Sustainable Ag Opportunity Groups
Greg Evanylo (EVANYLO@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU)
Sat, 24 Jul 93 13:41:35 EDT
The Virginia Sustainable Ag Conference (VSAC) Committee is currently attempting
to procure funding from the Southern Sustainable Ag Working Group (SSAWG) to
convene an opportunity workshop in association with our next annual VSAC,
slated for late Feb/early Mar 1994. We are attempting to solicit the coopera-
tion of several regional (MD, WV, NC, SC, GA, AL, TN, KY) researchers and
ag producers to speak, lead roundtable discussions, and collaborate with
Virginia researchers and ag producers on research projects that have been
identified by farmer focus groups as critical to the success of implementing
sustainable ag systems. The areas in which we hope to develop regional research
projects are: (1) biological and nontoxic home-manufactured pest controls; (2)
cover crops and mulches for weed control, soil quality, and habitat for benefi-
cials; and (3) effects of organic and chemical inputs on soil biology. All
research projects will address vegetable and/or fruit production. Our goal is
to bring in several out-of-state individuals to speak on their experiences on
the initial day of the VSAC, to facilitate roundtable discussions on the
second day of the VSAC, and to take part in opportunity workshops for research
collaboration on the third day. Each of the research area teams will comprise
about 6 individuals (2-3 researchers, 3-4 producers) who will generate specific
research needs and, hopefully, initiate the development of research projects
to be submitted to SARE in 1994 and/or other funding agencies. The projects
should have high producer involvement in both the development and implementa-
tion phases.
I am requesting that anyone who has interest in such an endeavor contact me
during the next 2-6 weeks. I will be out of my office during the last two
weeks in August.