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Electronic ATTRA Newsletter
Anniversary Issue 1998 |
Appropriate
Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA)
CONTENTS:
ATTRA celebrates 10th anniversary
Birthdays are occasions for pondering the trails
you've traveled and the horizons ahead. So are the reflections of
ATTRA staff members these days as we celebrate our 10th birthday.
ATTRA's remarkable growth the past decade parallels that of U.S. sustainable
agriculture.
This anniversary issue of ATTRAnews offers some historical glimpses
of the past decade at ATTRA and within the fledgling farm movement. Here's
to the next 10 years -- and more! -- of the journey.
July 15, 1987, Memphis TN : The ATTRA adventure begins
When toll-free lines began ringing for the very
first time at ATTRA that Monday morning of July 15, 1987, 11 newly-hired
staff members were naturally anxious about what lay in store for them.
They were fairly new to one another, novices at operating a national
hotline service and more or less winging it with an as-yet very limited
information base.
Sustainable agriculture itself was only in the toddling stage.
Debates were underway in U.S. farming circles about what to call the fledgling
farm movement — "alternative," "regenerative," "natural," "low-input,"
"biological," "radical," "ecological" or "sustainable" agriculture, depending
on individual interpretations.
Hired in a job search conducted across the U.S. by the National Center
for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), with training and experience in a diversity
of ag disciplines, the ATTRA staffers had spent the summer establishing
offices at Agricenter International of Memphis, a Midsouth center for showcasing
the latest in agricultural technology through exhibitions, demonstrations,
research and trade shows.
Staff members included Lance Gegner and Chris Rugen, technical
specialists who yet work for ATTRA, Heidi Carter, who later worked at Kerr
Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Oklahoma and now is on the staff
of the CSAS, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Ann Sinclair, farming
in Virginia, and Marcie Brewster, market gardener in Madison County, AR.
Steve Vogelzang was program director.
They were to conduct a two-week trial run of the new service, leading
up to inaugural ceremonies on Aug. 1, 1987. Some of ATTRA's opening calls showed that many people in the U.S. had
little understanding of what sustainable agriculture was really about.
A Minnesota man requested information for foreign investors for food
processing ventures. A Missouri woman was seeking least-toxic ways
to kill chiggers in household carpets. Another caller had heard that
riches lay in raising fresh water pearls in Tennessee.
There were calls for ways to build wood-burning cars and composting toilets.
Dutifully, the technical specialists tracked answers for every question.
But there were also calls from people who apparently had done some reading
about sustainable farming and the gist of ATTRA's mission.
A Georgia farmer wanted information on weevil-resistant corn varieties.
An agricultural scientist in Kansas had heard that agricultural crop residues
were being used for paper production. An Ohio Extension agent was
involved in a five-year effort to convert a conventional farm to a low-input
operation.
In those first days, as it is now, about 65% of calls were from farmers
and Extension agents. Others who called included USDA personnel and
other government sources, university researchers, agribusinesses, farm
organizations and information multipliers.
Busy working on their first 100 responses for callers, ATTRA techs had
received a proper initiation in operating an 800-line service by the time
of grand opening ceremonies on Aug. 1, 1987.
NCAT created ATTRA to aid Extension, farmers
The National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) launched
ATTRA in 1987 with a $500,000 appropriation from the USDA Extension Service,
which wanted developing sustainable agriculture technologies passed on
to its field agents and farmers.
At that point, NCAT for over a decade had been operating a series of
public projects which promoted self-reliance through wise use of appropriate
technology. NCAT planners fashioned ATTRA after a successful energy
conservation and renewable energy hotline service they had operated since
1983 for the Department of Energy.
Joe Sedlak, then NCAT's president, told the Extension Service that ATTRA
would help farmers meet the challenges of low-input ag technologies, "By
making available, through a centralized information system, the latest
technological advances that will allow them to cut costs, slow or turn
back the ravages of environmental degradation, and support a new stronger
community economy through creative use of local resources."
ATTRA Grand Opening Aug. 1, 1987
Newspaper reporter Emmett Maum, writing for the Shelby Sun Times about
inaugural day events on Aug. 1, 1989, called ATTRA "the new resource center
with a long name." His article for the next day's edition quoted
keynote speakers Senator Jim Sasser (D-TN) and Denzil Clegg, associate
administrator of the USDA Extension Service.
