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Sustainable Agriculture Market Assessment Shows Growing Demand for Organic Potatoes (August 21, 2007)
UI Scientific Team Studies How-and Why-to Grow Green-Manure Crops at Fort Hall Indian Reservation
NCAP's sustainable agriculture program focuses on working with farmers to create healthier farms and foods. At the root of it all, we study, demonstrate and promote ecologically sound practices to build soil health and control crop pests. Within the larger scope of production agriculture, we focus our work primarily on potatoes, the most chemically intensive crop grown in our region. By concentrating our efforts on ecologically sound potato production, we can more readily develop working models that can be adapted to other crop enterprises. Program focus: Fort Hall Demonstration Project: The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of Fort Hall in southeast Idaho control some of the best potato producing land in the world -- about 140,000 acres of it! But intensive potato production has exacted a heavy toll in terms of water contamination and soil degradation. This long-term collaboration will test and promote extended crop rotations that naturally build soil health and control crop pests. On Farm Research: Throughout the region we work with farmers, Cooperative Extension and others to establish smaller, on-farm research projects. Farmer Networks: Farmers need the support, encouragement and creative stimulation that comes from interacting with others who pursue more sustainable alternatives. These networks foster plenty of ideas adapted in our other program emphases. Farm Tours: Our farm tours provide farmers, processors and even consumers the opportunities to see ecological farming alternatives in action. Seeing is believing. Conferences and Workshops: When the days grow short and field work fades into the record books, NCAP brings the farmers (and even some consumers) together again for more intense examination of sustainable farming alternatives. Both local and nationally known speakers have provided some outstanding events to date. Newsletter: We publish The Farmer Exchange, a 4-page newsletter that features one or two farmers who have successfully adapted sound farming alternatives. Lender Education: To really promote widespread adoption of ecological farming alternatives, lenders need to become convinced of the economic benefits of such practices. NCAP has developed materials to educate lenders about sustainable agriculture. Public Speaking and the Press: To promote a more sustainable food system, we take our message to an ever wider audience via public speaking events and publication in the press. For more information about NCAP's Sustainable Agriculture program, contact Jennifer Miller at jmiller(AT)pesticide.org "The true measure of agriculture is not the sophistication of its equipment, the size of its income, or even the statistics of its productivity, but the good health of the land." NEWS from the Sustainable Agriculture Program
LOCAL FOODS GUIDE for Southern Idaho PUBLICATIONS: Selected NCAP Materials
OTHER SITES offering information about sustainable and organic agriculture and farmworker safety:
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PO Box 1393, Eugene OR 97440-1393
Ph. 541-344-5044
Fax 541-344-6923
info@pesticide.org
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NCAP's Sustainable Agriculture program: