An official website of the United States government.
We will continue to leverage and document the impact of the Center's work in the area of community capacity building, and extend knowledge acquired in these areas to colleagues and collaborators within the region. We plan to focus on three key subject matter areas, which align with the USDA/NIFA priorities as follows: entrepreneurship and job creation, including within the green economy; local and regional food systems, including their relationships to childhood obesity, food safety and capacity to feed the region and world; and land use and balanced use of natural resources, an area that addresses trade-offs between alternative forms of energy use and development, among other issues. The project focuses on local and regional issues that also have a national impact. In terms of shorter-term learning activities we expect to see greater awareness among key stakeholders and decision-makers of the increasing challenges and science-based solutions that relate to the forces and opportunities shaping the sustainability and profitability of agricultural and local food systems in the Northeast US. We also expect a better understanding and greater awareness among decision-makers of the importance of self-employment and entrepreneurship within their communities. There will be fewer false business starts; more knowledge regarding business potential; and greater interest in rural areas (including especially among youth) in self-employment and small business creation. Leaders within rural communities will have access to knowledge of community-level factors influencing entrepreneurial start-ups. Our colleagues within the land grant system will have access to relevant best practice toolboxes and timely, science-based educational resources through our website and other vehicles (e.g., webinars). Ultimately, we anticipate the following changes to occur in underlying conditions in the long term. Public officials, consumers and agricultural industry representatives will be able to locate and employ sound, science-based research and education in their decision-making. Agriculture will remain vital and grow measurably in its importance and contributions to communities in the Northeast US and important indicators such as obesity rates will show improvement. Under-served populations in both rural and urban areas will have measurably better access to food (both quantity and quality). In addition, we expect to find more self-employed workers as a percent of all workers, and more business creation; higher returns to self-employment; greater job creation as a result of higher self-employment; and improved rural economic viability and quality of life overall. Self-employed and other workers will use educational materials and change behaviors.
<p>NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:<br/> The NERCRD will continue to conduct and facilitate integrated research and extension activities to enhance the social and economic well-being of rural people and their communities in the Northeast US. We will leverage and document the impact of the Center's work in the area of community capacity building, and extend knowledge acquired in these areas to colleagues and collaborators within the region. As in the last year, we will focus on three key subject matter areas, which align with the USDA/NIFA priorities as follows: entrepreneurship and job creation, including within the green economy; local and regional foods production systems, including their relationships to childhood obesity, food safety and capacity to feed the region and world; and land use and balanced use of natural resources, an area that addresses trade-offs between alternative
forms of energy use and development, among other issues. The most recent data available show continued job losses between the fourth quarters of 2007 and 2009 in the rural northeast and pronounced job losses in West Virginia as well as Maryland and Delaware. Population loss through out-migration remains an important issue in the region, and as rural areas lose jobs and residents, those remaining behind often desperately seek new sources of income and employment growth while dealing with adjustment costs resulting from lower population densities. Homegrown entrepreneurship promises to be one key to sustaining or even growing rural economies. Programs and activities directed at future entrepreneurs, that is, today's youth entrepreneurs, are more important than ever before. We will continue to actively identify, create and disseminate related resource materials over the upcoming year as
part of our outreach thrust. Center Staff will continue to provide support to the national Youth Entrepreneurship initiative originally launched by the Center in June 2008. As a contribution to family and consumer sciences, we will collaborate with experts in assessing how factors such as the food store environment and nutrition education programs influence food choices and obesity rates. The goal of these activities is to develop and disseminate science-based knowledge about how to grow and increase the resiliency of the infrastructure required to support the food system in the Northeast US. Water (and climate change) issues, and the implications of climate change for agriculture, clearly remain as key issues in the Northeast. We are in the process of exploring with colleagues opportunities for research and outreach in this area; the Center's expected contribution will lie in
conceptualizing and analyzing rural and community development consequences of such a potential ruling, and in helping to develop science-based resources for communities and practitioners affected. In addition, we will continue to be involved as partners and facilitators where appropriate to experts and educators, working on the Marcellus Shale across NY, MD, WV and we will continue to support as appropriate efforts to develop bioenergy-based products in the Northeast. The NERCRD project focuses on regional issues that also have a national impact.