Two others who had helped to procure $500,000 in funds through the Cooperative
Extension Service to launch ATTRA -- Rep. Ed Jones (D-TN) and Extension
Administrator Myron Johnsrud -- could not attend grand opening events.
"ATTRA may revolutionize our agricultural economy," Sasser told
a crowd of about 200 people that day. "It will be involved in helping
with erosion control techniques and maintaining high yields while saving
on chemicals. Through the center, resource management aids may be
only a phone call away."
Clegg said two basic ideas were behind the effort to create ATTRA: "One
was that ATTRA can serve as a resource to the nationwide Cooperative Extension
Service, and the other that ATTRA can complement efforts in a number
of our new Extension Service initiatives being developed by eight initiative
task forces."
ATTRA was to spend two fruitful, event-filled years in Tennessee.
Phone calls to the new service increased rapidly as word spread.
Staff members were involved in large trade shows at the Agricenter, some
of which drew up to 30,000 visitors from 40 states. There were national
promotionals within the Extension Service and articles in such national
publications as Farm Journal, Successful Farming and Southern States Cooperative
Farmer. During its first 12 months, ATTRA received about 2000 requests
for sustainable agriculture information . (That compares to the 18,000
responses last year.)
P.O.
BOX 3657
FAYETTEVILLE,
AR 72702
PHONE:
1-800-346-9140 --- FAX: (501) 442-9842
ATTRA celebrates 10th anniversary
July 15, 1987, Memphis TN : The ATTRA Adventure
Begins
NCAT created ATTRA to aid Extension, farmers
ATTRA Grand Opening Aug. 1, 1987
ATTRA and her sisters born in stormy
era of American ag history; others soon followed
ATTRA ordeal focuses media on sustainable ag
Visit the new ATTRA homepage
ATTRA Scrapbook
Quotes from the early 80's
New or revised ATTRA Materials
Around 1987 as ATTRA and many sister sustainable farming projects were
being launched, the concepts of sustainable agriculture gradually
were taking root in a nationwide network of people working within universities,
nonprofit organizations, government and farming groups. With research and
farmer experience on these many fronts came information that farmers could
put into practice.
Types of callers
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of American ag history; others soon followed
ATTRA and several sister sustainable agriculture organizations were born during the same turbulent era of American agriculture.
To name but four: the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP) which was established in 1986 at the request of the California Legislature in response to farmer, consumer and researcher concerns; the 4,000-acre Kerr Center for Sustainable Agrculture at Poteau, OK, which developed a new sustainable ag mission in 1986; the Leopold Center that was created in 1987 under the Iowa Groundwater Protection; and the USDA's Low Input Sustainable Agriculture program (LISA) (later called Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, or SARE) that was created by Congress in 1988.
Over the past 10 years, many other organizations have been created in
the wake of these ground-breaking institutions. This "institutionalizing"
of sustainable agriculture wasn't something that happened overnight but
was the result of over two decades of debate and research by sustainable
farming proponents across the U.S. It was given impetus by the farm
crisis of the early 1980s.
American farmers were then in the midst of a brutal six-year recession marked by low commodity prices, high debt loads and declining land values. They were also facing increasing concerns by the public and policymakers. The Environmental Protection Agency had identified agriculture as the largest nonpoint source of water pollution. There was a growing public debate about pesticide and antibiotic residues in food among consumer groups and lawmakers, soil erosion, depletion of aquifers for irrigation and salinization.
By the mid-1980s more than 200,000 farms had declared bankruptcy. A 1986 Economic Research Service report found that some 40,000 U.S. farmers were technically insolvent. Iowa State University researcher Neil Harl, in a paper issued in 1987, feared that fully one-third of farmers nationally were moving towards the same predicament, and would inflict incalculable damage upon the fabric of rural communitities.
People in the farm belt and halls of Congress were calling for change. Kentucky farmer/poet Wendell Berry capsulized those concerns.
"What we're confronting," he said, "is a failure, a way of farming that's manifestly destroying farmers."
Several pioneers of alternative agriculture commented in publications
of the day about directions the fledgling farm movement was taking.
Wes Jackson, then 49 and a plant geneticist who in 1976 founded the Land Institute at Salina, KS, appeared in a front page story in the Jan. 10, 1986, issue of the Wall Street Journal. He estimated that only 20,000 to 40,000 of the nation's 2.3 million farmers could be counted then among the sustainable ag fold, but that its ranks would increase as sustainable agriculture became "institutionalized." Jackson said the headquarters for alternative agriculture was located at the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture (IAA), Inc. of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1983, IAA is one of the premier sustainable ag organizations and as a nonprofit, research and education organization remains very involved in facilitating the adoption of low-cost, resource-conserving, environmentally sound, and economically viable farming systems.
