The newsletters include stories about grants, awards, and funding, as well as international connections and faculty spotlights. The link is the CAS comprehensive list of 2015 Departmental newsletters:
http://agsci.oregonstate.edu/main/newsletters
Category Archives: Strengthening Impact Throughout Oregon and Beyond
OSU Supports Fast-Growing Local Meat Industry
Lauren Gwin, a food systems specialist with Extension’s Small Farms Program, helps ranchers assess economic viability and navigate regulations for small-scale meat production. Gwin co-founded the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network, which now connects more than 1,000 members. Gwin served as a technical liason to lawmakers and the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) concerning a poultry production bill, and wrote a guide on best practices for open-air poultry slaughtering. She also helped the ODA’s food safety division adopt federal regulations that make it easier for small-scale farmers to process poultry in licensed facilities.
http://oregonprogress.oregonstate.edu/summer-2015/getting-meat
Extension teaches landowners to be good stewards
Over 140 people in southern Oregon have completed the training
Oregon’s Rogue Valley is an attractive spot for newcomers looking to enjoy rural life. It’s also home to a large retired population, some of whom are passing their land to the next generation. These heirs and new residents, however, don’t necessarily have experience owning land.
With this in mind, the OSU Extension Service created the Land Steward Program. Offered in Jackson and Josephine counties, the six- to 10-week training teaches landowners how to create a healthy environment on their property. Participants tour other properties and see how landowners control weeds, care for their trees, enhance wildlife habitat, and safeguard their premises from wildfires. Graduates are required to spend 20 hours sharing their new knowledge with the public.
More than 140 people on about 5,000 acres of land have completed the program since it started in 2009. A survey of four years’ worth of participants found that 85 percent had implemented at least five projects that they planned in class.
To learn more, watch this video of how the program has helped one family in Central Point or read this story about them.
Source: Rhianna Simes, coordinator of the Land Steward Program
Bilingual outreach keeps agricultural businesses sanitary
Luisa Santamaria, a plant pathologist with OSU’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center, teaches plant disease prevention measures to local nursery workers. Since 2011, Santamaria has reached about 500 Spanish-speaking workers from 25 nurseries through a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Institute of Food and Agriculture. She is currently working in collaboration with OSU’s Professional and Continuing Education Program to create a certification that focuses on plant disease prevention. Her work is crucial to the preservation of Oregon’s largest agricultural commodity: the $745 million nursery industry, which produces 18% of the nation’s nursery crops.
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/bridges/bilingual-outreach-keeps-agricultural-businesses-sanitary
Students can earn OSU degree without leaving Klamath Falls
Students receive in-person support while pursuing online agricultural degree
Students in the close-knit community of Klamath Falls have only one local option for pursuing a four-year degree. Those who want more choices, have to leave home. Not everyone, however, can leave their families and jobs.
But now they can pursue their dreams thanks to a program that gives Klamath Community College graduates the chance to work toward an OSU online bachelor’s degree in agricultural sciences. OSU Open Campus launched the program in 2013. Students take classes online through OSU’s Ecampus program and also meet on the KCC campus and get face-to-face support from faculty at KCC and OSU’s Klamath Basin Research and Extension Center. They can customize their curriculum, emphasizing fields like animal science, crop and soil science or agricultural business management. Some students also intern at the center helping, for example, researchers with their work on potatoes, wheat and barley. So far, four students have completed internships there. Local Extension staff mentor all of the students.
Six students enrolled in the program the first year; enrollment jumped to nine the following year. Three graduated in 2014.
Sources: Keely Moxley, coordinator for OSU Open Campus in Klamath County; Willie Riggs, director of OSU’s Klamath Basin Research and Extension Center
OSU bridges the gap between agriculture and educators
More than 500 teachers have completed the weeklong program since 1989
Agriculture feeds Oregon’s residents and keeps many of them employed. But not everyone — especially the younger generation — knows about this sector’s important contibution to the state.
To bridge this knowledge gap, OSU helped create the Summer Ag Institute in 1989 to help teachers use agriculture as a context for teaching subjects like science, math, social studies and English. The week-long program is aimed at teachers in kindergarten through 12th grade with little or no agricultural background. The teachers earn graduate-level, continuing education credits from OSU.
Teachers have a choice of two sessions: one on either side of the Cascades. The eastside experience, based in Union, includes Columbia Basin wheat ranches, timber operations, seed farms and cattle ranches. The westside experience, based in Corvallis, showcases the Willamette Valley’s cornucopia of fruit, nuts, vegetables, wineries, grass seed and Christmas trees. Participants tour orchards, berry fields, dairies and wineries. They shear sheep, test soil and build hydroponics systems for their classrooms. They each stay overnight with a farm family, lending a hand in chores and building relationships.
Surveys have shown that the Summer Ag Institute has positively impacted teachers’ perceptions and knowledge of agriculture. As one participant said, “All the tours were so eye-opening. Everything dispelled myths I had held as true for a lifetime.”
Read more about the Summer Ag Institute in Oregon’s Agricultural Progress magazine.
