Prairie View A&M University Training Grant- 2023 MSP

Commodities

Practices

Texas Sustainable Agriculture Advisory Committee meets annually to oversee the state program for training agricultural professionals in concepts of sustainable agriculture. The program involves a multifaceted effort that provides training opportunities for County Extension Agents, FSA personnel, NRCS personnel, producers, and other agricultural professionals and also incorporates concepts of sustainable agriculture in existing, state-wide training efforts. These training opportunities include conferences, field meetings and workshops held at various locations in Texas.

Another approach of the Texas Sustainable Agriculture Advisory Committee is to support travel of selected professionals to regional and national conferences on sustainable agriculture, with the intent of participants gaining knowledge and skills that they will share with other agricultural professionals in Texas.

Program evaluation will be accomplished with pre- and post-tests designed to measure knowledge gained by participating in educational programs. A subset of attendees will be mailed an additional survey instrument four to eight months after the training to determine if participants have adopted any of the sustainable concepts presented. The aim of the evaluation is to assess knowledge gained and to determine whether new knowledge will be applied in future programs for their clientele.

The program involves a multifaceted effort that provides training opportunities for County Extension Agents, FSA personnel, NRCS personnel, producers, and other agricultural professionals and also incorporates concepts of sustainable agriculture in existing, state-wide trainingefforts. These training opportunities includeconferences, field meetings and workshops held at various locations in Texas.

Projects designed to train Extension agents from Prairie View A&M and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and will meet agents requests for sustainable information to assist local farmers. Concepts of sustainable agriculture have been and will continue to be disseminated through new agents training, leadershiptraining, seminars, workshops, farm tours, publications, websites, manuals, videos and other events (e-mail, telephone contacts, farm visits, etc.).

Sustainable agriculture training for agents, agency personnel andmentor farmers should show impacts across Texas with advances in the areas of food and fiber production, environmental awareness andprotection, organic, IPMandalternate production methods, marketing, farmer cooperation and development of multi- disciplinary teams to reach common goals. Administrative success stories and awards should reflect these programs teaching sustainable practices.

Extension agents and other Extension personnel will indicate an increased knowledge of sustainable agriculture and sustainable production techniques by reporting contacts, outcomes and narratives regarding educational activities on monthly state- wide reports available to program coordinators in the form of contacts, subject material, narratives, evaluations and on-farm contacts or sustainable demonstration projects.