Project Overview
Commodities
Practices
Proposal abstract:
This project will provide sustainable agriculture education to the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff Agriculture staff with a special emphasis on the Small Farm and Horticulture staff. The Small Farm and Horticulture staff will then provide sustainable agriculture training and education to vegetable and row crop producers in eastern and southwest Arkansas.
The sustainable agriculture education and training will target soil health education for farmers. To provide soil health education to the Small Farm and Horticulture staff the agents and Horticulture staff will attend conference, field day, and other educational meetings where soil health issues are addressed.
The Small Farm staff and Horticulture staff will provide the soil health education and information to the UAPB farm cliental. In addition, the Small Farm and Horticulture Staff will work with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to help Socially Disadvantaged Producers (SDPs) use the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) to obtain funding to install conservation practices such as cover crops, no-till, reduced-till, plastic mulch, drip-irrigation, etc.
The UAPB Small Farm staff and the Horticulture staff will also work with individuals in food deserts areas. These individuals will be assisted in developing sustainable community gardens for the local community. Afterwards, some of these individuals will began to grow vegetables as a income generating crop to improve their livelihood.
The staff will also provide a high-tunnel demonstration that will include sustainable agricultural practices. This demonstration will be conducted at UAPB on the main campus.
Project objectives from proposal:
The funds from the project will be used to educate Socially Disadvantaged Producers (SDPs) on soil health and conservation practices that promote soil health. The UAPB Small Farm and Horticulture staff will attend field days and conferences to obtain educational information on soil health. The staff will also work with the Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) to be updated on current and new conservation practices.
The UAPB staff will take all information from the educational meetings and NRCS and share it with SDPs in the targeted area. In addition, the UAPB staff will provide soil health educational sessions in crop production meetings conducted by the Small Farm Program.
The funds from the project will also be used to conduct demonstrations. Three demonstrations will be conducted. The demonstration will be a field cover crop demonstration, a high tunnel with sustainable agriculture practices, and a community garden with sustainable agriculture practices.
Therefore, the outreach and training objectives from 2023 will be continued in 2024. This is necessary because it will take several years of soil health education and demonstrations for most SDPs to adopt soil health principles and practices.