The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is happy to announce plans for the 2022-2023 Chesapeake Agricultural Networking Forum and Listening Sessions. The Forum brings together NFWF grantees, partners, and practitioners in agricultural conservation from across the region to discuss emerging trends and topics, network and share ideas, and inform what’s next in our collective efforts towards greater agricultural sustainability.

This year’s Forum will be delivered virtually through a series of focused, crowd sourced sessions. We’ve identified several important, emerging topics related to our shared work, framed around key questions that we’re seeking your help in exploring. For each session, NFWF will be accepting proposals for 5-15 minute flash talks that help answer, at least in part, each of these key questions. After hearing from selected presentations, participants will then have the opportunity for loosely structured networking and discussion on each topic, with the goal of leaving each session with new understanding, ideas, and partners to help tackle these shared challenges.

SESSION DESCRIPTIONS

SESSION 1: Advancing priority WIP strategies for the agricultural sector
Key Question: How can NFWF and its current and future grantees best support jurisdictions' priority WIP strategies for the agricultural sector as we advance towards 2025?
Date/Time: 10:00AM-12:00PM, Tuesday, November 8, 2022

SESSION 2: Advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in agricultural sustainability efforts
Key Question: How can we better engage and support underserved, marginalized, and socially disadvantaged producers and communities in realizing goals and growing demand for sustainable agriculture and food systems?
Date/Time: 10:00AM-12:00PM, Tuesday, November 15, 2022

SESSION 3: Coordinating with federal infrastructure funding for agricultural conservation
Key Question: How can we unlock unprecedented federal infrastructure funding to advance on-farm conservation and sustainability efforts?
Date/Time: 1:00-3:00PM, Thursday, November 17, 2022

SESSION 4: Enhancing agricultural conservation through collaboration and partnerships
Key Question: What can we learn from, re-evaluate, and replicate regarding our efforts to support collaborative models as key drivers of accelerated agricultural conservation in the region?
Date/Time: 10:00AM-12:00PM, Tuesday, December 13, 2022

SESSION 5: Advancing partnerships with cooperatives, aggregators, and supply chain stakeholders
Key Question: How can we better identify, engage, and support supply chain stakeholders as critical emerging drivers of and partners in achieving shared goals for agricultural sustainability?
Date/Time: 1:00-3:00PM, Thursday, December 15, 2022

SESSION 6: Advancing regenerative and climate-smart agriculture
Key Question: How can we leverage our collective knowledge and experience supporting agricultural water quality improvement towards achieving a more holistic approach to regenerative and climate-smart agriculture, farm-scale greenhouse gas reduction, and agricultural carbon sequestration?
Date/Time: 10:00AM-12:00PM, Tuesday, January 10, 2023

SESSION 7: Integrating wetlands in agricultural landscapes
Key Question: What will it take to accelerate wetlands restoration, creation, and enhancement in the region’s varied agricultural landscapes?
Date/Time: 1:00-3:00PM, Thursday, January 12, 2023

SESSION 8: Advancing agricultural conservation through a social science lens
Key Question: What recommendations and insights from the Chesapeake Bay Program Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee’s 2021 workshop on social science in agricultural conservation hold the most promise for advancing ag conservation beyond the region’s early adopters?
Date/Time: 10:00AM-12:00PM, Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Abstracts for all sessions must be submitted by October 1, 2022 and selected abstracts will be notified and provided further instructions by October 13, 2022. Note: At this time, we are not collecting abstracts for Session 1.

Contact Joe Toolan, Manager of Chesapeake Bay Programs at NFWF (joe.toolan@nfwf.org) if you have any questions.