North Carolina Cooperative Extension and the Center for Environmental Farming Systems have teamed up to encourage North Carolina consumers to spend 10 percent of their food dollars on foods from local sources. The 10% Campaign was launched through a new website, www.nc10percent.com.

The website will allow consumers and business the opportunity to pledge to spend 10 percent of their food dollars locally, purchasing products from area farmers and food producers. Campaign participants will receive weekly email reminders to report how much money they spent on local food. The website will show consumers how their dollars spent on local foods grow.

North Carolinians spend about $35 billion a year on food. If each person spent just 10 percent on food locally – roughly $1.05 per day – then approximately $3.5 billion annually would be available in the state’s economy.

Please join us for a roundtable discussion with panelists Dr. Scott Barao, Dr. Arion Thiboumery and Dr. Matt Poore, a question-and-answer session and a “meat social” with producers, Cooperative Extension professionals and meat processors.

Topics for discussion will include grass-fed genetics, determining production costs, maintaining high quality carcasses, smart carcass utilization, forage management, value added products, successful case studies around the country and building a relationship with your processor.

The event is free, but please RSVP to Casey McKissick at casey@ncchoices.com by July 23.

4-H Bryan Blake harvests blueberries as part of a Moore County extension project. (Marc Hall photo)

Eight teens and tweens wandered beneath and between the branches of blueberry bushes under a sweltering July sun in Moore County's Cameron community. Some mentioned the careers they'd like to pursue when they grow up: One said a hockey player. Another, an auto mechanic. And yet another, a veterinarian.

Recognizing that farming is among the nation's most hazardous occupations, North Carolina Cooperative Extension offers educational programs to help farmers, farmworkers and their families lower their risk of injury, illness and death. Its latest tool in this effort is a kit of easy-to-use materials to teach pesticide safety to Spanish-speaking agricultural workers with limited formal education.

Extension tested the kit with workers and trainers to make sure the educational materials were simple yet effective. It also was reviewed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that it met the federal Worker Protection Standard's training requirements. The WPS calls for agricultural employers, owners, managers and labor contractors to provide training not only to those who handle pesticides but to all the people who are involved in the production of agricultural plants.

The Chatham County Center of North Carolina Cooperative Extension and the Chatham County Beekeepers' Association will host the 4th annual celebration of National Pollinator Week on Saturday, June 26, from 10am until 2pm on The Lawn at Chatham Mills in Pittsboro.

The purpose of National Pollinator Week is to teach pollinator-friendly practices and raise public awareness of the importance of bees, beetles, butterflies, moths, flies, birds and bats that help to produce 80 percent of flowering plants and one third of human food crops.

Come hear presentations about beekeeping -- how to get started, equipment needs, management tips -- from local beekeepers. Tour Cooperative Extension's Pollinator Garden at Chatham Mills and learn how to attract and protect pollinators.

When N.C. State’s Rhonda Sherman started her large-scale vermiculture workshop in 2000, there were only a handful of attendees. But at this year’s 10th annual Vermiculture Conference, the room was filled to near overflowing with 116 participants from 28 U.S. states – including 49 from North Carolina -- and five other countries.

Sherman, Extension solid waste specialist in biological and agricultural engineering, hosts the conference each year, bringing together experts from around the world to share information on vermicomposting, the process of using earthworms to break down organic wastes. As the only conference of its kind, it has a loyal following of participants, ranging from backyard gardeners to entrepreneurs to municipal waste managers.

Third graders at West Smithfield Elementary School were all abuzz recently over the opportunity to take their classroom outdoors to study plants, insects and soils. And N.C. Cooperative Extension agent Amie Newsome dressed in a bee costume was the center of attention, as she shared information about insects with the eager students.

Newsome and four other local extension and conservation professionals were on hand for some serious science lessons, all conducted outdoors, using hands-on learning activities. The Scientists in the Classroom program is like an on-campus field trip to help students learn, according to school parent and program coordinator Paula Woodall.

Read more from CALS News

For years, the state has watched textile mills close and tobacco farms turn to seed. More recently, technology jobs have been lost, and the state has 10 percent unemployment.

But at N.C. State University, there's a woman quietly bringing together farmers, businesses, politicians and individuals to nurture a new economic sector in North Carolina: locally grown organic food.

Nancy Creamer, director of N.C. State University's Center for Environmental Farming Systems, is cultivating sustainable, organic farms and the infrastructure they need to get their food to market across the state. It's a plan that she hopes will create small businesses and jobs, as well as boost local economies that have lost jobs to overseas competitors.

Read more in The (Raleigh) News and Observer

Building the state’s sustainable local food economy will stimulate economic development and job creation, bolster the viability of local farms and fisheries and help address diet-related health problems, according to CEFS, a partnership between N.C. State University, N.C. A&T State University and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. CEFS’s mission is to develop and promote food and farming systems that protect the environment, strengthen local communities and provide economic opportunities in North Carolina and beyond.

Nine value-added producers in North Carolina just received a financial boost as recipients of the N.C. Value-Added Cost Share NCVACS) award. The NCVACS program, administered by N.C. MarketReady, has announced the 2009 cost share awards, which are funded by the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission. The NCVACS program provides financial support, through matching funds, to producers who are applying for the USDA Value-Added Producer Grant VAPG), a nationally competitive program.

“The nine recipients represent a diverse array of value-added enterprises and are geographically scattered throughout the state,” said Brittany Whitmire, NCVACS program coordinator. The award recipients fell into three categories of cost share funding for grant writing and feasibility assessment.

Read more from Perspectives Latest News

This overview of North Carolina’s specialty crops includes data on 93 vegetables, 14 fruits and nuts, 36 culinary herbs, and 10 miscellaneous crops. Crop maps depict each crop’s distribution in North Carolina, and county tables list the crops grown in each of the state’s 100 counties by acreage and crop type.

When Van Burnette wanted a drought-resistant crop to try on his 6-acre farm near Black Mountain, he decided on hops. The problem is, no one really knows much about how the essential beer ingredient will grow in North Carolina, much less whether burgeoning interest in local beers and home brewing will translate into a sustainable market.

N.C. State University specialists are out to change that, cooperating with Burnette and a few other pioneering North Carolina hops growers to figure out viable production, post-harvest and marketing options.

When agricultural Extension agent Debbie Roos first learned about the Internet service Twitter, she was, as she puts it, a decided non-believer. Why in the world, she wondered, would people want to send and receive messages limited to just 140 characters –- fewer letters than are in this sentence?

But today, after 383 "tweets" and counting, Roos –- or @GrowSmallFarms, as she's known in the Twitterverse –- has done an about-face.

"I fell in love with Twitter last summer. It really works," she says. "A lot of people who follow me now on Twitter weren't familiar with my programs, and the potential to reach even more people is high," she says.

Read more from N.C. State's Bulletin

Read more in ag e-dispatch

Beginning, small or part-time farmers in Franklin County will be able to apply for grant funds to implement small projects on their operations, thanks to a partnership between N.C. Cooperative Extension and Whole Foods of Raleigh. During the month of February, the store on Wade Avenue has posted donation boxes at cash registers, inviting customers to contribute to the scholarship fund. The money collected will be turned over to Franklin County’s agriculture board.

Martha Mobley, Franklin County agriculture Extension agent who helped arrange the program with Whole Foods, said the agriculture board will award grants to local farmers, based on an application process. On Feb. 18, Mobley and several Franklin County farmers were on hand at Whole Foods to share information about Franklin County farms and the scholarship project. Store customers stopped by with questions and to drop donations in the scholarship box.