient oyster industry and leverage aquaculture in reef restoration. |
Monday, February 12, 2024 | 3:05 – 3:30 pm | |||
Community Outreach |
Community Outreach Through Nontraditional Ag Farmer to Farmer Coffee Talks – Sharon Autry will discuss Nontraditional Ag Farmer to Farmer Coffee Talks, which cover topics that are relevant to small/medium scale producers and offer an opportunity to build community and collaboration. | ||
Climate Resilience |
Climate Adapted Native Plant Materials Project: Practical Innovation for an Uncertain Future – Mike Conroy will discuss how the Tualatin SWCD is evaluating assisted migration to augment the genetic fitness of native plants used in restoration projects. The core of this project is a long-term common garden experiment. | ||
Conservation Capacity & Partnerships |
Making Connections Maximizes Watershed Restoration Project – Lynn Pilewski and Kirsten Robertson will discuss how one group assembled a wide array of non-profit, governmental, and private companies to work together to fund and implement a multi-faceted watershed plan in South Carolina. | ||
Diverse & Small-Scale Agriculture | Scaling Agroforestry in US Agriculture – Maya Glicksman will define agroforestry, discuss new opportunities to support agroforestry adoption, and highlight areas for continued advocacy administratively and legislatively. |
Monday, February 12, 2024 | 4:00 – 4:25 pm | |||
Community Outreach |
Where Good Things Grow – Healthy Soil at Home – Angela Ehlers leads an expansion of SD’s “Where Good Things Grow” Emmy-nominated outreach program, Healthy Soil at Home targets homeowners, small acreage producers, and urban interests through a multi-media approach. | ||
Climate Resilience | Carbon Sequestration and Soil Health – Andrea Kreiner and Jan Lee discuss the website OACD prepared on soil health & carbon sequestration with researched information, links to tools and articles; and an accompanying guidebook for district use in working with sequestration. | ||
Conservation Capacity & Partnerships |
Water Quality of Life – Jim Hess discusses how the Elkhart County SWCD has taken conservation to the next level and is offering property tax incentives for the “Good Stewards of the Land”. Please read the 2022 NACD Annual Report page 39-40. | ||
Diverse & Small-Scale Agriculture | Conservation Delivery in Pacific Island Communities – Mae Nakahata discusses experiences with building support capacity and technologies that are scaled/adapted to serve the non-traditional agriculture systems of Pacific Islands will be shared. CNMI, GU & HI – led presentation. |
Monday, February 12, 2024 | 4:35 – 5:00 pm | ||
Community Outreach |
Predictive Soil Health Economic Calculator: An Overview – Chellie Maples, Dr. Michelle Perez, and Ben Wiercinski discuss the Excel-based Predictive Soil Health Economic Calculator (P-SHEC) Tool to generate short & long-term estimates of soil health practice use in row crops. | |
Climate Resilience | Minnesota’s Reliance on SWCDs to Address Climate Resilience – John Jaschke highlights the means and measures for climate action that will be delivered through Minnesota’s SWCDs. | |
Conservation Capacity & Partnerships |
Unconventional Partnering – The Voluntary Stewardship Program, CDs, and Counties – Bill Eller discusses conservation district partners with non-traditional regulatory partners (counties) to replace critical area protection regulations with voluntary, incentive-based practices. |
Tuesday, February 13, 2024 | 1:30 – 2:10 p.m. | |||
Community Outreach | Engaging the Next Generation – Youth in Conservation – Tixie Fowler discusses tips on engaging youth, securing project funding, how to manage with limited staff, and strategies for increasing outreach into under-represented and under-served communities. | ||
Climate Resilience |
OpTIS: New National Baseline Data for Climate-Smart Ag – David Gustafson discusses how no-till and cover crops are leading climate-smart practices, which OpTIS tracks using satellite data. This session will feature the latest OpTIS release, which includes data for all lower 48 states. | ||
Conservation Capacity & Partnerships |
Converging Ag Drainage with Water Quality – Mike Libben discusses how the Ottawa SWCD (Ohio) has blended the need for agricultural drainage and increased water quality for Lake Erie by integrating projects that accomplish both goals and brings partners together. | ||
Diverse & Small-Scale Agriculture | Tribal Conservation District Approaches to Food Security & Production – Laurie Stuart discusses how Tribal Conservation Districts in Alaska have utilized a “subsistence is our agriculture” approach to food security and production in partnership with USDA, US Fish & Wildlife, and other agencies. |
Tuesday, February 13, 2024 | 2:20 – 3:00 p.m. | |||
Community Outreach | Securing Outreach Expertise for Your CD – Want help with CD outreach from a partner or vendor, but not sure where to start? Kara Kaelber discusses tips – including questions to ask in an RFP/solicitation and ideas for funding – to get the expertise you need. | ||
Climate Resilience |
Advancing Producer Engagement and MMRV in Ecosystem Services Markets: Lessons Learned from Three Years Conducting Projects – Alana Pacheco and Lars Dyrud will highlight three years of lessons learned from ESMC’s Eco-Harvest market projects and discuss program specifics, opportunities for participation, and private sector advancement of reduced soil sampling costs through the latest in MMRV. | ||
Conservation Capacity & Partnerships |
Innovative Partnership-Based Project Approaches to Increase & Accelerate Adoption of Conservation Drainage – Tom Christensen discusses how innovative partnership-based projects with conservation districts in DE, MD, IA, and MN have broken through barriers and resulted in record levels of producer conservation drainage practice adoption. | ||
Diverse & Small-Scale Agriculture | Connecting Communities: Relationship Building to Diversify Participation – Courtney Curenton-Baker and Ashely Henderson discuss how a state association and a state agency develop community relationships and leverage them to reach historically underserved producers, providing a trusted avenue to conduct outreach for NRCS programs. |
Tuesday, February 13, 2024 | 3:30 – 4:10 p.m. | ||
Community Outreach |
