 While sustainable living is a lifestyle that tries to reduce the amount of earth's resources we use, over the weekend a sustainable living fair was held in Pine River to help people get back to the basics. Our Anthony Scott has more. Whether it's making your own coffee or learning how to raise your own chickens, people from Central Minnesota were learning many ways they can better their lives and live a sustainable lifestyle at the back to basics sustainable living fair. While sustainable living as we talk about it, it's essentially that we want to be better prepared to deal with whatever comes. And to be better prepared in an environmentally friendly fashion. At the fair there were nearly 50 different workshops helping people achieve a sustainable lifestyle. The topics that are covered today are so broad from how to keep chickens to how to turn t-shirts into a quilt. There's numerous ways that you can help the environment and live a sustainable lifestyle. Anything from the soap that you use to the food that you eat can make a difference. One of the most key things is to use natural soap instead of an imposter which is sodium loyal sulfate. It cleans by corrosion, creates acidic soil and promote it as natural but actually very harmful to the waterways. People also learned about a more modern way to farm with hydroponics. And sustainable use a lot less water, use 70 to 90 percent less water in hydroponics. It's cleaner and you get faster growth. Hydroponics could be the future of farming but the events keynote speaker Kent Solberg is trying to save traditional farming by talking about the importance of soil health. Farmers understand the soil is the basis of their business, it's the basis of their livelihood. And I think we've walked away a little bit from that with some of the industrial farming model. This is bringing it back full circle. If we have healthy soil, we have healthy plants, if we have healthy plants, we have healthy livestock, if we have healthy plants and livestock, we have healthy people. And that's absolutely huge. The Back to Basics Fair achieved its goal leaving people with many new tips to live a cleaner and more sustainable lifestyle. Reporting from Pine River, Anthony Scott, Lakeland News. Lake Dancing Turtle spends most of its time educating children on living a sustainable lifestyle and the organization plans to return for its 14th Back to Basics Fair next year. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.