Bill Duesing Award Nominations Accepted Until January 31st

CT NOFA is now accepting nominations for the Bill Duesing Organic Living on the Earth Award to be presented at the 40th Winter Conference this February.

The nomination deadline is January 31, 2022. Click here to make your nomination

This award is for a recipient who has demonstrated the advancement of organic living on our earth with a project, innovation, action or lifestyle that supports the continuation of the life work of Bill Duesing – for all to live on this earth in a society in harmony with nature. The accomplishment must contribute to the advancement of organic living in Connecticut in a demonstrable way and be a current or recent accomplishment that reflects Bill’s devotion to organic living and his wish that this critically important work be continued by his friends and colleagues. Award recipients can be one of the following:

• Organic farmer/farm (example: added new revenue sources to secure the farm’s future; expanded availability of organic food in the community; added carbon sequestration measures on his farm, e.g. cover-crops, no-till)

• Organic land care professional /business (example: transitioned from conventional to organic land care; added carbon sequestration measures, e.g. replacing lawn with meadow, etc.)

• Organic advocate (example: spearheaded a change in their local school system, or worked to promote organic legislation, supported healthy soil legislation)

• Organization (example: farmers market became 100% organic; the advancement of farmworkers’ rights; created organic-based social media group)

• Educator (example: developed new ways to add organic food and agriculture to school curriculum)

• Mentor (example: developed process for passing along organic knowledge and skills to new farmers or land care professionals)

About Bill Duesing:

A pioneer in organic agriculture in New England, Bill Duesing has been an environmental educator, writer, artist, and lecturer for over four decades. After graduating from Yale University (1964), Duesing worked as a Cooperative Extension agent before turning to organic principles in the early 1970s, and from 1979 to 1983, he served as Extension Energy Agent for New Haven County, working with the University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension Service.

Working toward a socially just and environmentally sound future, Duesing has long emphasized sustainability and greater local food sufficiency. He has been instrumental in developing organic standards for gardening and land care and served as both founding president and later executive director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association Connecticut and president of the NOFA Interstate Council. He has also been a notable proponent of using simple solar technologies to address problems ranging from health care to pollution and has been involved in education to put theory into practice. Between 1983 and 1987, Duesing developed an innovative series of hands-on courses in food, energy, and agriculture for schools in New Haven and Bridgeport as part of the University of Connecticut High School in the Community curriculum development project.

During the 1990s, Duesing produced two radio shows, “Living on the Earth” (WSHU) and “The Politics of Food” (WPKN), and he is the author of Living on the Earth: Eclectic Essays for a Sustainable and Joyful Future (1993). His collection of essays Living on the Earth was published by Long River Press in 1993, and he has been a regular contributor to the Low Tech Page for plain: The Magazine of Life, Land, and Spirit. For many years, Bill and his wife Suzanne operated Old Solar Farm in Oxford, Connecticut.