Public Invited to Stinner Summit: Chance to Plan New Sustainability Projects

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio — Ohio State University’s eighth annual Stinner Summit goes from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 10, in the Vernet Ecological Center at the Glen Helen Nature Preserve, 405 Corry St., in Yellow Springs.

Participants in the event will present, discuss and decide specific projects designed to increase the sustainability of Ohio farms and communities.

The sponsor is Ohio State’s Agroecosystems Management Program, part of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

“The Stinner Summit is a unique and highly participatory event where people from diverse backgrounds come together to develop projects in support of healthy agroecosystems and sustainable communities,” said Matthew Porter, a graduate student in the college’s School of Environment and Natural Resources and one of the event’s organizers.

“During the day’s ‘open spaces,’ they’ll have the opportunity to hear others’ ideas, present ideas of their own and contribute to the development of the project ideas that interest them most,” he said.

The summit is named in honor of Ben Stinner, a sustainable agriculture pioneer in the college who was head of AMP at the time of his death, at age 50, in a 2004 car crash.

Details on the event are at go.osu.edu/qe3. Registration is free and open to the public and includes breakfast and lunch. Participants can register online at go.osu.edu/qe9.

Funding for the event, and for the projects that the participants will decide to initiate, comes from the Ben Stinner Endowment for Healthy Agroecosystems and Sustainable Communities.

Participants in last year’s Stinner Summit, for example, chose to start and fund:

• A web-based portal to match Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) customers and growers.
• A study comparing the nutritional value of genetically modified organism (GMO) crops and non-GMO crops.
• A feasibility assessment of a proposed reintegration center at the Grafton Correctional Institution in northeast Ohio aimed at reducing recidivism through agricultural entrepreneurship.

For more information, contact Porter at 614-292-2265 or porter.801@osu.edu.

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