Source: National Drought Mitigation Center, Tonya Haigh

A SARE-supported winter/spring webinar series will provide drought planning information and tools to advisors seeking to help Great Plains ranchers better prepare for and respond to drought. The webinars are scheduled from January through May 2013, on the last Wednesday of each month.

“What happens from January through May will be really critical,” said Lynn Myers, a Sandhills rancher who will be one of the January presenters. “For example, it could determine whether there are cattle in the western Sandhills in 2013.”

Each one-hour...

Jennifer Grabner is co-founder of the Southern Boone (County) Learning Garden which is a ½ acre garden located on the Southern Boone R-1 School District campus. In 2007, Grabner received an NCR-SARE Farmer Rancher Grant to grow and market a winter CSA in at her family farm in Central Missouri, and she spoke about the Southern Boone Learning Garden at the 2012 Missouri Farmers Forum. The Southern Boone Learning Garden  received a $475,000 five-year grant from the Missouri Foundation for Health to expand its operations and form the Southern Boone Healthy Community Partnership. ...

This story features Jon and Jamie Yoachim, a beginning farming couple who enrolled in Community CROPS's SARE-supported Growing Farmers Training Program. Through the project, Community CROPS provides training and technical assistance to limited resource farmers in Southeast Nebraska to grow and sell sustainable agricultural products.

----------------------

Source: National Young Farmers' Coalition

Jon and Jamie Yoachim live on a 160 acre, off-grid, diversified farm near Unadilla, NE that they call Open Sky Farm. Although not certified organic, Open Sky Farm uses organic practices as part of their...

The Traverse Bay Economic Development Corporation and Michigan Good Food Charter are working to develop local food production and distribution systems to source 20% of the food for the Traverse City area within a 100-mile radius by 2020. The plan also states the meat portion of supply should be pasture-based. According to Jason Rowntree, Assistant Professor, Beef Cattle and Forage Utilization at Michigan State University, to achieve this pasture-based livestock supply, producer and culinary education must be greatly enhanced. This story features Rowntree's NCR-SARE Research and Education project,...

This Columbia Daily Tribune article features NCR-SARE's Chapter 3 Regional Coordinator and Director of Professional Development Programs, Rob Myers, who recently spoke about pseudograins like amaranth, buckwheat, millet and quinoa at during a seminar at the University of Missouri.

-----------------------

Source: Columbia Daily Tribune, Jan Wiese-Fales

Move over wheat, there are some new grains in town. Members of this group of plant seeds, more specifically pseudograins, include amaranth, buckwheat, millet and quinoa (pronounced keen-wah). They are cautiously inching their...

Source: Adair County MU Extension Center, by Bruce Lane

Montgomery County farmer Harry Cope will talk about how he “moves the feedlot from the barn to the field” at the Missouri Livestock Symposium, Dec. 7-8 at Kirksville Middle School. University of Missouri Extension sponsors the free event.

Cope received an USDA NCR-SARE Farmer Rancher grant to research skip-row planting techniques with cover crops for sustainable growing. He has been experimenting with interplanting soybeans with corn to provide feed for his cattle and sheep operation on his Missouri Century Farm in Truxton. The crop...

The First International Symposium on Elderberry (Sambucus) will be held in Columbia, Missouri, USA, June 9–14, 2013. 

Held in conjunction with University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry Professor, Michael Gold's, NCR-SARE Research and Education grant, it will be the world’s first gathering of international scientists from multiple disciplines studying all aspects of the elderberry plant and fruit, and its use as a food and dietary supplement. Horticulturists, botanists, biochemists, food scientists, economists, and others will gather in Missouri during peak...

A series of ten webinars is planned for this winter starting with a December 4^th webinar.

This series of webinars is open to the public but pre-registration is required. If you don’t have access to internet, check under the descriptions below to see if your local University Extension office is hosting it. The topics covered include crop operations, dairy, swine/poultry housing, greenhouses, grain drying, lighting and irrigation. The series will start with a presentation giving an overview of world, US and local energy use and how we might reduce our need from a macro...

The 2012 Sioux Falls Organic Agriculture Conference is scheduled for December 3rd & 4th at the Ramkota Hotel in Sioux Falls, SD. 

Topics that will be addressed are diverse and range from Biological Control and Pasture Management to Vegetable Production.

Speakers include: 

• Joshua Dukart, ND Farmer and Rancher
• Laura Edwards, SDSU Climate Specialist 
• Dale Mutch, Michigan State Agronomist 
• Chris Bruening, UNL Associate Professor

All are welcome to this conference. This is a public event for those currently producing organically, those...

Celebrate the 20th anniversary the largest annual small farm trade show in the United States with dozens of SARE grant recipients plus staff from the SARE program at the National Small Farm Trade Show & Conference(tm). This year, the Conference takes place on Thursday, November 1st through Saturday, November 3rd, 2012, in Columbia, Missouri, at the Central Missouri Event Center (former Boone County Fairgrounds).

Do you want to farm or ranch while protecting the environment, making a profit, and benefiting your community? More than 25 Farmers Forum talks featuring grants recipients from...