In the same Journal article, Garth Youngberg, IAA executive director,
conjectured that heavy converts to sustainable farming would flow from
America's 353,000 family farms — operations which reported annual sales
in 1984 of $40,000 to $100,000 — and not from the heavily-mechanized Corn
Belt where "farmers have poured so much money into specialized existing
operations that sweeping change is impossible."
Some people in the USDA's Extension Service were in the process of launching
a national research initiative which emphasized incorporation of low-input
farming.
As Myron Johnsrud, USDA Extension Service administrator, explained,
the goals of the National Extension Initiative were to restore the competitiveness
of American agriculture, to provide alternative farming opportunities,
to preserve water quality and conserve natural resources.
In a speech titled "Extension's Changing Role in Low-Input Agriculture," Johnsrud said, "The farmers of today and tomorrow — those who weathered the past few years of financial crisis — will ask many more questions than they have asked in the past. They will ask increasingly more complex questions, far beyond the simple decision of either using high-input versus low-input or what I prefer to call SUSTAINABLE agriculture."
Dr. Charles Francis, a plant scientist at the University of Nebraska, who in 1986-87 co-chaired the Cooperative Extension Alternative Agricultural Opportunities National Initiative, noted that many farmers were unable on their own to effectively assess and implement alternative agriculture opportunities, and that a decline in rural-based services because of the farm crisis had created an information service void.
It was in that environment — and in large part to fill the information void — that ATTRA and several sibling organizations, beginning in the 1980s, were launched.
ATTRA ordeal focuses media on sustainable ag:
Episode in which tiny program stalls U.S. ag budget
has a happy ending
Having spent two years in Memphis at Agricenter International, ATTRA staff members by late 1988 determined they could operate more efficiently with closer ties to a landgrant university's agricultural libraries and scientific facilities. In early 1989 with the help of Senator Dale Bumpers (D-AR), a patron of sustainable agriculture, ATTRA relocated to the University of Arkansas, which is situated at Fayetteville in the Ozark Mountains.
ATTRA was catapulted into the national media spotlight not long after staff members were comfortably ensconced in offices they shared with International Agriculture Programs at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. For two months in the fall of 1989, a debate in Congress over ATTRA's FY90 funding request held up the entire $44 billion federal farm spending bill.
Through it was a harrowing period for ATTRA staff members, good things came from it. For an extended period of time, the Congressional debate focused national attention, as never before, on sustainable agriculture, the need for the federal government to step up research efforts, and for centers such as ATTRA that could get current information on the topic to farmers.
Also as a result of the incident, ATTRA found a new home within the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife service where it was to enjoy seven fruitful years
of expanding its services for farmers and doing important conservation
work on America's wildlife refuges.
Events that fall of 1989 unfolded in this way:
With the matter resolved and national media spotlights directed elsewhere,
ATTRA staff members buckled down to their daily business of tracking the
latest sustainable agriculture information for the nation's farmers.
By contrast, next year's funding effort was remarkably less exciting.
Back To Top
Visit the new ATTRA homepage
ATTRA's new homepage on the World Wide Web debuted on the Fall Equinox of 1997.
In addition to learning a great deal about ATTRA operations, website visitors can obtain 12 ATTRA informational pieces featured on the website and request many others via email. The 12 sample publications on the homepage range from organic fruit production and producing dairy products on-farm to alternative marketing and sustainable beef production. Three of ATTRA's Resource Lists on the homepage offer comprehensive listings and descriptions of "Sustainable Agriculture Organizations and Publications," "Internships, Apprenticeships and Sustainable Curricula in Sustainable Agriculture" and "University Programs and Contacts in Sustainable Agriculture."
Archived issues of the quarterly newsletter, ATTRAnews, offer glimpses into developments at ATTRA since 1993 and in the world of U.S. sustainable ag.
The website's FAQ (frequently asked questions) section explains operational details, for instance ATTRA funding and how ATTRA specialists prepare research reports.