<p>APPROACH:<br/> The 2008 external review identified four distinct but complementary models that the Center could follow or apply as methods and procedures in the various issues areas. The Center: 1) produces and disseminates research with no explicit Extension products, 2) produces and disseminates research and produces Extension products, 3) organizes initial and follow-up convenings that lead to Center commissioned and disseminated best practice Extension products, and 4) sees the potential of developing Extension products from other's work, whether research or Extension, within the region or not, and commissions and disseminates Extension products. The following general procedures will be used: The Center will: 1) Conduct, promote and extend through outreach both think tank-level and peer-reviewed studies of agricultural development, entrepreneurship, land use and
community vitality, including work that addresses farm industry clusters and local/regional food systems development. Organizing grant-writing teams of collaborators and the development and submission of competitive grant proposals is one key part of this strategy; 2) Organize and sponsor multi-disciplinary and multi-state educational efforts in the areas of community development impact assessment, entrepreneurship, balanced land use and vibrant and sustainable communities; as part of this, the Center will continue to expand its website as a tool for furthering the mission of the land grant system in the Northeast in community development. At this time a major transition to a new Content Management System is envisioned; and 3) Continue to fulfill its other multiple networking responsibilities through strategic partnerships, conference calls, maintenance of listservs, conference
participation, publications and by identifying leading edge programs that can be shared across the states (and nationally) via Webinars so as to reduce duplication of effort.
<p>PROGRESS: 2012/09 TO 2013/08<br/>Target Audience: Our primary target audience during this period included the Deans and Directors of the land grant university colleges of agriculture within the Northeast U.S. An invited presentation was given at the Joint Summer meeting of NERA and NEED in Ithaca, NY. Other audiences included individuals on our listservs who recieve the Center's quarterly newsletter and who visit our website (over 12,000 since March, 2013). Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The Center-sponsored webinar series on local and regional food systems development efforts provided a forum for training and professional development as well as greater sharing of programming among key Northeast Center constituencies in the region. The Foundations of Practice workshop
series has attracted over 65 participants from across the nation, not counting multiple participants in some sites who attended from a classroom setting (e.g., at the University of Maine). A number of registrants for this series is completely new to Extension, underscoring the value and importance of this effort. In addition, the project provides training and professional development opportunities for graduate students, including a post-doc. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? As noted, the results of this project have been disseminated via conference presentations, scientific publications including one book chapter, and a set of webinars accessible to individuals from across the nation. In addition, results are shared through the Northeast Center's website as well as its quarterly newsletter, which has over 1,000 subscribers. What do you plan to do
during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? We will continue to refine the work on community development indicators by working with educators at the University of New Hampshire, Cornell University and Penn State University. The research on optimal hub locations for fresh fruits and vegetables will continue, along with efforts examining the vulnerabilty of the U.S. food system (both on-farm and post-farm gate transformations). This effort will use a network approach and draw on the national input-output transactions table. We are also in the midst of planning for a May 2014 conference on food supply chains -- better connecting farmers and their consumers, to be held in Baltimore, MD.
PROGRESS: 2011/09/01 TO 2012/08/31OUTPUTS: The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development continued to carry out its mission by encouraging and facilitating integrated research and extension activities to enhance the social and economic well-being of rural people and their communities in the Northeast. The Center developed and communicated research on rural development policy issues to decision makers in the Northeast and was actively engaged in bringing together researchers and educators to develop various grant applications in the area of regional foods systems development. One of these grants involved an application to eXtension of a community of practice entitled Community, Local and Regional Food Systems, which seeks to provide objective, peer-reviewed information on a topic that is of growing interest to consumers in the Northeast as well as elsewhere.
Center staff were able to make significant scientific advances on the subject of optimal food hub locations in the Northeast, using mathematical optimization models. The models can be used to locate hubs optimal at the county-level as various key parameters change, including hub processing capacity, fuel prices, maximum distances over which foods are to be shipped, etc. In tandem with this effort, research progressed on examining the implications for the food system and energy utilization of a gradual shift towards a diet that is based on greater consumption of fruits and vegetables, consistent with USDA daily nutrient and dietary recommendations. The Center held a meeting in Portsmouth, NH of its Board of Directors as well as its Technical Advisory Committee comprised of deans and directors, private sector representatives, faculty and educators from the Northeast region. At that meeting
the Center's current mission and efforts were reaffirmed unanimously. PARTICIPANTS: Participants include faculty, educators, graduate students and other stakeholders from around the Northeast region as well as the nation, representing land grant universities as well as private agencies. Professional training opportunities are provided through conferences as well as through the web. TARGET AUDIENCES: Target audiences include deans and directors of extension and agricultural experiment stations as well as other policy makers concerned with impacting rural areas, suburbs and cities. The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development provides information to faculty and educators who in turn deliver that information to their stakeholders throughout the region. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.