April 16, 2019
NORTH ADAMS, MASS. — Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) announces this spring’s
Green Living Series will conclude on Thursday, April 25, with a lecture on “Innovating
Open-Source Technology for Small-Scale Sustainable Agriculture” by Dorn Cox, a farmer
who is the founder of FarmOS, an open-source software platform for farm management,
planning, and record keeping.
All Green Living Seminars will take place at 5:30 p.m. in room 121 of the Feigenbaum
Center for Science and Innovation on the MCLA campus. Presented on Thursdays throughout
the spring semester, this series is free and open to the public.
The theme of this semester’s series is “Sustainable Food and Farming,” which focuses
on the past, present, and future of how food is produced and distributed in our region,
and strategies for improving the sustainability of our food system.
Cox, a farmer who works his 250-acre, four-generation family farm in Lee, N.H., will
discuss innovation in small-scale sustainable agriculture. He has designed and constructed
systems for small-scale grain and oilseed processing and bio-fuel production. He also
has developed no-till and low-till equipment and associated cover cropping systems.
Cox is vice president of the New Hampshire Association of Conservation Districts,
and serves as a county supervisor and vice-chair of the Strafford County Conservation
District. He also serves as the research director for the Wolfe’s Neck Center for
Agriculture and the Environment in Freeport, Maine.
He was the 2018 recipient of the Hugh Hammond Bennett Excellence in Conservation Award
by the National Association of Conversation Districts’ (NACD), which is given in recognition
of extraordinary achievements in and contributions to the soil and water conservation
movement in the United States.
A founding board member of the New England Farmers Union, Cox serves as a vice president
to the New Hampshire Association of Conservation District and was awarded the 2007
NHFB Young Farmer Achievement Award. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell
University in Ithaca, N.Y., and a Ph.D. in natural resources and earth systems science
from the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H.
Podcasts of this semester’s Green Living lectures will be posted online following
each presentation at http://www.mcla.edu/greenliving.
MCLA’s Green Living Seminar Series hosts lectures by local, regional, and national
experts. The seminars are organized around a central theme related to the environment
and sustainability. The 2019 series is a presentation of the MCLA Environmental Studies
Department and MCLA’s Berkshire Environmental Resource Center.
For more information, go to www.mcla.edu/greenliving or contact Traister at (413) 662-5303 or Elena.Traister@mcla.edu.
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) is the Commonwealth's public liberal
arts college and a campus of the Massachusetts state university system. MCLA promotes
excellence in learning and teaching, innovative scholarship, intellectual creativity,
public service, applied knowledge, and active and responsible citizenship. MCLA graduates
are prepared to be practical problem solvers and engaged, resilient global citizens.
For more information, go to www.mcla.edu.
