Michael Fields annual farm dinner to feature seafood from the Gulf
By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
The Michael Fields Agricultural Institute’s farm-to-table dinners have been a big success for the farm over the past three years and this year they’re doing something new with the Farm and Sea Conservation Dinner.
The dinner will showcase how Wisconsin farmers and Gulf of Mexico fisherman are working together to conserve the ecosystems and water quality of the Mississippi River and the Gulf.
“We wanted to highlight the connection between what we do up here on our farms and how it affects the water,” Michael Fields Marketing and Communications Coordinator Molly Roamer said. “Our policy director, Margaret Krome, has been working with fishermen on the Mississippi because the water from the Midwest farms wind up in the river.
“So these fishermen have come up to meet our farmers and our farmed have gone down to meet with them, working on conservation practices.”
Roamer said the dinner will feature seafood from the Gulf of Mexico along with local produce, beer and wine.
“We don’t have a garden program this year at the institute,” she said. “But we have young farmers who have come in and planted here and we do have an organic flower farmer who will be doing the flowers for the event.”
The Farm and Sea Conservation Dinner is set for 6 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 25, in the Big Brown Barn.
“We moved it inside this year because the weather has been so crazy,” Roamer said. “So many people are so interested in the barn and ask about it, we decided to show off what a beautiful building it is and open it up to guests.”
Roamer said Toothpicks in East Troy will cater the dinner this year with Chef Adam Carson creating the menu.
“They (Toothpicks) started in our kitchen at first before moving across the street, so we’re very familiar with them and they with us.”
In 2016, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute initiated a creative cultural and educational exchange. Gulf fishermen travelled to Wisconsin to celebrate Wisconsin’s conservation farmers, and this spring, our farmers traveled to the Louisiana Bayou to learn about the Gulf of Mexico. The fishermen’s livelihoods and lives depend on the Gulf being fed by clean upstream waters, which in turn depends on conservation efforts made by farmers. Nutrients from farms in the Upper Midwest flow down the Mississippi River and create algae blooms that deoxygenate large “Dead Zone” areas in the Gulf.
Conservation efforts aim to reduce soil erosion and nutrient (especially nitrogen and phosphorus) runoff from the land and into water feeds the Gulf.
Tickets are still available at $80 per guest. Reserve a seat online at www.michaelfields.org or contact Roamer at mroamer@michaelfields.org or (262) 642-3303, ext. 124, by Aug. 10.
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute is at W2493 Highway ES, East Troy. Learn more at www.michaelfields.org.
