The sixth annual Virginia Farm to Table Conference will be held Dec. 6 and 7 at Blue Ridge Community College’s Plecker Workforce Center in Augusta County.
The conference is an opportunity for learning, networking and community-building among producers, buyers, restaurateurs, food entrepreneurs, community and agricultural development officials, nutrition and dining service directors, dietitians, policymakers, educators, farm-to-school advocates, technical service providers and food system stakeholders.
Keynote speakers include Diane Imrie, registered dietitian and director of nutrition services at the University of Vermont Medical Center; Anne and Jack Lazor, founders of Butterworks Farm, an organic and grass-fed dairy operation in Westfield, Vt.; and Shorlette Ammons, outreach coordinator for the Center for Environmental Farming Systems at N.C. State University.
In addition to the speakers, there will be concurrent sessions where producers and practitioners share their local and regional expertise on topics such as sustaining farms, families and communities; soil health and water quality; organic grain production; market readiness; hospitality and service; and improving food equity and access.
Registration and conference details are available at conference.virginiafarmtotable.org. Registration is $40 per day until Nov. 30 and $60 per day afterward.
The House Ways and Means Committee has released its tax reform plan, the Tax Reform and Jobs Act. This is the first major tax package since the 1980s and this legislation is expected to move quickly through Congress. A lot of work remains to enact the bill into law. 
The 
Governor Terry McAuliffe today announced an award of $481,410.50 in grant funding for 10 agriculture-related projects from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The grants will promote and enhance the competitiveness of Virginia’s specialty crops and create more economic development opportunities across the Commonwealth. The project awards resulted from a competitive grant process established by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) for the USDA’s Specialty Crop Block Grant funds.
Traveling from Hawaiian papaya groves, to banana farms in Uganda, to the cornfields of Iowa, 
Robert Mills, Jr., a first generation farmer who grows tobacco and raises beef cattle and pullet breeder chickens near Callands, Va., has been selected as the overall winner of the Swisher Sweets/Sunbelt Expo Southeastern Farmer of the Year award for 2017.
The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services announced that the October Crop Production report that was released today from the National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS) shows a continued large increases in projected yields for cotton and peanuts from 2016.
October is National Farm-to-School Month, and Virginia is celebrating with Virginia Farm to School Week, from October 2-6, 2017. This designation is intended to create awareness of the Virginia Farm to School Program and promote opportunities for both farmers and schools to become involved. Farm to School’s overarching mission is to increase the volume of locally- grown foods served in schools, which is a win-win for both school systems and the agriculture industry! This primarily takes the form of three components: procurement, education, and school gardens.
American Farm Bureau is expressing support for the Agricultural Guestworker Act of 2017. The bill would create an H-2C visa program that will allow American farmers and, packers and processors access to a legal and stable supply of workers. AFBF President Zippy Duvall stated the following:
