Project Overview
Commodities
- Agronomic: hemp, soybeans
- Fruits: melons
- Vegetables: beans, cucurbits, sweet potatoes, turnips
- Animals: goats
Practices
- Animal Production: grazing - rotational, mineral supplements, pasture fertility
- Crop Production: cover crops, crop rotation, fertilizers, forestry, high tunnels or hoop houses, irrigation, no-till, varieties and cultivars
- Education and Training: workshop
- Farm Business Management: budgets/cost and returns, business planning, financial management, risk management
- Pest Management: biological control, chemical control, cultural control, economic threshold, field monitoring/scouting, integrated pest management, mulching - plastic, prevention
- Sustainable Communities: local and regional food systems, partnerships, urban agriculture
Abstract:
The UAPB SARE Program will provide sustainable agriculture training to UAPB Extension associates, program aides, mentor farmers, and CBOs. The UAPB Staff is located in eastern and southwest Arkansas therefore farmers in these areas will received training from the UAPB Staff. Training emphasis will be on improving soil health for row crops, vegetable crops, and pastures. Trainees in eastern Arkansas will work primarily with row crops and vegetable crops, while trainees in southwest Arkansas will work primarily with pastures and vegetable crops.
UAPB will partners with the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to provide the trainees with information on NRCS conservation programs. These programs provide financial assistance to help producers install cover crops and other sustainable agriculture practices on their farms and ranches. Trainees will provide this information to participants along with information on different cover crops that are recommended by the Cooperative Extension Service. In addition, trainees will use soil compaction testers to help participants understand the need to break plow pans with cover crops.
Trainees will be educated on the benefit of rotational grazing for livestock producers. The trainees will also provide this information to livestock producers to help them improve their soils and their operation.
Project objectives:
The objectives of this project are:
To teach and train the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff (UAPB) Extension associates, program aides, mentor farmers, and community-based organization (CBO) agents, on sustainable agriculture practices with an emphasis on improving soil health for row and vegetable crop producers.
To teach and train UAPB Extension associates, program aides, mentor farmers, and CBO agents, on sustainable agriculture practices with an emphasis on practicing rotational grazing to improve soil health.