Visitors to the website can also gain an understanding of how America's agriculturists have put ATTRA information to use in their farming pursuits. Fourteen agriculturists, such as poultry farmer Bob Bowen of Brooksville, ME, and community supported agriculture (CSA) operator Molly Bartlett of Hiram, OH, tell how they used ATTRA information to add diversification, bolster profits, improve the environment or find solutions to farm problems.
The ATTRA homepage can be found at: http://www.attra.org
ATTRA Scrapbook
~September, 1988. In their first year of operation, ATTRA staffers receive 2,000 requests for sustainable farming information.
~1988-89. ATTRA technical specialists increase outreach efforts, attending 70 conferences, workshops and field days to gather and disseminate sustainable ag info.
~September, 1990. ATTRA staff completes 7,000 reports on sustainable agriculture information for callers. Staff receives an average 100 caller requests per week, compared to 350 weekly now.
~September, 1990. First edition of the quarterly newsletter, ATTRAnews, is published. It is now mailed to 9,000 clients.
~Spring, 1990-1994. ATTRA hosts a series of workshops to help the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to incorporate sustainable agriculture and integrated pest management (IPM) programs at 140 national wildlife refuges which contain 150,000 acres of farmland.
~September, 1990. Partnerships among sustainable agriculture
organizations are on the increase. For example, ATTRA partners with
the University of California SAREP program in 1990 to produce a series
of publications on weed control strategies
~May, 1991. ATTRA staffers complete their 20,000th report on sustainable agriculture for callers. They are averaging 5,000 responses per year.
~August, 1991. ATTRA helps to coordinate organization of the Sustainable Agriculture Information Network (SAN), a group of organizations, government agencies, agribusinesses and individuals sharing informational resources about sustainable methods.
~Nov. 10-13, 1991. The first SAN "Sustainable Agriculture Showcase" is held at the International Conference on Agriculture at Ohio State University. The showcase (now available in print and electronic versions) featured sustainable farming information and education resources.
~January, 1992. ATTRA staff members help to create the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SAWG), in a meeting at New Iberia, LA.
~Dec. 4, 1992. ATTRA hosts an open house and showcase of sustainable agriculture at newly-remodeled offices at the University of Arkansas. Dr. George Bird, then national director of the USDA SARE program, speaks on the "U.S.
Sustainable Agriculture Revolution." 300 people attend. Washington County (AR) Judge Charles Johnson issues a proclamation declaring it "ATTRA Day."
~April, 1993. The first Sustainable Agriculture Directory of Expertise is published. Compiled by ATTRA staffers and funded by SARE, the directory is a project of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN). The print directory describes sustainable farming research conducted by 717 individuals, organizations and agribusinesses in the U.S., with expertise to share. ATTRA compiles a second (electronic) edition in 1994 and a third edition (print & electronic) in 1996.
~August, 1993. ATTRA and Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development produce the Midsouth Directory of Agroforestry Producers & Researchers. Funded by the Southern SARE program, the 150-page directory lists data and contact information for 350 Extensionsists, researchers and agroforestry producers in 20 states.
~September, 1993. At fiscal-year end, it is reported that ATTRA staffers have completed 12,000 cases for the year, 20% more than in 1992. Of those reports prepared for ATTRA callers, 25% (including custom research reports) were mailed within a week and 92% were mailed within a month.
~October, 1993. ATTRA Project Manager Jim Lukens is named chairman of the Sustainable Agriculture Network for a three-year term. SAN consists of organizations, individuals, agencies, agribusinesses and individuals sharing information about sustainable methods. Sanet, a listserv for use by sustainable ag researchers and practitioners, is launched and soon has 1000 active subscribers.
~Fall, 1993. ATTRA holds two sustainable agriculture workshops at the request of the National Park Service to help farmers incorporate sustainable agriculture practices along the 500-mile-long Natchez Trace Parkway in the South and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area at Milford, PA. Farmers at the two parks raise various crops and forages under cooperative agreements with the Service. After extensive study and at the request of the Park Service , ATTRA Technical Specialist Preston Sullivan in November, 1996, completes the Natchez Trace Parkway Agricultural Practices Workbook which details IPM and natural resource preservation programs.
~January, 1994. As U.S. Interior Department and some other federal agencies are reorganized, ATTRA becomes part of Interior's National Biological Survey (NBS) and is included in the NBS "Technology Development and Transfer" division. The division combines biological research and survey activities of eight existing Interior Department bureaus. The relocation to NBS does not affect ATTRA's work on Interior's national wildlife refuges.
