A very special thank you to all of those that participated in this year’s 2024 South Dakota Local Foods Conference! It is our hope you had a great time cultivating community connections through various discussions, workshops and keynotes centered around the importance of supporting local foods systems and producers!
The Local Foods Conference celebrates all aspects of the local food system and our goal is to have learning experiences available for everyone, from growers to processors, retailers, culinary professionals, small business owners, researchers, educators, community organizers, students, and youth.
Our conference planning committee works year round to put on this locally sourced grassroots event. Please share your feedback with our conference planning team to better the user experience for future guests.
Please share your experience with us by filling out this short evaluation survey.
SDSU Registration Crew!The Pioneer RoomThe Journey Museum ArtAttendeesAttendeesSARE PanelAttendeesPumpkins supplied by Garden of Weedin’ FarmAttendeesTable DecorGeb, our guide for this year’s event! SDSU Horticulture TableJenny Behlings Flower Center PieceBreadroot TableSARE TableAttendeesBreakfastNell’s Gourmet BreakfastBreakfastTable Decor Drawn by 2nd GradersAttendeesAlan Carter, Blackhills MushroomsAttendees Farm To School Farm To School Farm To School Delicious BreakfastDelicious BreakfastDelicious BreakfastMama’s Batch GranolaUSDA NRCS TableDakota Food Fresh TableTable Decor Drawn by 2nd GradersKeynote: Mariah GladstoneKeynote: Mariah GladstoneAttendeesKeynote: Mariah GladstoneKeynote: Mariah GladstoneKeynote: Mariah GladstoneBear Butte Gardens AggregationGeb and his new pet!Listening Session with Blake PulseListening Session with Blake PulseAttendees Dakota Rx Program with Geb and Jared.Pupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopOur Pumpkin Winner! Pupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPupmkin WorkshopPumpkin Winner AnnouncementFirst, second and third place! First, second and third place! First, second and third place!
“As the USDA’s primary private lands conservation agency, we generate, manage, and share the data, technology, and standards that enable partners and policymakers to make decisions informed by objective, reliable science.
And through one-on-one, personalized advice, we work voluntarily with producers and communities to find the best solutions to meet their unique conservation and business goals. By doing so, we help address climate change and ensure the long-term sustainability of American agriculture. We’re also focused on the American farmer, especially those underserved by our programs as well as those trying to break into new markets, like organics.”
We are incredibly thankful to have USDA NRCS as a sponsor for the 2024 South Dakota Local Foods Conference!
The Local Foods Conference celebrates all aspects of the local food system and our goal is to have learning experiences available for everyone, from growers to processors, retailers, culinary professionals, small business owners, researchers, educators, community organizers, students, and youth. For instance, a sample of presentation topics that will be featured at this year’s conference include: mushroom foraging, grasslands, sheep shearing, produce prescription programs, cooking classes for CSA members, and online marketing.
Our conference will feature 2 keynote speakers: Indigenous culinary expert Mariah Gladstone (Blackfeet and Cherokee), who will speak on her Indigikitchen project that utilizes online cooking classes to reimagine Native cuisine. Local celebrity chef Justin Warner, who has appeared on several Food Network programs and will talk about his experience being part of “food television;”.
