NSAC Archives for the 'Notes from the Field' Category
Rural Coalition’s National Rural Gathering
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
From June 22 through 26, Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural held its National Rural Gathering: Water, Land, Energy, and Food in Shawnee and Wewoka, Oklahoma. Located in the heart of the Seminole Nation, better supporting socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers was the major focus of the gathering. NSAC works with the Rural Coalition to advocate for Read the Rest…
Oklahoma’s Sustainable Agriculture
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
Last month, NSAC Policy Associate Helen Dombalis traveled to Oklahoma where she explored the state’s many sustainable agriculture endeavors. Policy Advocacy and Research: GIPSA, Conservation, and Beyond – Yukon and Oklahoma City Helen was joined by sustainable agriculture advocate and farmer Kathy Moore of Anichini-Moore Ranch & Farm and co-founder of the Oklahoma Composting Council. Read the Rest…
NSAC Announces Strategic Initiative Grant Award Winners
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is very excited to announce a new round of Strategic Initiative Grant (SIG) awards that will build our coalition’s grassroots strength for the 2012 Agriculture Appropriations and Farm Bill Campaigns. NSAC thinks the best way to achieve long-term food and farm policy change is to build the capacity of its Read the Rest…
June ERS Reports: Opportunities & Constraints to Local and Alternative Production Systems
Friday, June 25th, 2010
This June the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) published reports identifying the opportunities and constraints facing both local food supply chains and grass-fed livestock production systems. In response to the exploding demand for local foods the ERS published, “Comparing the Size, Structure and Performance of Local and Mainstream Food Supply Chains.” The report looks at Read the Rest…
Help for Farmers in Accessing CSP
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Thirty more days remain before the June 11th deadline for applications to the 2010 round of the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). A number of NSAC member groups have resources to help producers sign up for CSP (with more to follow soon): ATTRA recently posted an updated step-by-step guide to the CSP application process to their Read the Rest…
Anti-CAFO Activist Wins Goldman Environmental Prize
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
NSAC offers heartfelt congratulations to Lynn Henning, a southern Michigan farmer who has been awarded the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize for U.S. grassroots environmental activism. The Prize is recognition of Lynn’s unstinting work in exposing the impacts of pollution from large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), especially mega-dairies, in her southern Michigan community and across Read the Rest…
Op-Ed in SF Chronicle urges investment in beginning farmers
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
We are excited to share this op-ed by beginning farmer, Rebecca King, who participated in the NSAC beginning farmer fly-in earlier this month. The article addresses the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Individual Development Account program, which would provide matched savings accounts and financial training to beginning farmers to help them get started. Click here for Read the Rest…
Clean Water Network’s “March Madness” DC Gathering
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
The Clean Water Network, a coalition of over 1,000 organizations working together to protect the nation’s waters, held a “March Madness” fly-in in Washington D.C. on March 14-16. NSAC and many of our member organizations are Network members. Key fly-in events had an agricultural focus. A congressional briefing on March 15, entitled “The Mississippi – Read the Rest…
10 Days of Sustainable Ag Advocacy: An Intern’s Perspective
Monday, March 15th, 2010
by Kara Slaughter, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute “With reference to individual or national welfare, agriculture is of primary importance.” -George Washington So reads one of the three quotations at the top of the stone edifice at the U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters in Washington, D.C. Part of what prompted me to quit my “real job” Read the Rest…
Individual Development Accounts to support Beginning Farmers and Ranchers
Friday, March 12th, 2010
Last week’s Drake Forum on America’s New Farmers addressed a myriad of opportunities and challenges that face the new generation of farmers and ranchers: big, small, and mid-sized, urban and rural, all across the country. In particular, access to land, access to capital, new market development, and education and training, particularly financial education, surfaced again Read the Rest…
