2007-2008 Grants Projects
2006-2007 Grants Projects
2005-2006 Grants Projects
2004-2005 Grants Projects
2003-2004 Grants Projects
2002-2003 Grants Projects
2001-2002 Grants Projects
2000-2001 Grants Projects
Other Grant Opportunities
The Cornell Small Farms Program is pleased to announce its 2005-6 grant awards for innovative small farm education. The grants program is overseen by Cornell's Small Farms Task Group, which includes farmers, non-governmental organizations, extension educators, and faculty. A team from the Cornell Small Farm Task Group (five small farm operators) reviewed 21 proposals seeking a total of $95,950. We awarded funds totaling about $23,500 to ten projects. The overall quality of the proposals was excellent, making the selection of projects to be funded extremely difficult.
Farmer-to-farmer learning is a key feature of many projects funded by the Small Farms grants program. Experienced farmers have served as teachers and mentors to other farmers in such projects. Farmer participation in planning and evaluating projects is also an important priority. Farmers initiate many projects with their ideas for educational programs and help their Extension partners get it going.
Through the CCE Grants Program for Innovative Small Farms Education, growing numbers of small-scale farmers are discovering that Cornell Cooperative Extension is a great resource for them. Many of the funded projects have attracted farmers who never, or rarely, used Extension in the past.
Funds for this program are provided by Helene Dillard, the Associate Dean for Extension at Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. For more information on specific grant projects contact the extension educator listed below. For more information about the CCE Grants Program for Innovative Small Farm Education or the Small Farms Program, contact Anu Rangarajan at (607) 255-1780 or ar47@cornell.edu, or visit our web site at www.smallfarms.cornell.edu.
Karen Baase, CCE Madison
kab21@cornell.edu
315-684-3001
A group of 8 small dairy farmers - including family members, and employees - in southern Madison County will meet once or twice a month to share information and explore milk quality management strategies that they use on their farms. Meetings will center on the farmers' own discussions as well as invited speakers/visitors e.g. veterinarians, milk inspectors, industry representatives, exemplar dairy farmers, etc. We will also demonstrate new technologies in milk quality management.
John Conway, PRO-DAIRY and SCNY Dairy and Field Crops Team (TCT)
jfc6@cornell.edu
607-547-2536
Frans Vokey, Dairy Extension Educator, Lewis County
fjv2@cornell.edu
315-376-5270
We will develop measuring procedure protocols and manual entry forms plus alternative simple spreadsheet, to convert raw data to a herd index of stall dimension needs. We will also develop a decision making spreadsheet that weighs cost of barn renovation including loss of stalls if increased stall width is warranted against potentially increased production, diminished losses due to injuries, and increased margin at culling due to higher percent of dairy sales relative to beef. We will conduct a series of winter daytime meetings centered on the decision making process of a Case Dairy (presented by the producer) and supporting tools used, and featuring Dr. Neil Anderson, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), renowned expert on Cow Comfort. Meeting sites will be in Binghamton, Cortland, Lowville and Watertown, and sites may be added for St. Lawrence, Franklin and Clinton counties depending on speaker availability for a second trip. Then we'll host a follow-up tour (a week following meeting series) highlighting farms who have successfully integrated some or many of the design parameters into their facilities, and we'll ;ook for opportunities (designed into meeting evaluation) to convene producer groups comprised of those moving forward through the decision making process. All meetings will be video (digital) recorded and made available to producers across NYS. These recordings will be packaged with others into a "tie-barn renovation tool kit" to be distributed in "expected needs" numbers to CCE offices across NYS.
Robert Hadad, Cornell Vegetable Program Specialist
rgh26@cornell.edu
716-433-8839 ext. 228
Edelgard Pavel, Cornell Fruit Specialist
ewp@cornell.edu
716-433-8839 ext.237
The project would create a networking forum for farmers to exchange ideas and
support for and with each other. Monthly gathering sessions would be held in
the Niagara CCE meeting room facility and run for 3-4 hours. A short program
on timely topics would be given by specialists, agriculture professionals, and
innovative farmers. Following this, there would be discussion and an open forum
on current problems and experiences shared by the attending farmers. Topics
will include production practices for fruits and vegetables, marketing, finances,
planning, value-added opportunities, food handling and safety.
A major facet of this project is getting farmers to begin to talk about their
operations and how they use cultural practices or conduct marketing. From these
discussions, mentors for the group will emerge and be encouraged to share their
knowledge and, in a few cases, farm visits to see first hand what the farmer
has tried or created. This mentoring will offer a wealth of information for
the whole group. Farmers have their stories to tell. In marketing, it is said
that the consumers want to know the stories of the farmer who has produced their
food. Other farmers now need to hear these stories as well in order to assist
them or if nothing else, to motivate and inspire them to move forward.
Molly Shaw, CCE Fruit and Vegetable Specialist, Southern Tier, NY
meh39@cornell.edu
607-687-4020
This project will involve hosting a winter small vegetable growers' meeting
in the Southern Tier of NY, with farmers invited to speak at the meeting. The
meeting will be held on one day at an easily accessible location, and topics
will be relevant to small scale-direct market vegetable farmers. Three topics
that will be addressed (among others) are irrigation and fertigation under plastic
mulch, understanding soil test results, high tunnel construction and management,
and understanding organic certification. These three topics have been suggested
directly by farmers in the Southern Tier or have been inferred to be issues
based on the number of questions I get through phone calls, e-mails, and direct
contacts.
