Regional Initiatives
Listening Sessions
The NCR-SARE listening sessions serve as an opportunity to bring together people with differing viewpoints within a community of place to share their perspectives of sustainability and agriculture. NCR-SARE’s listening sessions are conducted by the Circle of Sustainability, a committee of NCR-SARE’s Administrative Council.
Reports resulting from the listening sessions serve as a respected information source on the status and prospects of sustainable agriculture and as such guide the Administrative Council that directs the NCR-SARE competitive grants and other programs.
Diversity
In 2007, NCR-SARE released its first Diversity Call for Proposals. Future NCR-SARE initiatives will encourage more participation of members of limited resource and socially disadvantaged groups.
Scaling Up Local Food
A growing group of people are interested in getting more local foods into the hands of more eaters -- and providing additional marketing channels for farmers to produce sustainable, local foods. To explore new ideas for creating local food systems on a grander scale, the NCR-SARE’s Professional Development Program (PDP) hosted a 2-day conference in Madison, WI, September 28-29, 2010.
NCR-SARE Hero Recognition Program
To bring awareness of, recognize, and pay tribute to those who have made significant contributions to NCR-SARE, the NCR-SARE Administrative Council has created an NCR-SARE Hero Recognitions program.
Carbon, Energy, Climate
In September 2012, NCR-SARE’s Professional Development Program began a two-year professional development and training initiative around topics of bioenergy, climate, and connecting issues such as soil carbon.
Cover Crops
Cover crop adoption has been increasing rapidly in the last 5 years, with an estimated 1.5 to 2.0 million acres of cover crops planted in the U.S. in 2012. To learn more about this trend, during the winter of 2012-13, the NCR-SARE program contracted with the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) to carry out a 2012 survey of farmers who have grown cover crops.
Bioenergy
An important role for NCR-SARE, consistent with the organization’s core values, is to ask: (1) How sustainable are current biofuels efforts? And (2) The AC will vigorously support energy-use-efficiency (including all aspects of energy conservation), strive to help identify bioenergy ideas and technologies that are truly sustainable, and actively participate in balanced discussions regarding the sustainability of current bioenergy investments.
NCRSARE_Bioenergy_Draft.pdf 88.55 kB