Showing 1-20 of 27 results
Building Educator Confidence In Farm Law
Farm Commons, is working to build a solid legal backbone for farmers through empowered decision-making.
Internship Curriculum for Food Farmers in the North Central Region
With support from an NCR-SARE Farmer Rancher Grant, Betrand Farm developed 24 educational PowerPoint modules that can serve as an educational curriculum for farmers in the North Central Region to use to train interns in sustainable and profitable food-growing practices. The modules have been combined and uploaded here as a single PDF. The individual curriculum modules […]
Youth Coloring Sheet
This coloring sheet helps youth learn how sustainable producers can contribute to a healthy environment, make a good living, and grow a strong and healthy community of caring people.
Collaborating Around Food Literacy in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
Using a model known as land-based learning, students and their teachers collaborated with farmers or ranchers and MSU Extension educators to help implement sustainable, land-based farm solutions in Michigan's upper peninsula.
Traditional Fertilizer, Modern Applications for Iroquois White Corn
Farmers have long relied on liquid fish fertilizers because they are a source burn-free nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Traditional Native American growers were well aware of the benefits that decaying fish could bring to their soil; they buried fish under mounded soil and planted the 3 Sisters (corn, beans, and squash) directly on top of […]
Building Resilience and Flexibility into Midwest Organic Potato Production
When Maria Carter’s parents emigrated to America from the Netherlands in 1956, they brought along a knowledge of growing seed potatoes. Shortly after they put down roots in North Dakota, they put down tubers to start their new seed potato farm. They knew potato growers needed healthy seed potatoes, and they knew how to grow […]
Pioneer Agroforestry Farm Tour Video Series
A new video series on Midwest agroforestry is available from the Savanna Institute and North Central SARE. The six-part Pioneer Agroforestry Farm Tour Video Series features brief, detailed interviews with farmers who are advancing agroforestry in the Midwest.
Sustainable Agriculture Resources and Programs for K-12 Youth
This 38-page guide to sustainable agriculture-oriented educational opportunities for schoolchildren features more than 75 programs and curricula nationwide.
The American Kestrel: an IPM Friend for Michigan’s Fruit Growers
Cherry producers across the region are all too familiar with starlings, finches, voles, pocket gophers, and other animals that can wreak havoc on a cherry orchard by feeding on ripening fruit and developing roots or shoots. These little pests can be a big problem for Michigan’s cherry growers, who grow 75 percent of all tart cherries and 20 percent of sweet cherries in […]
Youth Hit the Road to Learn about Sustainable Livestock Production in Wisconsin
Jessie Oberlin is no stranger to the 4-H’ers in Jackson County, Wisconsin. Whether she’s providing coaching for the 4-H Livestock Judging Contest, setting up livestock production tours, or prepping youth for the 4-H Quiz Bowl, Oberlin has spent most of her adult life introducing rural young people to new livestock opportunities in a county known for cranberry and strawberry production. Oberlin grew up showing […]
Latino Producers Explore Sustainable Practices in Missouri
When Eleazar Gonzalez was a child, raising crops and making cheese on his family’s small farm in Mexico, he often pondered the career he would pursue. At the age of fifteen, he received a scholarship that allowed him to study high school agriculture and eventually pursue a bachelor’s degree in agronomy. This pivotal time allowed Gonzalez to start working with programs that […]
Tribal Educators Gather for Sustainable Agriculture Workshops
In 1987, just before the SARE program funded its first grant, the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) was founded to provide a unified effort to promote change in Indian agriculture for the benefit of American Indian people. For more than thirty years, the IAC has been conducting a range of programs designed to further the goal of improving American Indian […]
Minnesota Researchers Spill the Beans on Pulses
When the United Nations announced that 2016 would be the “International Year of Pulses,” Craig Sheaffer wasn’t surprised. An agronomist with a bent toward organics, Sheaffer researches perennial native and introduced legumes, grasses, and woody species at the University of Minnesota (U of MN). He was well aware that pulses (also known as grain legumes), such […]
Non-Profit Brings Conservation Strategies to Women Landowners
The percentage of women who are sole landowners is rising, and the 2012 Census of Agriculture revealed that women farmers now control seven percent of U.S. farmland and account for three percent of sales. Bridget Holcomb, Executive Director of the Women, Food & Agriculture Network (WFAN) has been particularly concerned with women landowners, whose numbers […]
Adjusting your Farm Plan to Avoid the Bumps in the Road
The Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota (SFA) supports the development and enhancement of sustainable farming systems through farmer-to-farmer networking, innovation, demonstration, and education. In 2012, SFA received a $165,294 NCR-SARE Research and Education grant to work on two programs, Adjust 2015 and the New Farm Reality Check™. Through paid surveys and interviews with beginning farmers, […]
Missouri Youth Gain Hands-On Experience in Sustainable Ag
NCR-SARE recognizes that youth programs are a way to introduce new and exciting farming and ranching options to youth, parents, and community members. The Lutie School District in Theodosia, Missouri, shares this perspective, where 4th graders measure plant growth in raised beds, kindergarteners have their own “kindergarten,” and middle school and high school agriculture classes take field trips to nearby sustainable farms. In […]
Partnership Grant Fact Sheet
The Partnership Grant program is intended to foster cooperation between agriculture professionals and small groups of farmers and ranchers to catalyze on-farm research, demonstration, and education activities related to sustainable agriculture.
Handbook for Agroforestry Planning and Design
The steps provided in the Handbook for Agroforestry Planning and Design will allow you to identify what agroforestry products can grow on your land, which of these products you can sell profitably, and how to develop basic business and marketing strategies.
Training Manual for Applied Agroforestry Practices
The Training Manual for Applied Agroforestry Practices helps to explain agroforestry practices and their applications. It is designed for natural resources professionals and landowners, and includes worksheets and exercises for use as an educational tool. Additionally, the manual is designed to assist in the decision process so that, when established or managed, the agroforestry practice is most effective at achieving the desired objectives.
Women Caring for the Land: Improving Conservation Outreach to Female Non-Operator Farmland Owners Curriculum Manual
With the help of an NCR-SARE Research and Education Grant and funding from other sources, WFAN developed an award winning curriculum called Women Caring for the LandSM (WCL), which is designed to serve female non-operator landowners who are interested in learning more about conservation and other land management topics. The materials are also appropriate to teach youth about sustainable agriculture through hands-on conservation activity lesson plans.