Food Systems and Agriculture – Meeting Notes

  • Strategic plan is great and long overdue. Hope it strengthens Cooperative Extension and incorporates agronomy into it. Having a plan in place will help land preservation for farming. Everything needs to be integrated (climate change, resilience etc.) moving forward. 
  • Prevent conversion of farmland into parking lots (referencing the URI agronomy farm)
  • Working with people across the food sector to give them the education they need to start a business. We need ways to connect people in agriculture with the business training that they need. Farmers are great at what they do, but they need help/assistance with running other aspects of business. 
  • Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) coming through. Farmers are worried about FSMA and how to sell products legally. Disconnect between what DOH wants farmers to do and what the University is saying. 
  • Other nearby Extension agencies are leading certain areas better than URI and it’s a struggle to get those resources. 
  • DOH will tell them what’s wrong, but doesn’t tell them how to fix it. Perhaps Extension can help with that.
  • DOH saying that RI farmers will be fine in terms of FSMA 
  • RI tends to build silos. We need to share what’s been done, use that information to make greater strides. We keep doing the same thing over and over separate from one another. A major function of Cooperative Extension should be sharing of what exists. 
  • What’s missing with this strategic plan is that we are moving into sub-goals, but we haven’t defined where we are.
  • Going forward what is the role of Extension now? We started with a strength in agriculture, went to turf and now where do we go? How will information be shared moving forward? URI Extension has a strategic role to play that is relevant to New England, not in a silo. 
  • Besides the first sub-goal, the rest of them seem to be low level goals. 
  • Breaking down some of the land use restrictions/policies needs to change if we are going to have land access to increase food production.
  • What do you put your focus on when looking at the types of farming? What types of farms are going to see growth, indoor horticulture?
  • We should focus on innovation and crops/systems that are more productive than traditional farming.
  • Indoor farming is often ignored within Extension.
  • Worried about prioritizing types of farming based on tiers. 
  • RI by national standards is highly developed. We do not have rural areas by national standards. Good soils tend to be closer to the coast and some in uplands, but not much. Best areas to grow are highly developed. Environmental barriers exist. Key point is we can do much better with what we already have. Efficiency is incredibly important. 
  • Extension does a lot with school gardens, but not enough with community gardens. 
  • CommerceRI should be investing in Extension. 
  • Students to help with the actual writing of HAACP plans, or getting GAP certified., etc. Can we train college students to assist farmers with some of these tasks? 
  • Developed internship program that benefits farmers/extension. Possibility within the new Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems major. No interns in that department, but optimistic that it could change. 
  • Needs assessment needed for farmers to showcase the individual resources that are needed. Extension could be central location for these resources.  
  • ‘Case work’ help for farmers, new, existing. 
  • On-going infrastructure for needs of community coming in so research community can meet the needs. 
  • What is missing at URI? What role can URI fill? 
  • If the goal is to increase agriculture in the state, then doing research on turf farms is not going to make that happen. We need to listen to the SPECIFIC needs of farmers to help them grow. 
  • Extension resources are specific. We need to look at inter-connections between land-water-food etc. Does URI Extension have the money to implement these goals? Efficient distribution of information between universities and other agencies needed. 
  • High school students need to do a senior project and perhaps they can be utilized. 
  •  High level help from students is needed. College students might work if trained properly.
  • Back in the day farmers had field agents to help them similar to how we use google now. Farmers these days don’t have agents assigned to them that can help with troubleshooting issues. 
  • We need 10 more Heather Fauberts. Money needed to fund staff.
  • Other nearby Extension has teams of agents that are trained based on type of farming. 
  • How much money is URI Extension going to invest to make these sub-goals happen? 
  • DEM/Division of Agriculture have 16-18 FTE, but some of them aren’t working exclusively with ag-related tasks. The amount of funds flowing into Cooperative Extension is pennies compared to other states. RI’s ‘uniqueness’ results in a thinness of capacity. How do we work together to strengthen what we have? 
  • We should prioritize sub-goals. 
  • Grant writing assistance needed. Interns welcome! 
  • Cross-pollinate agriculture and business 
  • Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant used to have strong relationship, but now they compete. Too many people on soft money and now competing internally for grants. Easier to get dollars from other countries, like Indonesia, than write grants. 
  • Barriers within University that makes it difficult. Ag is ag. Business is business. Not enough cross-pollination. 
  • We need more extension agents. RI used to have an agent for every county and now we have two.