Project Overview
Commodities
Practices
Abstract:
North Carolina SARE (NC SARE) promotes and supports sustainable agriculture trainings for agriculture professionals. North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service (NCCES) educators are the primary focus group for trainings. NC SARE offers sustainable agriculture trainings through competitive travel scholarships. These travel scholarships benefit agriculture professionals at all levels as the educators may apply for the trainings that best suit their home county’s needs and resources, as well as their own level of expertise. This system serves the broad nature of sustainable agriculture, and applications for technical and educational training in any area of sustainable agriculture may be submitted. NC SARE will consider scholarship applications for both in-state and out-of-state trainings. Possible trainings may include, but are not limited to the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) Workshops, North Carolina Agriculture & Technical State University (NCA&TSU) Field Days, Mid-Atlantic Dairy Grazing Conference, Southeast Vegetable Growers Conference and the Missouri Grazing Conference. A major training supported by NC SARE is the annual Carolina Farm Stewardship Association’s Sustainable Agriculture Conference (CFSA SAC). The CFSA SAC offers a wide variety of sustainable agriculture workshops and presentations from technical classes to policy and advocacy sessions. This annual conference held either in North Carolina or South Carolina will also receive NC SARE support through honoraria for speakers and development of Extension training. NC SARE seeks to promote sustainable agriculture throughout the NCCES agriculture educators through the NC SARE Outstanding NCCES Educator award, in partnership with CFSA. NC SARE is a visible presence in NC sustainable agriculture by promoting events through its website events calendar, the NC Extension portal, Twitter, and through links from other sustainable agriculture websites.
Project objectives:
NC SARE main outreach objective is to promote and help provide sustainable agriculture trainings for Cooperative Extension agents, NRCS and Soil and Water personnel, appropriate non-profit personnel, and mentor farmers so that these agriculture teachers and leaders can pass on information and knowledge of sustainable agriculture practices to farmers, land owners, and the public. NC SARE will provide PD travel scholarships
- to at least 30 agents, personnel, and/or farmers to attend the CFSA SAC
- to 5-7 agents, personnel, and/or farmer to attend the SSAWG Conference
- to 5-10 agents, personnel, and/or farmers to attend CEFS or other training events
- to 1-5 agents to attend other sustainable agriculture trainings that become available in NC