Urban Ag Extension

• Oct 21 and 22
  School Meals Procurement Training
  Ocean City, MD
  Not a UME program. Organized by MD Dept of Education
   
• Oct 24 and 31
  Smart Choice Health Insurance
  Online webinars
   
• Oct 28
  Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference
  Annapolis, MD
   
• Oct 26
  Women in Ag: Regulatory Decision Trees for Value-Added Foods
  Online webinar
   
• Oct 31
  Farm stress training for agricultural service providers
  Cockeysville, MD
   
• Nov 3
  Hydroponic how to
  Online
   
• Nov 5
  Urban Farmer Field School
  Baltimore, MD
   
• Nov 4-5
  Small Farms Conference
  Princess Anne, MD
  Scholarships available for registration and hotel costs if needed. See scholarship application link under “early bird registration.”
   
• Nov. 7
  Harvest & Postharvest Practices for Improving Apple Fruit Marketability
  Keedysville, MD
   
• Nov. 15 and Dec 13
  USDA webinars on improvements to insurance programs for small diversified farms
  Online
  Not a UME program, organized by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Risk Management Agency

See more Extension events on the website here.

Editor’s note from Neith:

At the Oct 12 UMD AGNR strategic initiatives event, I was overwhelmed by options for catching up on the latest research from my colleagues. I ended up going to see a panel organized by Dr. Stephanie Lansing, which had some fascinating updates on not only her lab’s innovative food waste biodigester research, but also updates on the work of the Maryland Food System Resiliency Council and recent new policies passed to promote food waste reduction and composting in Maryland. It was a very exciting, hopeful session. 

I’m hoping to find time for some of these updates at the 2023 Urban Farmer Winter Meeting (watch for a save the date soon!) but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this article from Lancaster Farming on Dr. Lansing and Dr. Amro Hassanein’s exciting research on utilizing food waste to create bioplastics to replace plastics made from petroleum. 

From Lancaster Farming, by Samantha Watters,

Stephanie Lansing, professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at the University of Maryland, is leading two new grants totaling $6 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop sustainable products like biofuels and bioplastics from food waste.

With about a third of the food produced in the U.S. not being consumed, food waste is a major concern for municipalities across the country. At the same time, products like plastics and traditional sources of fuel rely on fossil fuels, which are finite and costly to the environment.

With these two grants, Lansing is leading a consortium of scientists and industry partners to not only research innovative ways to use waste, but also make value-added products that will contribute to the sustainability of our economy and planet.

Read more…

 

Editor’s note from Neith: This article is not about urban agriculture, but I thought it would be of interest to some of you.
 
Article from UMD’s Maryland Today magazine, by Liam Farrell

Bordering a major East Coast port and braided with highways, Baltimore’s southern edge is a rushing two-way conduit for products constantly flowing in and the detritus of modern life continually flushing out. Much of this effluent is headed for the neighborhood of Curtis Bay, home to a trifecta of foul final destinations: a landfill, a medical waste facility and an animal rendering plant.

When Destiny Watford was growing up there more than a decade ago, adults urged her to get out as soon as possible. Brick rowhomes, churches, corner stores and school playgrounds share the air with a coal silo and fleets of diesel trucks, and Watford saw neighbors die of lung cancer and her mother struggle with asthma attacks.

The community already had some of the nation’s most polluted and deadly air, according to a collection of studies, when plans were announced in 2012 for a new trash incinerator—permitted to burn 4,000 tons a day and spew up to 1,240 pounds of lead and mercury annually—less than a mile from her high school. Anger overcoming her shy nature, then-16-year-old Watford co-founded an activist group and looked for allies in what became a four-year quest to stop it.

One important guide would be Sacoby Wilson, then an assistant professor in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health. An expert on environmental toxins and the sociopolitical structures that make them so abundant where people of color live, Wilson helped the teenagers make contacts with legal and environmental groups and get their hands on the data they needed to mount a challenge to an international corporation.

Read more…

Some grants are specific to non-profit organizations, but for-profit farmers are eligible for all three grants featured this month. 

1. NEW Small Acreage Cover Crop Financial Assistance Program
   
   The Maryland Department of Agriculture offers funding to help farmers adopt cover crops to build healthy soils and protect water quality. In 2022 they launched a pilot Small Acreage Cover Crop Program to enable more urban and small-scale farms to participate. 
   
   Farmers who plant 5 or fewer acres of a cover crop may be eligible for this new program. 
   
   Growers will be reimbursed based on paid receipts, up to $1,000 per farmer per growing season. 
   
   Learn more and apply here. 
    
2. Northeast SARE Farmer Grants
   
   Applicants are now open for Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education’s annual Farmer Grants. 
   
   These grants are designed for farmers who are using an innovative practice and want to share what they have learned with other farmers. 

The application deadline is Nov. 15. 

Learn more and apply here. 

See a longer list of grants relevant to farmers and gardeners here.