Friday, November 8th, 2024
8:00 am– Registration and Breakfast
9:00 am – Breakout Sessions:
SARE Panel – The Joe Rovere | Minnilusa Pioneer Room
Youth Led Sustainable and Ethical Beekeeping – Marla BullBear, Lakota Youth Development
SOYL (Sowing Opportunities for Youth Leadership) Sustainable Agriculture Project – Sharon Oney & Destiny Durham, Youth & Family Services
Join the Movement: Farm to School’s Impact and Future in South Dakota Anna Tvedt, SDSU Extension; Megan EisenVos, Dakota Rural Action; Janelle Peterson, SD Department of Eduction; Malisa Nyles, SD Specialty Producers Association – Wells Fargo Theater
The Fungal Frontier: Advancing Sustainable Agriculture through Mushroom Production and Soil Building in South Dakota Alan Carner, Black Hills – Mushrooms – Stanford Adelstein Gallery
10:00 am – Break
10:30 am – Keynote:A Recipe for Resilience – Mariah Gladstone, IndigiKitchen – Wells Fargo Theater
11:30 am – Lunch
12:45pm to 2:15pm – Workshop
Native Tea Time Mariah Gladstone, IndigiKitchen – The Joe Rovere | Minnilusa Pioneer Room
1:00 pm Breakout Sessions:
The Bear Butte Gardens Local Food Aggregation Model Michelle and Rick Grosek, Bear Butte Gardens – Wells Fargo Theater
South Dakota Grasslands – More Than Just GrassLaura Kahler, South Dakota Grasslands Initiative & Tanse Herrmann, NRCS – Stanford Adelstein Gallery
2:30pm to 4:00pm – Workshop
Spiced Pumpkin – Fall Bouquet Class Jenny Behlings, AAF AIFD PFCI SDCF – The Joe Rovere | Minnilusa Pioneer Room
2:30 Breakout Sessions:
Cultivating Community Through Agritourism: Is it the right step for you? Nancy Kirstein, The Good Earth Farm & Peggy Schlechter, SDSU Community Vitality – Wells Fargo Theater
Building Resilience in the South Dakota Local Food System Blake Pulse, SDSU Graduate Research Assistant – Stanford Adelstein Gallery
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm – Farm Tours:
Farm to School at Rapid City Catholic School System
2101 City Springs Rd Rapid City, SD 57702
Sacred Storm
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm– Social Hour
Live music and food at the Diamond E Collective
523 Main St Rapid City, SD 57701
Saturday, November 9th, 2024
8:00 am – Registration and Breakfast
9:00 am – Breakout Sessions:
Cooking Up Connections Kjersten Oudman, Blue Sky Vegetable Co. & Dr. Joseph Robertson, Mato Ohitika Analytics LLC – The Joe Rovere | Minnilusa Pioneer Room
Online Marketing – What Trends Work Kristine Reiner, Cash Cow Co-op – Wells Fargo Theater
Youth – Sensory Local Foods Led by Sydney Trio, McCrory Gardens – Board Room
10:30 am – Breakout Sessions:
Dakota Food Rx: Connecting local foods and healthcare using produce prescriptions Geb Bastian, SDSU Extension & Jared Lukens-Black, Budding Moon Farm – The Joe Rovere | Minnilusa Pioneer Room
SARE Panel Reducing tillage on SD vegetable farms: What have we learned from the research? Kristine Lang, SDSU Extension; Michelle Grosek, Bear Butte Gardens; Kjersten Oudman, Blue Sky Vegetable Co.; Connor Ruen & Hannah Voye, SDSU Graduate Research Assistants – Wells Fargo Theater
Wild & Indigenous Foods Akaya (Amanda) Ruiz, Bringing the Sacred Back to the Black Hills HeSapa – Stanford Adelstein Gallery
Youth – Local Foods & Garden Moves! Led by Anna Tvedt, SDSU Extension – Board Room
11:30 am– Lunch
1:00 pm – KEYNOTE
Everything You Wanted To Know About Food Television But Were Afraid To Ask Celebrity Chef Justin Warner – Wells Fargo Theater
Youth – Creative Hour Led by Sydney Trio, McCrory Gardens – Board Room
2:15 pm – Closing Culminating the Connections
A Special Thank You To Our 2024 Sponsors Who Helped Make This Event Happen
Cultivator Sponsors: McCrory Gardens; Pollinator Sponsors: SDSU Extension Food, Families, and Wellness, Dakota Fresh Food Hub; Seedling Sponsors: Dakota Rural Action, Happy Tracks Heritage Farm, R5DC | North Central USDA Regional Food Business Center, SD Farm to School-DOE, SD Planning Districts, South Dakota Specialty Producers Association, USDA- Farm Service Agency;
Thank you to all on the Coalition conference planning committee who have helped so far with the conference, including members from Dakota Rural Action, South Dakota State University (SDSU) Extension, McCrory Gardens, Cash Cow Co-op, Southeast Council of Governments, USDA Natural Resource and Conservation Service, and the North Central Regional Food Business Center.
Native Tea Time Workshop with Mariah Gladstone, Piikuni (Blackfeet) and Tsalagi (Cherokee)
Connections Across the Generations
Friday, November 8th, 2024 – 12:45-2:15pm MT – The Joe Rovere | Minnilusa Pioneer Room
For thousands of years, Indigenous people have hunted, fished, farmed and foraged for food on this continent. Mariah practices many of those traditions today and teaches others how to incorporate indigenous foods into their contemporary diets.
