DENVER – The fourth annual Rocky Mountain Famers Union Innovation Fair will be held on Thursday, Nov. 21st at the Doubletree Hotel in Greeley, Colo. Serving as the kickoff to the 2019 RMFU Annual Convention, the Innovation Fair is a series of short form presentations intended to inspire and educate anyone interested in agriculture, food systems or community activism.

The 2019 Innovation Fair presenters are a group of individuals of diverse background who come from across Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming and are challenging the status quo of their respective industries. They are sparking change, encouraging dialogue and acting to improve their communities. Among them are:

-Jude Schuenemeyer who works with the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project to preserve and restore heritage orchards in southwestern Colorado.

-Emily Hunter representing Hunger Free CO, a group dedicated to ending hunger in our state.

-Poudre Valley Community Farms, A Land Cooperative, an organization using a cooperative model to purchase and lease farmland, thereby facilitating farmland succession, while promoting local food security and economic growth.

-Scott Scheimer of Simple Farms offers an alternative lens on the concept of farm profitability – margin management.

-Bob Hockaday of Tucumcari Bio-Energy is reconfiguring an old ethanol plant to function as an anaerobic digestor of cattle manure and cheese production waste, which will result in produce renewable natural gas, carbon dioxide, liquid fertilizer and cattle bedding.

-Zac Kreider is part of the team at Colorado Mills where the byproduct of their sunflower oil operation, sunflower meal, has incredible benefits as a livestock feed including improvement of overall animal health, lower death rates and increased marbling without adding exterior fat.

The day begins at 12:30 with farm business workshops covering succession and farm finances, presented by CSU Extension, RMFU, and American Agriculture Credit. The culmination of these workshops is the Farm and Ranch Business Health Assessment. During this workshop, financial and legal professionals will guide participants through the nine sections of the Farm and Ranch Business Health Assessment Toolkit. Those nine sections include: business formation; land; accounting; taxation; labor and contractors; production and marketing; credit, business plan, insurance, energy, other; and personal information.

Following the workshops, the Innovation Fair presenters will take the stage. Each presentation will last between 5-7 minutes.

Registration for the Innovation Fair is free for students and Farmers Union members and $15 for non-members. Registration is available on the website at https://www.rmfu.org /2019-convention/ or participants can register at the door.