Project Overview
Commodities
- Animal Products: meat
Practices
- Education and Training: demonstration, display, extension, farmer to farmer, mentoring, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research
- Farm Business Management: whole farm planning, budgets/cost and returns, marketing management, agricultural finance, market study
- Production Systems: integrated crop and livestock systems
- Sustainable Communities: urban/rural integration
Proposal summary:
The growing demand for high-quality produce in interior California provides opportunities for small-scale farmers to meet these demands. The goal for this Farmer/Rancher Grant is to promote sustainable enterprises during the area’s resurgence of local agriculture.
This project will fund the Sierra Nevada Small Farm Progress Days, which teaches producers economically viable, scale-appropriate and terrain-adapted techniques for sustainable farming and ranching. The fall 2008 session will focus on harvesting, marketing and soil management for foothill and mountain farms by touring a fruit orchard, vegetable farm, grass-fed meat ranch and a forest products operation. A tour will be held again in spring 2009 to cover topics on soil preparation, planting tools, irrigation tools, equipment and techniques. A farm fair will follow both the fall and spring tours.
Information from the demonstration sessions will be compiled and distributed in a binder and summary articles will be published in agricultural journals in the area. Other regions will be able to develop similar sessions by referencing their final report.