She will bring a variety of plants she has grown and foraged that have traditionally been used to make tea, such as cedar, yarrow and mint. She will make some teas for participants to sample, then work with them to create their own personalized teas to take home. Throughout this hands-on workshop, Mariah will also discuss traditional Native foodways, changes that took place with colonization, and what is happening with the Indigenous Food Movement today.
Mariah Gladstone, Piikuni (Blackfeet) and Tsalagi (Cherokee), grew up in Northwest Montana on and near the Blackfeet Reservation. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Environmental Engineering and returned home where she began her work on food advocacy. She developed Indigikitchen, an online cooking platform, to revitalize and re-imagine Native foods. She then earned a Master’s degree at SUNY-ESF in the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Mariah has been recognized as a Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellow. She has shared the importance of reconnecting to traditional foods at events throughout North America and abroad, as well as through appearances on the Today Show, CBC, and more.
During this time, kids will get the opportunity to create a variety of different crafts centered around local foods.
Sensory Local Foods
Led by Sydney Trio, McCrory Gardens
Saturday, November 9th, 2024 – 9:00am MT The Board Room
Youth can have fun exploring their senses! We will go through the five senses and see how we can use each sense looking at local produce. There will even be a guessing game where kids will feel and smell different produce!
Local Foods & Garden Moves!
Led by Anna Tvedt, SDSU Exension
Saturday, November 9th, 2024 – 10:30am MT The Board Room
Youth will start by playing a game to identify foods that are produced in South Dakota and the five food groups. Then, grow like a plant with garden yoga and end with making a fruit and vegetable crown craft.
Creative Hour!
Led by Sydney Trio, McCrory Gardens
Saturday, November 9th, 2024 – 1:00pm MT The Board Room
During this time, kids will get the opportunity to create a variety of different crafts centered around local foods such as painting pumpkins and paper crafts.
Anna is a registered dietitian and serves as a Nutrition Field Specialist for SDSU Extension. Anna provides nutrition expertise to South Dakotans statewide through programs like farm-to-school. Anna has helped create the SD Crunch Off and Grow Getters materials for SD youth.
Sydney is the Education Coordinator/SDSU Extension Horticulture Assistant at McCrory Gardens in Brookings, SD. Sydney works with visitors of all ages, planning different educational programming and providing tours of the Gardens. This is Sydney’s second year helping out with the Local Foods Conference and Youth Track!
Online Marketing – What Trends Work with Kristine Reiner of Cash Cow Co-op
Cultivating: Building Markets with Community in Mind
Saturday, November 9th, 2024 – 9:00am MT The Wells Fargo Theater
During our Online Marketing – What Trends Work presentation we’ll delve into the world of SEO, web design, and cutting-edge digital strategies to propel your online presence to new heights.
You’ll emerge with the knowledge and confidence to drive organic traffic, improve search engine rankings, and create user-centric online experiences. Marketing is expensive, but it doesn’t have to be.
Kristine Reiner, co-founder of Cash Cow Co-op, has dedicated her career to promoting initiatives that prioritize direct to consumer connections and sharing healthy food options to consumers. With a background in education, communications, website development, marketing and branding, she has a deep commitment to making a positive impact for environmental sustainability.
Reiner hopes to help bring awareness to sustainable efforts by crafting compelling narratives, coordinating outreach campaigns, and fostering longterm organic partnerships; she strives to inspire action and drive meaningful change.
Building Resilience in the South Dakota Local Food System Blake Pulse, Graduate Research Assistant
Environmental Members of Our Community
Friday, November 8th, 2024 – 2:30pm MT in the Stanford Adelstein Gallery
Join us for an interactive session focused on building a more resilient local food system in South Dakota. Over the past 18 months, Blake Pulse and the research team at South Dakota State University have conducted interviews and focus groups with various stakeholders in the local food landscape.
This session will highlight key features and findings of resilient local food systems, exploring their interactions at the state level and the impact of rurality. Additionally, participants will have the opportunity to provide feedback and share their initial reactions to the study’s findings. Your insights will contribute to the ongoing development of a stronger local food system in South Dakota.
