AERO Expo 2022 in Great Falls at Arrow Peak Lodge: Sept 30-Oct 02

Save the Date!     

September 30 – October 02, 2022

We can’t think of a better way to celebrate the gift of gathering again in person than by coming together at MFU’s Arrow Peak Lodge, just outside Great Falls, for our annual conference and member meeting. Please join us for this special event. As those who were at the camp for Expo 2015 can attest, Expo at Arrow Peak can be a magical experience for the whole family.

Expo’s theme this year is shaping itself around the principles of resiliency at all levels. To help us out we have two special friends keynoting:

Liz Carlisle, reprising her participation as an AERO keynote (at Arrow Peak, no less!), five years almost to the day, and sharing wisdom from her newest book: Healing Grounds – climate, justice and the deep roots of regenerative farming.

Dan Kittredge, has been an organic farmer for more than 30 years and is one of the leading 21st century proponents of “nutrient density”. He is founder and Executive Director of the Bionutrient Food Association (BFA), a non-profit whose mission is to build a nutrient dense food supply, recognizing that together, we are stewards of our food future.

We’ve asked Dan to teach his signature class for growers at Arrow Peak Lodge, Sept 29-30, just before Expo. Advanced Workshop in Biological Agriculture: Biological Systems Principles for High Bionutrient Crop Production is open growers of all ages and experience levels. Registration details coming shortly!

Stay tuned for Expo details, coming to you by E-News AND by a July print issue of the Sun Times, going out by post to all our members.  Not yet a member and want to get the Sun Times in your hands? It’s easy to join here.

Registration opens July 20th, giving everyone ample time to sign up. As in years past there will be a limited number of registration fee waivers for volunteers, and planned kids’ activities for those coming with children.  The camp offers dormitory sleeping, cabins, and lots of space for tent and RV camping on its 144 acres.

While the agenda is still in process, we’re planning on a traditional Friday night kick-off pot-luck dinner, followed by the AERO-famous cake auction so…. start testing those recipes and gathering that cash for bidding!

We’re setting aside a chunk of space for Harvest Market tables at the camp so you can share about your good works at a table. Tabling is such a great way to let everyone know what you’ve been up to!

Last but not least, remember to pack your dancing shoes or get ready to dance barefoot, ’cause we’re rocking the house Saturday night!

Three ways you can make Expo 2022 extra-extra special. Contact us at getintouch@aeromt.org for details.

1. HARVEST FOR EXPO! We’ll have a camp Chef preparing the meals and we’ll need lots of Montana’s finest produce and meat ingredients. Let us know if you want to provide some of these resources and we’ll coordinate purchasing ingredients from you (and, of course, contributions are always welcome).
2. CONTRIBUTE TO THE SILENT/LIVE AUCTION MANIA! Part of Expo’s fun always includes the silent (and live!) auction. Let us know what you want to contribute this year. Help make it fabulous!
3. BECOME AN EVENT SPONSOR! Sponsoring helps AERO by:

• defraying event costs, especially promotion costs so we get the word out to everyone
• funding registration and travel scholarships for students, new farmers and Native community members

Sponsoring helps you by providing you/your business with:

• free registration(s) and a Market Table
• generous promotion of your business across all our media platforms

Send us an email at getintouch@aeromt.org for sponsorship tier information and details.

Keynote bios:

Liz Carlisle is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara, where she teaches courses on food and farming. Born and raised in Montana, she got hooked on agriculture while working as an aide to organic farmer and U.S. Senator Jon Tester, which led to a decade of research and writing collaborations with farmers in her home state. She has written three books about regenerative farming and agroecology: Lentil Underground (2015), Grain by Grain (2019, with co-author Bob Quinn), and most recently, Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming (2022). She is also a frequent contributor to both academic journals and popular media outlets, focusing on food and farm policy, incentivizing soil health practices, and supporting new entry farmers. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography, from UC Berkeley, and a B.A. in Folklore and Mythology, from Harvard University. Prior to her career as a writer and academic, she spent several years touring rural America as a country singer. https://www.lizcarlisle.com/

Dan Kittredge grew up on Many Hands Organic Farm in central Massachusetts with his parents, Julie Rawson, NOFA-MA Executive Director, and Jack Kittredge, Natural Farmer publisher. After a global career in food and seed activism where he worked with farmers across India, Russia, and Central America, Dan returned to the U.S. and launched the Bionutrient Food Association (BFA) in 2010 to ignite a movement around food quality. Through workshops and speaking engagements across the country and globe, the annual BFA Soil and Nutrition Conference, and an increased presence online through social media and online courses, Dan works to demonstrate the connections between soil health, plant health, and human health.  In 2017, Dan launched the Real Food Campaign (RFC), now the Bionutrient Institute, with the mission of creating a science “home” for defining nutrient density and what causes it, recognizing the intimate connections among soil, plant, animal, human and environmental health. Working with open-source science partners, BI lab teams around the globe have engineered a prototype hand-held consumer spectrometer, the Bionutrient Meter, designed to test nutrient density at point of purchase, bringing transparency to the marketplace and providing growers with the tools to increase quality in food and crops.