Strengthening Virginia’s SARE Professional Development Program

Commodities

Practices

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech and the School of Agriculture at Virginia State University continue to collaborate to strengthen Virginia's SARE State Professional Development Program and improve the quality of life for farmers, food businesses, and communities across the Commonwealth. Working with the Virginia SARE Advisory Committee and partner organizations, Virginia SARE delivers coordinated outreach, training, and professional development that highlights the full SARE program, including grant opportunities, educator capacity building, and farmer-focused educational resources. Building on prior years of primarily in-person professional development, the 2026-2027 program places increased emphasis on statewide awareness of SARE funding opportunities, expanded access to grant writing support, strengthened partnerships, and a coordinated communications strategy. Core programming areas will continue to include soil health, cover cropping, regenerative grazing, agroforestry, environmentally sound farming systems, diversified markets, integrated enterprises, urban agriculture, and farm transition, while also addressing emerging needs such as food system resiliency, agriculture and public health, arts and cultural approaches to food systems development, and new technologies relevant to sustainable agriculture. Virginia SARE will support agricultural educators, USDA professionals, mentor farmers, and producers through virtual and in-person trainings, conference participation, professional development scholarships, distribution of SARE publications, supported partner events, and targeted communications. Continued collaboration with Virginia State University's Small Farm Outreach Program will expand awareness of SARE programs and resources among farmers with limited access to land, capital, and technical assistance. During 2026-2027, Virginia SARE anticipates reaching at least 400 agricultural educators, mentor farmers, and professionals statewide.

Virginia Tech anticipates that outreach and training objectives for the current project year will build on prior efforts while additionally placing emphasis on increasing statewide awareness of the full SARE program, expanding access to grant opportunities, and strengthening coordinated communications. Continued investment is warranted due to sustained demand for grant-writing support, professional development, and SARE educational resources among farmers and agricultural educators across Virginia. Outreach and training 2025-2026 strategic objectives, developed through input from the SARE Advisory Group, include:

• Increase awareness of SARE funding opportunities and resources.
  Conduct a virtual grant application workshop, at least two virtual or in-person outreach presentations, and one in-person session at the Virginia Cooperative Extension Winter Conference, reaching at least 75 agricultural educators and mentor farmers statewide.
• Build agricultural educator capacity through targeted professional development.
  Provide scholarships or registration support for up to 15 agricultural educators and mentor farmers to attend priority conferences and trainings focused on SARE-aligned topics such as soil health, food system resiliency, agroforestry, urban agriculture, and emerging tools (e.g., AI in agriculture).
• Expand statewide distribution of SARE educational resources.
  Distribute online and hard copy SARE publications to VCE, NRCS, and SWCD offices and make hard copy materials available at conferences and outreach events.
• Strengthen partnerships through collaborative trainings.
  Support at least three partner-led workshops or trainings by offsetting registration fees, providing speaker honoraria, or offering educational materials to expand awareness of SARE programming, reaching at least 300 agricultural educators and mentor farmers.
• Implement a coordinated communications strategy.
  Increase visibility of SARE opportunities through conference tabling, social media, websites, and listserv outreach, ensuring consistent messaging across partner networks.

Funds will support virtual and in-person training, professional development scholarships, educational materials and publications, speaker honoraria, registration support for partner-led events, and a coordinated communications strategy to promote all components of the SARE program. Additionally, the Virginia SARE team will revise the state strategic plan with input from the SARE Advisory Committee.

Virginia SARE's audience includes Extension Agents (VCE), VSU's Small Farm Outreach Program educators, USDA-Farm Service Agency (FSA), USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and Soil and Water Conservation District personnel, non-government organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), mentor-farmer leaders, and farmers with limited access to ensure equal opportunity to sustainable agriculture practices and Southern Region SARE programs and resources.