Connecting People with their Food
Farmers Market Moms project assists families in feeding themselves through gardening and purchasing locally raised food at area farmers’ markets. The project also assists families who wish to become vendors at farmers’ markets.
The project provides training, information, educational materials and consulting to families, groups and markets interested in producing food for their families and their neighbors.
It is funded in part by a USDA Agricultural Marketing Service Farmers’ Market Promotion Program (FMPP) Grant and other partners.
The project is administered by the Northeast Nebraska Resource Conservation and Development Council (RC&D) in Plainview, NE. Sandy Patton serves as the project director.
For more information, contact Sandy Patton, Northeast Nebraska RC&D, 702 E. Park Ave., Plainview, NE 68769 or call 402-586-4866.
Demmel Farm Tour
August 25th. Near Grant, Nebraska. Beginning at 1:30 pm. This is a tour featuring organic crop farming with cover crops and also grazing livestock by Scott Hanson. The agenda will include the following: Cover crop oats and weed suppression; Cover crops of peas & oats mix in addition to radish, and clover; Seed pest issues in corn and sunflowers; Value of strip till to dry land corn; New crops of spring barley and feed peas for crop rotation; Equipment; compost spreader, strip till, cultivator, planter; Use of compost and variable rate applications; Tissue testing for crop monitoring and fertility; Cattle grazing for several years; weed shifts and reduction in lambsquarter; Intensive grazing results of pastures. Sponsors of the tour include High Plains OCIA, NRCS and Wyatt Ag Ventures. Directions to farm: from Ogallala, 10 miles south on hiway 61 to Road 769 and 1/2 mile west. Dennis Demmel, 308-352-4078, cell 352-6138
Pollinator Conservation Planning Short Course in Nebraska
August 23, 2011. Ithaca, Nebraska. This day-long short course will equip conservationists, land managers, farm educators, and agricultural professionals with the latest science-based approaches to increasing crop security and reversing the trend of pollinator decline, especially in heavily managed agricultural landscapes. http://www.xerces.org/events/
World Kitchen Garden Day
August 28, 2011. Kitchen Garden Day is an annual, decentralized celebration of food produced on a human-scale. It is recognized each year on the 4th Sunday of August. It is an opportunity for people around the world to gather in their gardens with friends, family, and members of their local community to celebrate the multiple pleasures and benefits of home-grown, hand-made foods. http://kitchengardeners.org/world-kitchen-garden-day
Farm Estate, Transition & Enterprise Planning
The Farm and Ranch Project of Legal Aid of Nebraska, together with the Risk Management Agency of the USDA, Nebraska Department of Agriculture’s Farm Mediation program, and the University of Nebraska -Lincoln Extension (Holt County) will host a workshop on Farm Estate, Transition and Enterprise Planning. The workshop will be held in O’Neill at the Extension Office, on August 25, 2011. There is no charge for the workshop. For registration & questions call the Rural Response Hotline at 1-800-464-0258. Topics include: Farm transition and business succession planning: goals, communication, financial viability, the transfer process, family dynamics and expectations in a business setting. Estate and enterprise planning: estate and gift tax, inheritance tax, costs of transfer, probate, wills, use of trusts, titling of assets, basis adjustment, long-term care, Medicaid considerations, powers of attorney; use of entities in planning and enterprise development; direct marketing opportunities, including Farm to School. The aim of this program is to give participants a reliable, useful general understanding of many of the issues involved in passing on the family farm or ranch, and the tools that might be used to accomplish estate and transition planning goals. How to get ready to make a plan? How to review your existing plan? How to be a good consumer of legal and estate planning services? What have others done? How has it worked? These are a few of the questions that we address. We welcome questions during the presentations and a question and answer session will follow. Time-permitting, the staff will be available for one-on-one consultations. Dave Goeller (Beginning Farmer Program Coordinator, University of Nebraska – Lincoln) and Joe Hawbaker, Agricultural Law attorney, will present the program.
NMPAN Webinar: Working Effectively with Your Processor
August 24. Online. The Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network offers a free one-hour webinar that will explore how livestock producers can work together and with their processors more effectively, to make better use of existing processing facilities. http://www.extension.org/pages/59961/working-effectively-with-your-processor
Organic Field Days
The OPINS co-op will be hosting an educational field day on August 25th. The first is in Gothenburg and the second is in Beemer. Hands on field day opportunity to rub shoulders with Grain producers, Extension, NRCS and Organic Industry participants. Note we are projecting a 4+ hour program. We will do outside events first. To reserve a seat Contact, Mike Williams OPINS CO-OP Offices, 402 835 4800 or 402 720 2614.
Dairy Farming Without Fossil Fuels
August 27. Fairfield, Iowa. This Practical Farmers of Iowa field day visits Radiance Dairy for an afternoon tour. The field day will feature a wagon tour of the farm’s 60-paddock grazing system and a walk through the on-farm dairy processing facilities. Emphasis of the field day will be on the energy systems in place and planned for the farm as well as a general discussion of potential systems to make Iowa farms energy self-sufficient. http://practicalfarmers.org/events/field-days.html
Late Season Crop Management Diagnostic Clinic
Thursday, August 25th. The UNL Extension clinic will be held at the Agricultural Research and Development Center near Mead. Registration begins at 7:30 a.m. with the clinic starting at 8 a.m. Topics include: Keys to Entering the 100 Bushel Soybean Club, Cover Crops and Their Benefits, Herbicides/Fungicide Applications and Impact on Corn Ear Development, Corn Ear Development Uniformity, Crop Scene Investigation (CSI), and Update on Goss’s Wilt. Cost for this clinic is $200. For more information or to register, contact the ARDC at CMDC Programs, 1071 County Road G, Ithaca, NE 68033, call (800) 529-8030, fax (402) 624-8010, e-mail cdunbar2@unl.edu or visit the Web at http://ardc.unl.edu/training.shtml.
Equine Nutrition and Feeding
August 23rd beginning at 6pm central. This 14 week course is entirely on-line. The course is designed to assist students and equine owners in the feeding management of their horses. Course material will include digestive physiology, factors affecting digestion, determining your horse’s nutrient requirements, nutritional diseases, selecting feeds, water quality and evaluating commercial feed labels. The course will assist producers in utilizing forages to meet a horse’s requirements, pasture management, weed control and identification, and poisonous plants. Also included will be managing a feeding program for mature horses, performance horses, broodmares, foals, weanlings, yearlings and stallions. Participants will develop the skills for nutritional assessment using the computer program REINS. http://horse.public.iastate.edu
The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Preserve Tour
Come visit The Nature Conservancy’s Platte River Preserve on Saturday, August 27th 10am-2pm. Join ecologist, Chris Helzer and graduate student RaeAnn Powers for a day on the prairie! Beginning 10 am with hikes through prairie remnants and restorations followed by a presentation at the Derr House by Chris and RaeAnn. We’ll break for lunch (please bring your own lunch, fridge and microwave available) The Nature Conservancy-Derr House, 12113 W. Platte River Dr. Wood River, NE 68883. Got questions? Shoot me an email at raeann.powers@huskers.unl.edu. Check out the site here, http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/nebraska/placesweprotect/eastern-nebraska-platte-river-native-prairie-nature-trail.xml
