Source: PRESS RELEASE, 10/7/14

North Carolina’s Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) is one of the nation’s foremost centers for research, extension, and education in sustainable agriculture and local food systems.  

CEFS’ research farm is known for top-notch interdisciplinary and systems research.  Debbie Hamrick of North Carolina Farm Bureau says “the research being conducted at CEFS informs the science that underpins modern agricultural production.”

George Teague of Reedy Fork Organic Farm adds, “CEFS is the only place doing this kind of work. There’s not anybody else in our climate and region doing research for us.”  From one of the country’s foremost long-term, comparative systems experiments to groundbreaking research on the potential of organic practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, CEFS is continually in the forefront of scientific advances in sustainable agriculture.  

This year, CEFS is celebrating its 20th anniversary with special events and programs October 17-18.  On October 17 at CEFS’ 2000-acre research farm in Goldsboro, hundreds of people from throughout and state and country will attend a day-long educational and celebratory event called SOILbration: Healthy Soils, Healthy Farms, Healthy Foods. The event will feature nationally-recognized speakers including Fred Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Iowa and President of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in New York, and Ray Archuleta, a noted conservation agronomist with the USDA’s National Resource Conservation Service.

CEFS’ very founding is remarkable: a three-way partnership between North Carolina’s two land-grant universities, NC State University (all-white when it was founded in 1887) and NC Agricultural and Technical State University (established in 1891 as a result of the Second Morrill Act, mandating land-grant colleges for African Americans) and the NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.  This founding partnership set the tone for CEFS’ work in the years to come: forging unlikely partnerships, creating bridges to overcome differences, and building powerful and diverse collaborative networks .

We’d like to invite you to come to Goldsboro on October 17 to participate in CEFS’ SOILbration firsthand.  If you can stay for the continuing celebrations, on October 18 Fred Kirschenmann will deliver a keynote address entitled “The Future of Food and Agriculture”, followed by a 20-year CEFS Reunion celebration at NC State University.  

We would be pleased to arrange interviews with :
•         Dr. Nancy Creamer, Director of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, NC State University
•         Dr. John M. O’Sullivan, Director Emeritus of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, NC A&T State University
•         Fred Kirschenmann, Nationally and internationally-recognized sustainable agriculture pioneer
•         Dr. Chris Reberg-Horton, CEFS’ Assistant Director of Collaborative Research, NC State University
•         Cheryl Queen, Vice President for Communication & Corporate Affairs, Compass Group USA, and Chair of CEFS’ Board of Directors
•         Alex Hitt, Owner and Operator of Peregrine Farm, and CEFS Board member

CEFS develops and promotes just and equitable food and farming systems that conserve natural resources, strengthen communities, improve health outcomes, and provide economic opportunities in North Carolina and beyond.  For more information, please visit http://www.cefs.ncsu.edu/.