John C. Mayne

Southern Region/SARE/ACE

Griffin, Georgia

American farmers are faced with the dual challenges of making a living from the land and also protecting the ecosystems of which their farms are a part and on which their farms depend. The Southern Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Producer Grant program is designed to help reconcile these two--at times seemingly conflicting--challenges.

Southern Region SARE Producer Grant funded projects are developed, coordinated and conducted by farmers or farmer organizations. Producer grants help farmers or farm organizations who want to solve on-farm problems by conducting their own research or by developing technologies in sustainable agriculture. Moreover, farmers put toge-ther project teams of people whose skills complement their own. These people can be Extension agents, from non-government organizations, or other farmers and they can help with experimental design, marketing, dissemination of results, etc.

On-farm farmer-designed research is more likely to provide the types of information that farmers are looking for than will conventional researcher-designed research. This is because farmers tend to design their research to solve problems that include biological, edaphic, economic and sometimes cultural components all in one project.

The funding of on-farm research

• Encourages farmer innovation,

• Facilitates on-farm problem solving

• Demonstrates the utility of on-farm research results to other farmers.

Five Southern Region SARE Producer Grant funded research projects provide good examples of farmer-designed research.

Raising Shrimp in Farm Ponds

Alternative income opportunities, through crop diversification and niche marketing, can help a family farm stay economically viable. This project demonstrated the feasibility of freshwater shrimp polyculture utilizing existing farm ponds to increase farm income in Kentucky. The objectives of the project were to: (1) etablish a freshwater shrimp production system in an existing farm pond, (2) collect water quality, production and cost data on shrimp production systems; and (3) host a field tour to demonstrate the integration of shrimp production into sustainable agriculture systems.

Cotton production has historically involved the use of large amounts of pesticides. With the eradication of the boll weevil, cotton farmers have the opportunity to use pest management systems that utilize the natural enemies of common cotton pests.

In this project the farmer worked closely with a USDA entomologist. They sampled insects in a fifty-acre conservation-tilled crimson clover/cotton field and in an adjacent 50-acre conventionally tilled field. In a third field in a neighboring county they placed six three-row refugia strips of uncultivated native vegetation and plants replicated to provide beneficial habitat. The objectives of the project were to:

(1) compare insect population (beneficial and pest) found in the conventional tilled and conservation tilled fields;

(2) evaluate the benefits of utilizing beneficial-insect enhancing plants in refugia strips; and

(3) quantify the biological and economic benefits of reduced pesticide use.

On-Site Composting of Poultry Litter

The farmer grows tobacco, soybeans and market vegetables near the environmentally sensitive Okeefenokee National Park and wants to use composted poultry litter instead of commercial fertilizer. However, impending regulations in the Coastal Nutrient Management Zone, in which his farm lies, are making it necessary for poultry farmers to adopt efficient waste manage-ment programs. This project will generate information on rates and quantities of poultry litter that can be applied as fertilizer without contaminating the eco-system.

Poultry farmers and growers near poultry operations who want to use the litter on their crops will benefit from this information. The objective of the project is to demonstrate the effect of different rates and methods of application of poultry litter applied to corn, soybeans and tobacco on crop yield and water quality.

One of the goals of sustainable agriculture is the reduction or elimination of off-farm inputs. Two Alabama organic growers had been using purchased poultry litter as the main nitrogen source for their component which they used on their four-acre organic garden.

Due to concerns about contamination, transportation logistics, and the econo-mics of purchasing poultry litter, they decided to try something else.

They speculated that they could use clover clippings to replace purchased chicken litter in compost. They also were interested in determining which carbon source available on their farm would work best in their compost. The objectives of the project were to: (1) compare clover clippings with poultry litter as a nitrogen source for compost terms of handling, cost and quality for use in organic vegetable production and (2) determine the best carbon source for use in clover compost.

In the past few years, only slightly more than three percent of the revenue from cut flower sales in Oklahoma came from flowers grown in that state.

Little research and business start-up information has been available to help growers interested in cut flower pro-duction. For this project, two growers converted wheat acreage to a cut flower production system in order to evaluate the feasibility of cut flowers as a sustainable alternative crop in Oklahoma.

The objectives of the project were to:

(1) develop a prototype mixed-species specialty cut flower production system and (2) test the use of cover crops as nitrogen sources and as companion plants for cut flowers.

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