CENTER FOR URBAN AGRICULTURE, ASHEVILLE (CUAA)™

The Sustainable Community Outreach Extension is made available for anyone seeking help to foster innovative enterprises in agriculture and forestry in the United States. Specifically, the extension addresses program resources in community development; sustainable land management; and value-added and diversified agriculture and forestry. Thus, it can help farmers, entrepreneurs, community developers, conservationists, and many other individuals, as well as private and public organizations, both for-profit and not-for-profit.

Increasing numbers of farmers, foresters, and other landowners seek to adopt resource production practices that are both environmentally and economically sound. For example, many farmers want to reduce their use of pesticides, protect their soil, or improve habitat for wildlife, while maintaining or increasing the profitability of their land. This community outreach extension offers landowners help in pursuing a wide variety of land management strategies that combine environmental and economic concerns.

These strategies include sustainable forestry practices; intensive rotational grazing of livestock; soil conservation structures; organic or biodynamic farming systems; Integrated Pest Management (IPM); diversified crops and crop rotations; farmland protection, wetland and other habitat restoration; and many other practices. This outreach includes numerous programs that help landowners get information, funding, technical assistance and other resources to support such land management changes.

Many entrepreneurs seek to add value to agricultural and forestry resources. Because earnings in extractive industries (for example, agricultural production and timber harvesting) are generally low and highly volatile, many communities seek to build economic and environmental sustainability by adding value to natural resources through processing, packaging, marketing, distributing the products themselves, or by producing their goods with methods that gain market premiums.

Creating value-added jobs can improve the diversity of the local economy, increase local incomes, capture higher profits locally, and use local natural resources more efficiently and sustainably. This outreach describes many programs offering financial, technical, marketing, and other assistance for such enterprises.

Both rural and urban communities suffer from the drain of physical and economic resources. Many are concerned about job creation, increasing social stability and raising the standard of living of their citizens. For all communities, these needs translate into a broad array of initiatives, from incubators and others means of spawning new businesses, to training programs, job creation, market development, infrastructure improvements and improved access to nutritious foods in local communities. Localities can use this community outreach to identify forms of federal economic and technical assistance most appropriate to their needs, seek additional assistance & training.

• A grant of $4,935 was awarded for an organic tomato production and marketing manual. This producer project built upon a previous New Jersey Agriculture Department and NOFA New Jersey initiative that successfully developed uniform packaging systems and established a market for organic tomatoes.
• A producer was awarded $1,304 to expand direct sales of sustainably produced beef in the Harrisburg, PA, area. Customers were also given the opportunity to visit the farm.
• Montana researchers seeking alternatives to manage two crop-damaging insects—the wheat stem sawfly and the alfalfa weevil— have successfully introduced managed sheep grazing to knock back pests. With a SARE grant, researchers found that grazing sheep on crop residues after fall harvest disrupts the insects' lifestyles. Adding sheep brings multiple benefits to crop producers. By suppressing insects, sheep save farmers the costs of control measures such as burning, tillage, and insecticides. Sheep also crimp weed populations, which reduces costly tillage or herbicides during fallow management. Finally, sheep feed on low-cost crop residues and do their work without compacting the soil.
• With a SARE professional development grant, a Nevada educator oversaw development of a wide-reaching curriculum for agricultural educators focusing on growing plants and animals on small properties in environmentally sensitive areas. The curriculum, dubbed "Living on the Land: Teaching Small Acreage Owners to Conserve Their Natural Resources" (co-developed with extension educators in California, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana), covers the basics of goal-setting, soils, water, vegetation, and animals. It also answers such questions as how to maintain healthy pastures and protect household drinking water.