News and Events

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Center-led food security project extended for seventh year

January 6, 2017

The Northeast Center’s signature food system project, Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast (EFSNE), was recently granted a seventh-year no-cost extension by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Having achieved a number of objectives already, team members remain fully engaged as they collaborate on many concurrent writing projects.

Feeding food animals: How self-reliant is the Northeast?

January 5, 2017

New research by the Northeast Center-led EFSNE project reveals how well the Northeast US is able to meet the feed and forage needs of the food animals raised in the region. The team’s findings build on earlier work to provide a more complete picture of how self-reliant the region is in meeting its population’s demand for meat, dairy, and eggs.

Sustainable Communities: Online course explores community systems

January 5, 2017

Communities need the expertise of community development professionals now more than ever. Whether your expertise is in agriculture, natural resources, youth, family or economic development you will be asked to help guide a stakeholder group through a difficult decision making process. The Foundations of Practice course, Sustainable Communities, offers you the tools, skills and knowledge to be the trusted resource community groups need in the emerging dialogs around local foods, energy and natural resources. The online course, facilitated by University of Vermont’s Mary Peabody, begins February 2, 2017.

Placemaking webinar series offered by North Central Regional Center for Rural Development

January 4, 2017

A webinar series focusing on various aspects of placemaking is being offered by the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD). The next webinar, “Stakeholder Centered Community Marketing,” will be presented by the University of Wisconsin’s Kristin Runge on January 19, 2017 at 2:00 p.m. ET. For more information, including all the titles in the series and links to archived recordings, follow the link to the NCRCRD website.

Webinar to explore community-centered design on January 25, 2017

January 3, 2017

“Community-Centered Design: How to Empower Residents to Shape the Development of their Communities,” is the topic of a webinar being offered by the Southern Rural Development Center on January 25th, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. ET. Community-centered design is a method that invites a community to imagine and build places that reflect what matters most to them – both as a community and as individuals.

Documenting community outcomes with surveys is topic of February 6, 2017 webinar

January 2, 2017

The National Community and Economic Resource Development Indicators Team is hosting a webinar on February 6, 2017 at 2:00 p.m. ET, titled “Documenting Community Outcomes with Surveys: A how-to on designing questions and collecting data.”

USDA announces $27 million in grants available to support the local food sector

January 2, 2017

The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service today announced the availability of $27 million in grants to fund innovative projects designed to strengthen market opportunities for local and regional food producers and businesses. Two webinars scheduled for February will introduce potential applicants to the grant programs, which include the Farmers Market Promotion Program, the Local Food Promotion Program, and the Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program.

Farm size and productivity to be focus of international conference

January 2, 2017

The relationship between agrarian structure and agricultural productivity will be the subject of an international conference planned Feb. 2-3 in Washington, D.C. The conference—Farm Size and Productivity: A Global Look—is a collaboration of USDA’s Economic Research Service and Farm Foundation, NFP. Researchers and economists from Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the United States will discuss new research findings on agricultural development.

Call for presentation proposals for National Extension Tourism conference

January 1, 2017

Presentation proposals are being accepted for the 2017 National Extension Tourism conference, which will take place in Princeton, NJ on August 8-10, 2017. This year’s theme, “Tourism in the 21st Century: Connecting Communities, Places, and People,” focuses on the important role that tourism plays in many aspects of communities, places, and people. The deadline for submitting presentation proposals is March 13, 2017.

Latest headlines from our social media feeds, January 2017

January 1, 2017

What does the opioid epidemic have to do with the election? Why do some community planners go to great lengths to engage their citizenry? What can the maker movement do for manufacturing? These questions are among those answered in news stories we curate for you on our social media feeds. If you haven’t followed the Northeast Center on social media yet, here is a sampling of what you’re missing.

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