Moving Regional Food Systems Toward Sustainability: An adaptive and interactive online course in local food system development for NC, SC, and VA Extension agents and other service providers

Project Overview

ES17-134
Project Type: Professional Development Program
Funds awarded in 2017: $79,985.00
Projected End Date: 09/30/2019
Grant Recipient: North Carolina State University
Region: Southern
State: North Carolina
Principal Investigator:
Dr. J. Dara Bloom
Email
NC State University

Information Products

Commodities

Not commodity specific

Practices

  • Education and Training: extension, networking, systems thinking
  • Sustainable Communities: community development, community planning, ethnic differences/cultural and demographic change, food hubs, leadership development, local and regional food systems, partnerships, public participation, social capital, social networks, values-based supply chains

    Proposal abstract:

    Local food represents one of the fastest growing segments of agriculture in the nation. This proposed project develops, pilots, evaluates and improves a new multi-state online, local food systems non-credit course for use in NC, VA and SC. In addition to enhancing the online course in NC, we propose to develop a blended training program in VA and SC that uses the online course as a base, and integrates site visits and participant dialogue to encourage face-to-face networking and collaboration.

    The project moves NC, SC and VA towards more community focused food systems by providing comprehensive training for existing and pre-service LFS practitioners.

    Project objectives from proposal:

    • To build the capacity of NC, VA and SC training provides;
    • To develop, evaluate and update the training programs and delivery models to serve as a regional model.
    Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or SARE.