Sustainable Agriculture Grants Available to Colorado Ranchers and Farmers

Sustainable agriculture grant proposals for Colorado ranchers and farmers for research projects are available from the Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program. Since 1988, Western SARE has provided more than $2.3 million to fund 75 Colorado projects.

SARE grants are available to agriculture producers, in addition to individuals from universities, farm support agencies, agri-businesses and nonprofit organizations. The grants typically explore, develop or promote some aspect of agricultural sustainability, which embraces profitable farms and ranches, a healthy environment and strong families and communities.

"Creating new methods which care for the land while still turning a profit is an intriguing prospect to a lot of farmers and ranchers," said Dennis Lamm, state coordinator of the professional development program and agriculture extension education director at Colorado State. Lamm is the SARE coordinator for Colorado.

Professional development applications are due Nov. 1; farmer and rancher applications are due Dec. 7; professional and producer applications are due Dec. 7. Applications can be obtained from the Western SARE Web site, http://wsare.usu.edu, by calling (435) 797-2257, or by e-mailing wsare@ext.usu.edu. For more information, contact Lamm at (970) 491-2074 or via e-mail at Dennis.Lamm@colostate.edu.

Of the grants awarded to Colorado projects since 1988, about one-quarter were for agronomy initiatives and areas of agricultural marketing, soil science, quality-of-life, and education each received about a 14 percent share of the total awards. Other areas receiving grants included organics, animal science, natural resources, agricultural systems and entomology.

Western SARE, administered through Utah State University, is one of four regions of SARE under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Western region includes 13 states and four U.S. Pacific island protectorates. Since the program started in 1988, Western SARE has distributed more than $40 million in competitive grants to nearly 1,000 recipients in the region.

For more information about sustainable agriculture programs at Colorado State, visit online at http://www.coopext.colostate.edu/sustag/. Additional resources are available through the Sustainable Agriculture Network, the national outreach arm of the SARE program. SAN publishes a variety of print and electronic resources for farmers, agricultural educators and consumers on its Web site at http://www.sare.org/publications/index.htm. SAN also hosts SANET-MG (http://lists.sare.org/archives/sanet-mg.html), a sustainable agriculture listserv with more than 600 subscribers from around the globe.

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