Farmers will be paid to speak at this meeting, as well as have university or
extension speakers. Payments to farmers would be a stipend, as well as all traveling
expenses. A format that has worked well in the past is to have a university
speaker talk about a topic generally, and have one or more farmers share their
experiences related to the topic.
Additionally, it has been suggested by a local Tioga county farmer that I host
a series of winter meetings in the evenings, each meeting addressing a single
topic, with a time to network among farmers included (facilitated by coffee
and desserts!). At the main winter meeting I will ask the participating farmers
if they are interested in such a series, and will canvass the audience for topics
of interest to them. Thus the winter meeting will also be used as a time to
set priorities and make program plans.
Monika Roth
Extension Educator - CCE Tompkins
mr55@cornell.edu
607-272-2292
Jacob Schuelke, Farm Business Management, TCT Area Dairy Team
jes56@cornell.edu
607-272-2292
We propose to review and revise the publication "Getting Started in Farming
in New York State" based on feedback from the workshop held on November
13, 2004 where we used the publication as the outline for our workshop presentation.
A total of 65 individuals attended that workshop and provided feedback on the
content. We are offering the same workshop on December 3, 2005 and will again
seek feedback from attendees. Based on feedback from participants at the workshop,
we will revise the publication for final review and comment by sending it to
selected educators with experience working with beginning farmers (Joan Petzen,
Joe Walsh, and others).
We will change the booklet to fact sheet series. Individual chapters would have
titles and become stand-alone fact sheets that can be compiled into one publication.
This will make the publication more user-friendly so that if a caller has a
question pertaining to one subject, it would be easy to print the fact sheet
pertaining to the subject without having to forward the entire booklet. Another
reason for the fact sheet format is that some people felt there was too much
information to absorb as a new farmer. Our content will be changed to include
fact sheets more appropriate to beginning farmers and others that are for those
that are more established in their business.
Lael Gerhart, CCE Tompkins Buy Local Initiative
lsg8@cornell.edu
Jacob Schuelke, CCE Tompkins
jes56@cornell.edu
In this project we propose to assist the Full Plate Farm Collective in evaluating
opportunities to expand their CSA and to include and incorporate product from
other farms in their CSA sales.
The goal is to develop a viable business model for expansion of the farms' production
and marketing activities. A viable model would assess the following:
-the capacity of the farmers to expand,
-cost accounts for products each farmer grows for the CSA to ensure equity among
farmer's product contributions to the CSA,
-the economic implications of doubling the CSA membership,
-the economic implications of increasing home delivery,
-the logistics of offering products from other area farms to CSA members,
-development of a database for CSA members where they can order via a website,
-delivery logistics,
-staffing to coordinate the above and whether the increase in sales can pay
for staff,
-the costs and returns associated with expansion.
Jeff Miller, CCE Oneida
jm14@cornell.edu
315-736-3394 ext 120
Oneida County has approximately 30 commercial field crop producers. This group is under extreme financial pressure now, caught between skyrocketing input costs, trucking costs and low market prices for their crops. They need to take advantage of any opportunity to reduce their costs or increase the price they receive for their crops. Participating in a farmer to farmer group can help participants to learn from each other what is working and what is not. They can take an active part in identifying what they want to learn and with CCE's help bring in resource people with that knowledge to participate in group discussions. They can gain from potential collaborations, group marketing or input purchases. Our goal is for 10 of the 30 commercial field crop producers in Oneida County to participate in this farmer to farmer group. Five farmers who were a part of an IPM Tag group this past summer have already expressed an interest in being part of the group and are the impetus for writing this proposal.
Rebecca Hargraves
jrh45@cornell.edu
607-334-5841
The Farmer Mentor program will attempt to be a cost effective way to help new farmers entering the Chenango County farm community to gain the skills, knowledge and networking opportunities they need to make a successful transition to farming. Cost effectiveness comes from using all volunteer mentors to work with new farmers to increase their skills and knowledge. To achieve this overall goal the team members will work to find 15 successful farmers in Chenango County who would be willing to take the time to receive instruction on how to mentor new farmers. These farmers will work with extension educators and Cornell University Agricultural staff members on successful tools for mentoring new farmers. CCE Chenango's Agricultural Educator would work with the farmers on a weekly basis, develop program materials for use by the farming mentors and their eventual students, and to coordinate with speakers from Cornell University, USDA/NRCS RC&D and CADE who could address specific topics of interest. The farmers will then pass along their breadth of knowledge to new farmers.
A portion of grant funds will be used to pay salary expenses for a part time
assistant to prepare some of the materials used in the training process, as
well as for supplies, printing, communications and speakers on a range of subjects
relating to the mentor training process. Following their training period, the
Agricultural Educator will work to match up each farmer mentor with 1 to 2 new
farmers who will be receiving advice, materials and other training from the
mentors. The overall goal of the program is twofold - to develop a base of farmer
mentors who are ready, willing and able to pass on their knowledge to new farmers
in the area, and to successfully mentor up to 30 new farmers over the next two
years, increasing the overall productivity and viability of the Chenango County
farming community.