Committee Activities
Major Initiatives
Asset-Based
Community Development
Partners
|
Hale Lake
Grayson County, VA
Grayson County, VA
Winter of 2010
|
Matthews Foundation Funds
LandCare-Tech Project
The Claire B. and James M. Matthews Foundation has awarded $47,080 per year for five years to Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture & Life Sciences and Cooperative Extension. This grant will fund an experiment in whole-farm planning in Grayson County. Danny Boyer, local farmer and President of Grayson LandCare, is the Principal Investigator working with three farms in Spring Valley. Virginia Tech will offer assessment and planning expertise and measurement of results.
Whole farm planning, first developed in Australia through the LandCare movement, enables farmers to balance farm profitability, community benefits, and environmental health. With the support of agriculture and forestry specialists, farmers and other landowners learn to integrate their management approaches recognizing their financial, community, and environmental goals. Given needs of their families (health, education, retirement), existing farm resources are evaluated – soils, water, lay of the land, livestock, buildings, equipment, labor availability, etc. – to determine options given the availability of markets, technical advice, investment capital, collaborative community ventures, e.g., Grayson Natural Foods, and other resources and services. From this evaluation, a farm plan is developed. At this stage, it becomes possible to identify the missing elements in what the farmer would like to achieve on the farm. Focusing on the farmers, people from Tech Cooperative Extension and the Colleges of Natural Resources & Environment and of Agriculture & Life Sciences, Farm Bureau, and the Virginia Departments of Agriculture & Consumer Services and of Forestry supporting the whole farm planning effort work together to create and implement plans that will improve farm incomes, protect water supplies, and contribute to a healthy community and environment. As plans are put into action, progress is periodically monitored to adapt the plan to changing circumstances, both on the farm. in markets, and with collaborating neighbors and other partners.
From the broader landscape and watershed perspective, whole farm planning is sensitive to the holdings of individual farmers and other land owners and the flows of energy, water, wildlife, information, capital, etc. From the perspectives of the community, universities, and other cooperating agencies and organizations interested in environmental services, endangered species, stream quality, etc., each individual farm can be located in relation to these flows. Management regimes can be designed to take financial advantage of specific locations while protecting environmental services and native biodiversity. This requires landscape and watershed evaluation for the design and later for the evaluation of the whole farm planning effort.
|
"With appreciation of our past and awareness of our present, we can create a safe, sane future."
© Grayson LandCare - PO Box 373 - Independence, VA 24348 - (276) 238-7073
Website: ThistleRock Support Solutions
thistlerock.com |
|
Announcements
Articles
Jerry Moles, Ph.D.
Society of
American Foresters
The City of Littleton,
Colorado
|
|