~Summer, 1994. ATTRA is among 200 sustainable agriculture groups and individuals helping to launch the Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. Yet an energetic organizaton with a growing success record, the Campaign in its premier year sought to win policy proposals based on 20 campaign topics in the 1995 Farm Bill. Campaign members conducted letter-writing initiatives, staged press events, held community meetings and personally visited policymakers. Groups in the campaign met at Alexandria, VA, to prioritize issues at "The National Dialogue for Sustainable Agriculture."
~October, 1994. USDA selects ATTRA to help coordinate sustainable agriculture training for Cooperative Extension Service agents and selected field staffs of the SCS and ASCS in the Southern Region for three years. ATTRA's co-partners are North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State University at Greensboro. Mandated by the 1990 Farm Bill, the "Chapter 3" (now called Professional Development Program, or PDP) initiative in 1994 is funded by a $2.96 million Congressional allocation. Twenty training projects are to kick off the project in the Southern region. ATTRA information specialist Radhika Bala edits the project newsletter, Sustainable Ag Trainer.
~March 1, 1995. ATTRA staff members Teresa Maurer and Jim Lukens are promoted. Maurer, who has served as associate ATTRA project manager since 1991, is named project manager. Lukens, ATTRA project manager since 1989, is the new sustainable agriculture program manager for ATTRA's parent organization, the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT).
~June, 1995. For the Fish and Wildlife Service, ATTRA IPM specialists Chris Rugen and Rex Dufour help to coordinate a complex two-year project to create an integrated pest management plan for the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuges on the California/Oregon border. About 27,000 acres of the total 84,000 acres in the refuges are farmed. Now under review, the plan will recommend a combination of biological, chemical, cultural and physical controls for farm crops at the refuges.
~September, 1995. ATTRA staffers complete 16,000 sustainable farming reports for callers, a 25% increase over the previous year.
~January, 1996. ATTRA bids farewell to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and returns to the newly reorganized USDA where it will be funded by Rural Business — Cooperative Service (RBS).
~June, 1996. ATTRA & Heifer Project International are partners in the Pastured Poultry Project funded by SARE, in which 11 southern farm families are raising "pastured poultry" in a project to help these limited-resource farmers boost incomes and diversify operations by growing, processing and marketing chickens on their farms. ATTRA technical specialist Anne Fanatico helps to coordinate the project.
~March, 1997. ATTRA specialists reach a milestone: 100,000 responses provided since ATTRA's 1987 inception.
~Spring, 1997. ATTRA animal scientists procure a Southern Region SARE Professional Development Program grant to train educators and develop informational materials for sustainable beef production in 1997-98. The project goal is to train educators and key producers in monitoring sustainability and making recommendations for farms involved in sustainable beef cattle production. ATTRA technical specialists Ron Morrow, Ann Wells, Alice Beetz and Preston Sullivan conduct the project.
~August, 1997. Almost 10 years to the day after ATTRA is created, one of America's most venerable agricultural magazines, Farm Journal, refers to ATTRA as "Sustainable Farming's A-Team." In a feature article, reporter Jeanne Bryan writes: "Deep in the forests of the Ozark Mountains, a group of agriculture specialists spend their days managing one of the largest repositories of sustainable agriculture science in the United States. Some call these (ATTRA) specialists the Navy Seals of sustainable agriculture. In a quiet, inconspicuous way, they may be changing the way farmers manage their fields."
~Fall, 1997. ATTRA's FY1998 budget of $1.3 million is included in both the House and Senate spending bills and approved during conferencing. House subcommittees the previous eight years had zeroed out the program's funding request but later endorsed it at conferencing time. The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture and many others, which speak in ATTRA's behalf, facilitate the process.
~Jan. 22-25, 1998. As part of its 10th anniversary commemoration, ATTRA staff members return to Memphis, where ATTRA was founded in 1987, to co-sponsor the 1998 Southern SAWG Annual Conference and Trade Show at the Cook Convention Center. The conference features 36 sustainable farming workshops, a 50-vendor trade show, three multi-farm tours, an auction and organic cotton fashion show and meals showcasing sustainably grown food from the South. More than 400 people attend. The Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, which ATTRA helped to found in 1992, consists of 7,000 members from 13 Southern states.
Farmer/Poet Wendell Berry:
Principles of Sustainable Weed Management
Sustainable Sheep Production
Sustainable Small-Scale Nursery Production
Hooped Shelters for Finishing Hogs