Helping Agricultural Professionals and Mentoring Farmers to Train Previously Unreached Farmers about Sustainable Agriculture

For this project, we will develop curricula and educational modules about sustainable agriculture. The training curricula and modules will be developed from research-based information and/or existing models and used to train Extension agents, local NRCS and state agricultural professionals, and mentor farmers in a 'train-the-trainer' format. The goals are to develop the sustainable agriculture curricula and modules, train agricultural professionals and mentor farmers to use these materials, and to pass the information to the targeted farmer groups through county meetings, one-on-one meetings, and multiple additional training venues. The targeted end users are new and beginning farmers, small-scale, limited-resource, and socially disadvantaged farmers, and farmers and their families who are low literacy and/or have limited English proficiency (LEP). Emphasis will be placed on the training needs of 1890 and 1862 Extension professionals and mentor farmers who work with beginning, Appalachian, women, low literacy, small-scale, socially disadvantaged, and underserved farmers. The modules will include training programs on best management practices, sustainable agriculture practices, organic production systems, soils, urban agriculture systems and opportunities, livestock production, pastured poultry production, and horticultural crops that are suitable for new, beginning, socially disadvantaged, and limited-resource farmers. Additionally, a limited number of production systems that were successfully used by farmers and farm families in the past will be tested and developed into educational modules if they appear to be sound sustainable agriculture practices.