An official website of the United States government.

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development - 2013

Objective

We will implement the programs and activities approved by the Center's Board of Directors at the 2012 Board Meeting in Portsmouth, NH, and will continue to build on the successes of the previous year that have been outlined in the Annual Report 2012. The leadership of NERA and NEED continues to seek out the Center for its expertise in rural development and is asking us to contribute to new regional initiatives. In response to input from the Center's Technical Advisory Committee, we will increase our efforts in the area of networking the land grant university stakeholders and other agencies in the Northeast as well as nationally. The Center's three key subject matter areas align with the priorities of NERA and NEED as well as USDA/NIFA as follows: entrepreneurship and job creation, including within the green economy (NIFA priority 3); community, local and regional food systems, including their relationships to childhood obesity, food safety, food access and capacity to feed the region and world (NIFA priorities 1, 4 and 5); and land use and balanced use of natural resources, by addressing trade-offs between alternative forms of energy use and development, invasive species, and other issues (NIFA priority 2). The Center's continuing relevance is evident from the fact that the Director was invited to organize a symposium session at the joint North Central and Northeast leadership meeting last fall on the scale and diversity of agriculture and food distribution in the Northeast. He has also been invited to present at an American Applied (formerly Agricultural) Economics Association workshop to be held in Washington, DC this summer. This integrated project focuses on local and regional issues that, working
collaboratively through the other RRDCs, also have a national impact.

More information

<p>NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:<br/> We will implement the programs and activities approved by the Center's Board of Directors at the 2012 Board Meeting in Portsmouth, NH, and will continue to build on the successes of the previous year that have been outlined in the Annual Report 2012. The leadership of NERA and NEED continues to seek out the Center for its expertise in rural development and is asking us to contribute to new regional initiatives. In response to input from the Center's Technical Advisory Committee, we will increase our efforts in the area of networking the land grant university stakeholders and other agencies in the Northeast as well as nationally. The Center's three key subject matter areas align closely with the priorities of NERA and NEED as well as USDA/NIFA. The Center's continuing relevance is evident from the fact that the Director was
invited to organize a symposium session at the joint North Central and Northeast leadership meeting last fall on the scale and diversity of agriculture and food distribution in the Northeast. He has also been invited to present at an American Applied (formerly Agricultural) Economics Association workshop to be held in Washington, DC this summer. This integrated project focuses on local and regional issues that, working collaboratively through the other RRDCs, 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. These continue to guide our work. Specifically, the Center: produces and disseminates research with no explicit Extension products, produces and disseminates research and produces Extension products, organizes initial and follow-up convenings that lead to Center commissioned and disseminated best practice Extension products, and sees the potential of developing Extension products from others' work, whether research or Extension, within the region or not, and commissions and disseminates Extension products. Concrete examples of each of the above are available from the Center upon request. 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. This effort will receive a major boost once the Policy Research Center is functional, with two post-docs and faculty-consultant collaborators. (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. A transition to a new Content Management System will occur over this funding period; 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.

Investigators
Goetz, Scott
Institution
Pennsylvania State University
Start date
2013
End date
2014
Project number
PEN04530
Accession number
1000242