Virginia's 2021 - 2022 MSA - State Program Assistant for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education

Commodities

Practices

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech and the School of Agriculture at Virginia State University are strongly committed to the SARE Professional Development Program.  Virginia Tech and Virginia State University, along with SARE Advisory Committee partner organizations, continue to host and sponsor professional development workshops and programs each year.  These professional development workshops and programs build knowledge and educational capacity to strengthen the implementation of sustainable farming and land care practices across Virginia, especially in the areas of ecological soil management, cover cropping, community food systems, grassland agriculture, and overall market diversification for meat, milk, vegetable, and fruit producers.  There continues to be strong interest in local and regionalized market opportunities and farm-to-fork value chain connections to consumers and intermediated marketing channels. Virginia Cooperative Extension, through our statewide SARE initiatives, organizational partnerships, and professional development programming, seeks to serve all of agriculture and fully integrate sustainable farming practices that emphasize the community, economic and ecological components of sustainability and viability throughout the food and agricultural system. We continue to provide the most current and best scientific information and research so that farmers, farming communities, and the general population can meet their individual and community objectives for sustainability and resilience.

The impacts and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have affected our professional development programming objectives and approach to training. Where possible and when self-distancing restrictions are eased, we aim to: 1) annually conduct online and face-to-face pieces of training regarding sustainable agricultural practices and Southern Region SARE educational and grant programs on a statewide basis and in conjunction with other planned and existing training programs to reach 80 Extension Agents (VCE), 24 Farm Service Agency (FSA), 20 Farm Credit system, 75 USDA- Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), and 50 Soil and Water Conservation District personnel; 2) conduct online train-the-trainer webinars and workshops to reach at least 480 persons including farmer, landowners, farming associations, state government agency personnel, county government personnel, non-government organizations (NGO’s) and community-based organizations (CBOs), including at least 75 underserved limited resource farmers, landowners, and community leaders, including African‐Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, women, and persons who have limited access to land, labor, and capital regarding sustainable agriculture practices and Southern Region SARE programs and resources.

Virginia SARE will work closely with VSU’s Small Farm Outreach Program to conduct and achieve these objectives. A major effort will be to improve online video resources with new video content and editing existing professional development content to enhance usage and accessibility. Additionally, Virginia SARE will provide printed materials and resource books for USDA and Extension professionals and farmer-mentor leaders to build their individual and organizational resource capacity.