Friends of ENCA Farm Hosts First Denver Event

On a recent afternoon, organic farming supporters gathered at Vine Street Pub for a very special happy hour event. Friends of ENCA Farm, is a Washington State non-profit founded by MRLS Graduate (2010) Sherry Manning. After completing her degree last year, Sherry returned to the Philippines where she served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer from 2006-2008 to help her host family the Cosalan’s, establish a non-profit organization for their ancestral land and community environmental education space, ENCA Eco-Tourism and Organic Farm http://www.encaorganicfarm.com/.

Friends of ENCA Farm serves as the primary fundraising organization to support the programs of ENCA Farm in the Philippines and works to build partnerships with the local food and sustainable agriculture movement throughout the western United States. Thanks to event sponsorship by the ENRLP DU Law program and local organizations such as Waste Farmers (http://www.wastefarmers.com/) and Grow Local Colorado (http://www.growlocalcolorado.org/), the first Friends of ENCA Farm Denver Event was a huge success!

Event attendees where the first to see the newly launched Friends of ENCA Farm video that details the story of the Cosalan’s land rights battle against the Philippine Government to maintain their ancestral land title. Attendees also learned about the various programs offered at ENCA Farm; including hosting international volunteers through World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), ENCA Farm’s coffee growers cooperative, youth environmental education camp programs and a variety of organic farming seminars offered at ENCA Farm.

You can watch the video on you tube via this link:

Waste Farmers Founder and Executive Director John-Paul Maxfield also gave a compelling talk about the importance of supporting sustainable agriculture on the global scale. He discussed that we in the U.S. are often the largest contributors to the world environmental problems, but feel the least of these drastic negative effects. Event attendees left inspired to get involved in the local organic farming movement in Denver and the Philippines. All money raised at the event will help purchase organic seeds for farmers in the Philippines and continue to improve the physical infrastructure at ENCA Farm.

Friends of ENCA Farm would like to thank all that came to the event and a special thanks to the DU Law faculty, staff and students for their support and advocacy for ENCA Farm. Please feel free to contact Sherry directly, (sherry@encaorganicfarm.com) with further questions and to learn more about how you can get involved in the global local food movement by supporting ENCA Farm.

Photo caption (from left): Denver Law graduates Stephanie Metz, Kristy Disney, Sherry Manning, Andy Astuno, Joanna Williams.

Sherry Manning, 2010 Masters of Resource Law Studies Graduate, Returns to the Philippines to Work on Eco-Tourism Organic Farm

Sherry Manning, a University of Denver Sturm College of Law Masters in Resource Law Studies graduate, has returned to the Philippines where she lived from March 2006 to August 2008 while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Ms. Manning's return to the Philippines will involve her efforts to help the ENCA Eco-Tourism Organic Farm become an official non-profit organization in the country. During her earlier time in the Philippines, Ms. Manning helped establish the ENCA farm as a leading eco-tourism destination.

The ENCA farm is located in the Cordillera Mountain Range in Tublay Benguet. The ENCA farm, which is named after Enrique and Carmen Cosalan, has been in the Acop and Cosalan families since the 1800s. For many generations the farm served as a means of sustenance for the families who lived there. Four years ago the farm was opened as an eco-tourism site for the public.

Through Ms. Manning's efforts, the ENCA farm has been recognized in Washington state as a non-profit organization. Ms. Manning and others are hoping that the ENCA farm will become a U.S. recognized non-profit in the near future. In the meantime, Ms. Manning will work from now until mid-December on seeking non-profit status in the Philippines.

The non-profit designation is important as part of the ENCA farm's fund raising efforts, which are aimed at helping the farm's programs develop and "become more accessible to organic farmers through the Philippines," according to Ms. Manning.