Blake Pulse is a graduate research assistant at South Dakota State University, pursuing a master’s in Biological Sciences. He is currently working on a grant-funded qualitative research project aimed at building a more resilient local food system in South Dakota. Blake’s passion for local food began at a young age when he owned and operated a small dairy goat farm near Salem, where he sold milk and value-added products to his community. This commitment to local food has continued throughout his collegiate career, reflected in his coursework and advocacy for local procurement at the dining hall on campus.
South Dakota Grasslands – More Than Just Grass with Laura Kahler, South Dakota Grasslands Initiative & Tanse Herrmann, NRCS
Environmental Members of our Community
Friday, November 8th, 2024 – 1:00pm MT in the Stanford Adelstein Gallery
An introduction to the substantial loss of grasslands in South Dakota, the importance of our grasslands to the state’s economy, ecology, and human communities, and how the South Dakota Grasslands Initiative invites you to play a role in supporting the grasslands, as an urban or rural resident.
The proof that managing for soil health across the landscape really works lies in the fact that these operators continue to advance their skillsets and grow their operations where the five soil health principles are being intentionally implemented. These same operations are managing resource concerns by treating the source of their problems rather than seeking band-aid type fixes that only temporarily relieve issues.
Laura Kahler is the director of the South Dakota Grasslands Initiative, a collaborative network for diverse organizations, agencies & individuals to join together in support of the grasslands.
Laura’s background is in Agriculture Education, and she ranches with her husband in Tripp County, raising commercial cattle, Targhee sheep and Red Wattle pigs. Her favorite ways to enjoy the grasslands are through hunting with her labrador, riding horse in the pastures, and taking her three young children outside to learn the names of the various plants.
Tanse Herrmann SD NRCS State Grazinglands Soil Health Specialist has developed a passion for soil health through relationships with producers who have implemented soil health management decision-making systems on their diversified crop and livestock grazing operations and seeing the positive impacts soil health has on yields, animal performance, financial well-being, and overall quality of life.
Tanse is a former SD State FFA officer, South Dakota Agricultural & Rural Leadership alum, and enjoys team roping as well as outdoor recreation with his wife and two children from their small ranch operation near Sturgis.
Cooking Up Connections with Kjersten Oudman, Blue Sky Vegetable Co. & Dr. Joseph Robertson, Mato Ohitika Analytics LLC
Connections Across the Generations
Saturday, November 9th, 2024 – 9:00am MT
Growing fresh food is challenging enough, but how do we encourage eating it? After connecting through family and because of good food, Dr. Joseph Robertson and Kjersten Oudman sensed a need for teaching people how to cook fresh vegetables. They paired together and have been offering cooking classes to the members of Blue Sky Vegetable Co.’s Farm Share. Over three years, the cooking classes have connected people to the farm and to one another.
Kjersten Oudman cultivates plants and community at Blue Sky Vegetable Co. in Worthing, SD. Blue Sky Vegetable Co. is a Community Supported Agriculture farm focused on providing their farm share members with delicious vegetables and a connection to each other and the farm. When not farming, Kjersten and her husband, Dirk, spend their time chasing their two energetic kids and a lovable black lab who never tires of playing fetch.
Dr. Joseph Robertson is a citizen and enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of the LakeTraverse Reservation. He is the founder and chief data scientist of Mato Ohitika Analytics LLC. Joseph works with grass root organizations and community groups with cutting edge data science solutions. Asa chef, Joseph works with Blue Sky Vegetable Company to bring cooking classes to the CSA shareholders and works to strengthen farm to table initiatives through community organizing.
Introduction to Beekeeping with Bobbie Chambers Wilson, Agroecology Specialist/Apiarist
Environmental Members of our Community
Saturday, November 9th, 2024 – 9:00am MT – The Stanford Adelstein Gallery
Bobbie Chambers Wilson is a native of Clear Lake, South Dakota, who happily moved back to South Dakota two years ago from the East Coast.
Beekeeping knowledge honors South Dakota and the long history and tradition of beekeeping in our state. This course will teach basic information about honeybees, beekeeping, and honey harvesting.
Bobbie is an Agroecology Specialist and Apiarist (Beekeeper) working for Ecdysis Foundation at Blue Dasher Farm in Estelline, South Dakota, also keeps bees at her home apiary in Brookings, South Dakota. Bobbie started reading and learning about honey bees in 2003, got her first personal hive in 2005 and completed the Masters Beekeeping curriculum at Cornell University, as well as the New York Honey Producers Program.
