North Dakota SARE State Professional Development Program 2025-2026

Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: display, extension, mentoring, networking

The North Dakota SARE State Professional Development Program continues with 6 initiatives:

• Soil Health, Cover Crops, and Water Quality
• Local Agriculture Serving Diverse Communities (Local Foods)
• Livestock Grazing Lands and Ecosystems
• Regenerative and Organic Practices – production and consumption
• Paths to Sustainability with Farm labor (regional Initiative)
• Building Partnerships and Collaborations for a Sustainable Agriculture including 1994 Land Grant Colleges and Tribal Institutions  

These initiatives encompass a broad effort to increase knowledge and awareness of sustainable practices in County Extension agents and other agricultural professionals in North Dakota.

Professional Development Initiatives

1) Soil Health, Cover Crops, and Water Quality

The NDSU soil health team has created a variety of learning experiences for farmers to improve saline and sodic soils and advance the concept that improved soil health leads to improved water quality. This team addresses research and educational issues related to soil health and underlying water quality issues in North Dakota. ND SARE will cooperate with the team to support efforts that meet our goals and provide funds for professional development workshops and projects.

Outcomes will include increased knowledge about soil health and improving water quality including use of cover crops to enhance soil health, saline soil management and general soil health management aspects and effects on water quality. Tours of cover crop plantings and outreach meetings will be provided to visually share the effects of cover crops. Café or shop meetings will be used to expand the soil heath discussion among farmers to advance new ideas in soil health and water quality. Thirty farmers and 20 extension and NRCS personnel will be trained with a 30 % increase in knowledge of cover crop and soil health.

Evaluation of these outcomes will be via NCR SARE PDP evaluation forms to determine changes in program delivery and new collaborations.

2) Local Agriculture serving Diverse Communities (Local Foods)

The North Dakota Farmers Market and Growers Association meets annually and conducts outreach efforts to the public. The state co-coordinators will help facilitate these efforts, when appropriate.

Short-term outcomes will include increased knowledge of small farms and local foods. ND SARE will work to advance the Local Foods effort of 8 educators and 12 non-team educators. We anticipate increased delivery of local foods programming by the educators involved as well as collaborative efforts to find funding for additional research and outreach to support scaling up initiatives.

Increased partnership with the North Dakota Department of Agriculture and Local Foods program will enhance outreach and education in limited access areas. Annual conference support and speakers will be provided.

This initiative also includes a proactive approach to involve tribal college educators throughout the project. Tribal youth and college students will participate in gardening workshops and then grow food locally at home or school. They will expose 40 tribal members to opportunities for growing food locally.

Evaluation of these outcomes will be via NCR SARE PDP evaluation forms to determine changes in program delivery and any new collaboration.

3) Livestock Grazing Lands and Ecosystems

Livestock are an important part of North Dakota’s agriculture diversity. Grazing livestock have developed a unique synergy with North Dakota grasslands making more grass producing range and grasslands with improved habitat for wildlife.

Livestock are always included in discussion on improving soil health.  Through annual and perennial forage crops that are utilized by ruminant animals, regenerative aspects of soil health are explored.   Promoting livestock as an important aspect of healthy soils is a sustainable initiative. 

ND SARE will provide opportunities on developing collaborations between livestock owners and crop farmers involving livestock and soil health.  

Outcomes will include increased knowledge of livestock and improved soil health in North Dakota, educational support for raising livestock, developing collaboration for local use of markets for North Dakota raised meats, and development of trainings and activities showing benefits from integrating livestock with crops including organic production. Twenty farmers and 15 extension personnel will be trained with a 40% increase in knowledge of synergies from integrating crops and livestock. Cover crops and grazing mentoring networks will be used to advance sustainable production through synergies of crops and livestock.

The initiative will seek opportunities to provide education and experiences to tribal college educators and youth about sustainable livestock production and purveying.

The interaction of soil health, cover crops and livestock will be demonstrated through on-farm projects. Field days will be hosted by NDSU Extension agents to teach sustainability with an emphasis on soil and livestock.

