Western SARE Sub Regional Stakeholder Input - now online / New RFAs released
Back in September 2008, the Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) held a "subregional" conference in Kailua-Kona. The results of the meeting was first reported in an earlier edition of Sustainable Agriculture blog. To celebrate the 20th year of the SARE program, the Western SARE have held or will hold a series of Subregional conferences to gather stakeholder input to help set the direction for the next 20 years of WSARE. All of the subregional conferences have now been held, except one which will be held in August 2009 in California. Each of the conferences followed the same format and was led by Dr. Jerry DeWitt, Director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. Summaries and actual stakeholder input can be found for the following conferences: Pacific (held in Guam); Southwest (held in Albuquerque, NM); Hawaii (held in Kailua-Kona); Mountains-High Plains (held in Cheyenne, WY); and the Pacific Northwest (held in Spokane, WA). The last subregional conference, in California, is scheduled to be in August, 2009.
The Hawaii Subregional Conference page contains links to the keynote speakers: Andrew Hashimoto, CTAHR Dean; Jerry DeWitt; Leopold Center; Richard Ha; Hamakua Springs Country Farm; Ed Boteilho, Cloverleaf Dairy; and Gary Maunakea-Forth, MA'O Organic Farms. The Conference Overview and the Table Top Reports are also available on-line.
Western SARE has just announced the RFAs for the 2009-2010 funding cycle. This information is extremely important to grant seekers because these issues define the priorities that the WSARE will fund toward. See the Western SARE Grants page. Of immediate importance are the Research and Education Grant Pre-applications due June 12, 2009. You can download the Request for Pre-applications. On May 29, 2009, application for Graduate Student Grants are due. Professional Development Program Grants are due November 3, 2009 and the Farmer-Rancher and Professional-Producer Grants are due December 4, 2009.