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SARE Professional Development for Soil Health |
The University of Massachusetts Extension has been funded by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Professional Development Grant (2014-2017) to provide educational opportunities to Agricultural Service Providers and Farmers in Soil Health topics. Preserving and improving soil health/quality/resiliency continues to be an area of strong interest and concern for Massachusetts land stewards. Not unique to MA, this concern has been echoed across the region and nationally leading NRCS to emphasize soil health awareness as a continued priority with a special focus on cover cropping. The goal over the next three years is to equip service providers with a set of soil health assessment tools and the knowledge for how to choose the appropriate tools, use them correctly, and help farmers interpret the resulting information to make sensible decisions about implementing practices to improve soil health and resiliency especially in face of potential impacts from climate change. Three workshops per year will be offered for free to service providers including opportunities to network with peers and identify areas of collaboration. To participate in this opportunity, we ask that you commit to attending at least one meeting per year and complete a survey for each meeting attended so that we may capture and evaluate what you are learning.