Evaluation of these outcomes will be via NCR SARE PDP evaluations. Evaluations will also identify strengths and weaknesses in program delivery and collaborations.

4) Regenerative and Organic Practices – production and consumption

Regenerative and organic practices are a mainstay in productive long-term farming and ranching.  Awareness and encouragement of non-traditional farming practices will be supported through workshop and conference sponsorship.  Regenerative practices may have industry support and payments to farmers and ranchers. SARE programming will share information on support regenerative programs and opportunities for consumer support.  Organic production continues to have a demand market and consumers seek validation of healthy foods.  ND SARE will support organic practices through outreach education to farmers, purveyors and consumers conferences , news releases and industry partnerships.

Short-term outcomes will include increased knowledge of regenerative and organic issues and how to address these issues with sustainable practices.

Create awareness of regenerative principles in 100 to 200 farmers and ranchers.  Increase outreach to organic farmers and businesses in North Dakota.

5) Paths to Sustainability with Farm Labor (regional Initiative)

In order to participate in the NCR-SARE regional initiative for 2025-26, one of our state initiatives focus areas will be “Paths to Sustainability with Farm Labor.” Activities under this topic may include workshops, study tours, webinars, or other educational programming.

As part of the North Central regional initiative “Paths to sustainability with farm labor,” we will send a team of educators from our state to a regional NCR-SARE training on the initiative to be held in 2025 at a Midwest location to be determined.  State SARE funds will be used to provide travel support to the educators attending the training.  Following the training event, we will convene the participating educators from our state to further discuss and plan how we can provide professional development on this labor topic for our state.  We will also stay in communication with other states in the region working on this, including participating in further information exchange facilitated through the NCR-SARE PDP program.  Before the end of the two-year funding cycle, we will implement one or more state-based professional development programs related to the regional initiative topic for educators and farmers in our state. State SARE funds will be used to partially or fully cover the cost of delivering this professional development program in our state.

Program evaluation will use regionally developed evaluation tools. Local surveys and questionnaires will be used to measure local changes. Since this is a new initiative, The first year will be used for planning and regional in-service trainings.

Evaluation of these outcomes will be via NCR SARE PDP evaluation forms to determine changes in program delivery and new collaborations.

6) Building Partnership and Collaborations for a Sustainable Agriculture including 1994 Land Grant Colleges and Tribal Institutions

Advancing Sustainable Agriculture in 1994 Land Grant Colleges and Tribal Institutions

In 2019, ND SARE actively engaged tribal colleges in North Dakota. One ND SARE PDP Co-coordinator was designated to build relationships to enhance sustainable activities at North Dakota tribal reservations. While contacts and relationships with the tribal colleges were encouraging, turnover in tribal positions limited growth. ND SARE PDP will provide continued emphasis on outreach and program development.

North Dakota has five 1994 Land Grant institutions:

• Sitting Bull College, Standing Rock Reservation, Fort Yates, ND
• Cankdeska Cikana Community College, Spirit Lake Tribe, Fort Totten, ND
• United Tribes Technical College, Bismarck, ND
• Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, Three Affiliated Tribes, Fort Berthold, ND
• Turtle Mountain Community College, Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation, Belcourt, ND

Within the two-year plan of work, ND SARE PDP will provide SARE-funded travel scholarships and mini-grant support to further educational programming that increases agricultural sustainability.

North Central SARE grant funded programs will be promoted to each of the five 1994 Land Grant colleges to increase sustainable agriculture education and provide funding for tribal projects in sustainable agriculture.

Short-term outcomes will include increased knowledge of sustainable agriculture issues and how to address these issues with sustainable practices. Educators will include tribal entities in programming.

Increase profitability and knowledge of beginning farmers and ranchers. Program knowledge increase by 50% in 40 participants.

Evaluation of these outcomes will be via NCR SARE PDP evaluation forms to determine changes in program delivery and new collaborations.