Dirty Water Bugs Us! Pesticide Education for Urban Communities – Lynn Pilewski discusses how the GCSWCD has modified PuttSkee, an interactive game, to educate urban citizens on safe use of insecticides and herbicides. The activity, paired with simple messaging, has been effective and engaging. | |
Climate Resilience |
Cultivating Resiliency: Linking Soil Health to Profitability – SHI Soil Health Educator Dr. Katherine East, SHI Soil Scientist Kade Flynn, and NACD Soil Health Champion Don Elsbernd discuss how the Soil Health Institute (SHI), working alongside partners including the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD), has assessed the economics of soil health management systems (SHMS) on a national scale. In this session, SHI will showcase the economic benefits of adopting SHMS and present innovative methods to reduce production costs and increase net farm income. Drawing from the experiences of over 160 U.S. farms, they will illustrate how SHMS can effectively mitigate operational risks across diverse climates and production systems. | |
Conservation Capacity & Partnerships |
Bridging the Gap: A Partnership Between an Ag Retailer and Local Government – Kolby Beehler discusses how the Morrison SWCD partnered with a local agricultural retailer on a joint conservation agronomist position. Two years later they have had achievements and challenges and want to share their experiences. |
Tuesday, February 13, 2024 | 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. |
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Diverse & Small-Scale Agriculture | Part One: Enabling Equitable Pathways to Market for Climate Smart Producers by Leveraging Local Conservation Districts (Forum for the Future) – Sustainability Strategist Michelle Stearn will build on dialogues Forum for the Future facilitated in Summer 2023 with the NACD community to identify shared barriers – and innovative solutions – for a producer-centered approach to developing agricultural markets for regenerative or “climate smart” commodities and products, they’ll reconvene at NACD’s Annual Meeting to build relationships and co-develop tools that enable new, equitable marketplace models to thrive. They hope you’ll join them at their half-day workshop to chart out ways that conservation districts and other institutions in the agriculture system (from farmers, ranchers and coalitions that support producers, to companies, brands, and local anchor institutions) can play a role in achieving regenerative and just outcomes in emerging marketplaces. This session will be focused on foundational pre-work and relationship building, making the case for prioritizing equity in marketplace building. (This session is Part 1 of two sessions. If you are able, please join the following session on Wednesday 8:30-11am to continue the conversation.) |
Tuesday, February 13, 2024 | 4:20 – 5:00 p.m. | ||
Community Outreach |
Stewardship of the Western Monarch Through Community Action – Michele Felix-Derbarmdiker will cover the conservation efforts the RCRCD has undertaken to further Western Monarch recovery. Pivotal to our success has been our variety of community outreach and involvement. | |
Climate Resilience |
Integrating Agriculture into Regional Climate Action Plans – Adria Arko, Eliza Milio, and Avana Andrade will highlight San Mateo RCD’s partnership with local jurisdictions to integrate agriculture and carbon sequestration into climate action plans. | |
Conservation Capacity & Partnerships |
Maximum Partnerships: Building Partnership between National Programs and Local Implementation – Jessia McGuire and Drew Larsen discuss how PF and QF partnership staff (Precision Ag Conservation Specialist, Farm Bill / Coordinating Biologist, Habitat Specialist, Range Conservationist, & Outreach Coordinator) provide needed capacity in many areas of the country to address resource needs. This session will focus on sharing the many opportunities for partnering to impact agriculture and local resource concerns and better serve cooperators as well as maximize the value of existing partnerships. |
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 | Symposium, workshops, focus groups, or trainings | ||
08:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. | National Conservation Planning Partnership (NCPP) Conservation Planning Training and Education Listening Session – The National Conservation Planning Partnership will host interactive listening sessions to identify any gaps or barriers relative to NCPP’s tactics within their strategic plan. | |
08:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. |
Putting Farmers at the Center of Regenerative Agriculture Engagement Planning – Deborah Carter McCoy, Rebecca Bartels, and Suzy Friedman with the Midwest Row Crop Collaborative, Trust In Food, and the WWF will lead a planning process based on insights from their behavior change research to accelerate regenerative agriculture acceptance by producers. The panelists will be Deborah Carter McCoy from Environmental Initiative, Rebecca Bartels from Trust In Food, and Suzy Friedman from the World Wildlife Fund. | |
8:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. | Part Two: Enabling Equitable Pathways to Market for Climate Smart Producers by Leveraging Local Conservation Districts (Forum for the Future) – Sustainability Strategist Michelle Stearn will build on dialogues Forum for the Future facilitated in Summer 2023 with the NACD community to identify shared barriers – and innovative solutions – for a producer-centered approach to developing agricultural markets for regenerative or “climate smart” commodities and products, they’ll reconvene at NACD’s Annual Meeting to build relationships and co-develop tools that enable new, equitable marketplace models to thrive. They hope you’ll join them at their half-day workshop to chart out ways that conservation districts and other institutions in the agriculture system (from farmers, ranchers and coalitions that support producers, to companies, brands, and local anchor institutions) can play a role in achieving regenerative and just outcomes in emerging marketplaces. This session will be a marketplace connectivity workshop and co-create guidelines for leveraging the role of conservation districts. (This session is Part 2 of two sessions. If you are able, please join the previous session on Tuesday 3:30 – 5pm for important context-setting for the symposium.) |