Sources: Greg Thompson, head of the agricultural education and general agriculture department at OSU
original post: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/bridges/osu-bridges-gap-between-agriculture-and-educators
Aspiring urban farmers gain practical skills with OSU program
66 students have completed the Portland training since 2011
Some urbanites are choosing farming over office jobs, but not all of them have agricultural backgrounds. To educate them, the OSU Extension Service, in partnership with Multnomah County, trains these aspiring farmers with its seven-month Beginning Urban Farmer Apprenticeship program in Portland.
Through classes, hands-on training, field trips, online learning, stints at farmers markets and apprenticeships, students learn to produce vegetables, fruits, grains and cut flowers using sustainable and organic methods. They also learn to design landscapes and create a business and marketing plan for a farm. The curriculum is based on Extension’s “Growing Farms: Successful Whole Farm Management” workshop series.
Nearly 30 of the 66 graduates so far have continued in the field of agriculture. Alumni have started small-scale operations, contracted with OSU for small horticulture projects, landed a job at an organic farm, started a nonprofit farm at a high school, interned on farms and operated a small farm for restaurant sales.
Source: Weston Miller, horticulturist with the OSU Extension Service.
original post: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/bridges/aspiring-urban-farmers-gain-practical-skills-osu-program
OSU conference helps farmers get into agritourism
Farmers and policymakers discuss regulatory constraints and solutions
More Oregon farmers want to share their corn mazes, pumpkin patches and horseback rides with visitors to get a piece of the lucrative agritourism pie. Nationally, it’s a big business. The U.S. was home to 33,161 farms that earned about $704 million from agritourism in 2012.
So the OSU Extension Service organized the two-part Oregon Agritourism Summit to help farmers branch out. Nearly 160 people attended the first meeting on campus and learned about marketing, navigating regulations, reducing potential liabilities and creating a hospitable experience for visitors.
Three months later at the second meeting at OSU in 2013, policymakers, land-use planners and farmers discussed regulatory issues. They focused on lodging, food service, cross-county agritourism ventures and the use of farm buildings for agritourism businesses. Katy Coba, the director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, gave the keynote address.
As a result of OSU Extension’s educational efforts, Oregon legislators are considering a bill regarding limited liability for agritourism businesses in Oregon.
Sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service; OSU Extension Service small farms instructor Melissa Fery; USDA 2012 Census of Agriculture.
original post: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/bridges/osu-conference-helps-farmers-get-agritourism
OSU shares the benefits of gardening
The OSU Extension Service is reconnecting people with their food and landscapes. One way it does this is through its Master Gardener program, which offers courses on home horticulture in 28 of Oregon’s 36 counties as well as online. Graduates, known as Master Gardeners, are then expected to share their new knowledge with others by volunteering to answer questions via hotlines or teach at Extension offices, farmers markets, workshops and community gardens.
In 2013, there were more than 3,800 active Master Gardeners in Oregon who had nearly 221,900 interactions with the public. Their more than 206,800 hours of volunteer service were the equivalent of 101 full-time staff, or $4.4 million. Master Gardeners also gave food banks nearly 103,000 pounds of fresh produce harvested from community and demonstration gardens that they manage.
In Baker County, Master Gardeners offered a yearlong training in 2013 to 30 inmates at the Powder River Corrections Institute. Eight graduated and a third of those are now out of prison and working in the nursery or landscape business. That same year, Master Gardeners in Wasco county taught incarcerated youth to grow vegetables and flowers in a greenhouse.
In Clackamas County, Extension helps teach former juvenile offenders how to garden through the Green Corps-Fresh Start program. Teens grow fresh fruits and vegetables, share them with their families and food banks, and sell some of their produce at the Oregon City Farmers Market and use the money to pay restitution. In the process, they learn business and time management skills.
In Portland, OSU Extension provides technical support to dozens of community gardens. It also helps manage the Learning Gardens Laboratory, where it runs a program that teaches students where their food comes from and how to eat healthily.
In Deschutes County, Extension teaches the public to design landscapes that conserve water in Oregon’s high desert. One of its horticulturists co-wrote a 36-page booklet on the subject. Eight mayors in central Oregon funded the publication of 30,000 copies.
And in 27 counties across Oregon, young people have worked side-by-side with Extension staff to transform more than 130 plots of land into school gardens. Students get exercise; learn teamwork and gardening and vocational skills; practice writing by keeping planting journals; and use real-world math by counting seeds, measuring plots and determining soil depth for planting. They also learn about botany and entomology, and geography and history when they study the origins of fruits and vegetables and the planting customs in different cultures.
Sources: Gail Langellotto, statewide coordinator for the Master Gardener program; 2013 Annual Report of the OSU Master Gardener Program; OSU Extension horticulturist Amy Jo Detweiler; OSU Extension horticulturist Weston Miller; OSU’s School and Youth Gardens 2013 Report
Original post: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/bridges/osu-shares-benefits-gardening
Extension teaches Oregonians to raise honey bees
AgSci faculty have developed curricula for Extension’s new Oregon Master Beekeeper Program. Nearly 500 people have enrolled since 2012, learning to harvest honey, treat for diseases, and help colonies survive the winter. The total value of colonies maintained by participants is estimated to reach $7 million in the next 5 years.