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No-Till Intensive Trainings
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8-part webinar series with farmers, researchers, or other expert practitioners. The classes will discuss common obstacles to implementing a successful no-till program, address these issues through field proven technical knowledge, and follow a training plan that will best enable the TSP (technical service provider) to support the farmers in the no-till practice transition. This course is open to any service provider working with farmers in the Northeast! Upon course completion participants will receive a No-Till Intensive Training Certificate of Completion, as well as be eligible for 8 CCA credits and 1 Pesticide credit.
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Training
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Training Resources Exchange
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Certified Biomass Procurement Specialist - Switchgrass
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This eight-hour online course is designed to prepare agriculturists to work with farmers as employees of a bio-refinery to provide its feedstock needs. Course topics include site selection, soils, drainage, fertility, varieties, weed control, selecting growers, contracts, production systems and other switchgrass production issues. Course instructors are specialists from Auburn University, University of Tennessee, University of Kentucky and Genera Energy. For more information or to enroll contact Mark Hall (hallmah@auburn.edu).
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Training
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Training Resources Exchange
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Effects of irrigation on global climate during the 20th century
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Various studies have documented the effects of modern‐day irrigation on regional and global climate, but none, to date, have considered the time‐varying impact of steadily increasing irrigation rates on climate during the 20th century. We investigate the impacts of observed irrigation changes over this century with two ensemble simulations using an atmosphere general circulation model. Both ensembles are forced with transient climate forcings and observed sea surface temperatures from 1902 to 2000; one ensemble includes irrigation specified by a time‐varying data set of irrigation water withdrawals. Early in the century, irrigation is primarily localized over southern and eastern Asia, leading to significant cooling in boreal summer (June–August) over these regions. This cooling spreads and intensifies by century’s end, following the rapid expansion of irrigation over North America, Europe, and Asia. Irrigation also leads to boreal winter (December–February) warming over parts of North America and Asia in the latter part of the century, due to enhanced downward longwave fluxes from increased near‐surface humidity. Precipitation increases occur primarily downwind of the major irrigation areas, although precipitation in parts of India decreases due to a weaker summer monsoon. Irrigation begins to significantly reduce temperatures and temperature trends during boreal summer over the Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes and tropics beginning around 1950; significant increases in precipitation occur in these same latitude bands. These trends reveal the varying importance of irrigation‐climate interactions and suggest that future climate studies should account for irrigation, especially in regions with unsustainable irrigation resources.
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Resources
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Climate Science Documents
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Tennessee Department of Agriculture
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Our Vision: Ensure agriculture and forestry are the leading industries in Tennessee. Our Mission: Serve, support, and promote agriculture and forestry.
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LP Members
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Organizations Search
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Effect of per-capita land use changes on Holocene forest clearance and CO2 emissions
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The centerpiece of the early anthropogenic hypothesis is the claim that humans took control of greenhouse-gas trends thousands of years ago because of emissions from early agriculture (Ruddiman, 2003, 2007). A common reaction to this claim is that too few people lived thousands of years ago to have had a major effect on either land use or greenhouse-gas concentrations. Implicit in this view is the notion that per-capita land clearance has changed little for millennia, but numerous field studies have shown that early per-capita land use was large and then declined as increasing population density led to more intensive farming. Here we explore the potential impact of changing per-capita land use in recent millennia and conclude that greater clearance by early agriculturalists could have had a disproportionately large impact on CO2 emissions.
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Resources
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Climate Science Documents
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Reconciling nature conservation and traditional farming practices: a spatially explicit framework to assess the extent of High Nature Value farmlands in the European countryside
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Over past centuries, European landscapes have been shaped by human management. Traditional, low intensity agricultural practices, adapted to local climatic, geographic, and environmental conditions, led to a rich, diverse cultural and natural heritage, reflected in a wide range of rural landscapes, most of which were preserved until the advent of industrialized agriculture (Bignal & McCracken 2000; Paracchini et al. 2010; Oppermann et al. 2012). Agricultural landscapes currently account for half of Europe’s territory (Overmars et al. 2013), with ca. 50% of all species relying on agricultural habitats at least to some extent (Kristensen 2003; Moreira et al. 2005; Halada et al. 2011). Due to their acknowledged role in the maintenance of high levels of biodiversity, low-intensity farming systems have been highlighted as critical to nature conservation and protection of the rural environment (Beaufoy et al. 1994; Paracchini et al. 2010; Halada et al.2011; Egan & Mortensen 2012).
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Climate Science Documents
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Living Soil Film
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Our soils support 95 percent of all food production, and by 2060, our soils will be asked to give us as much food as we have consumed in the last 500 years.
60-minute documentary featuring innovative farmers and soil health experts from across the nation. The societal and environmental costs of soil loss and degradation in the U.S. are now estimated to be as high as $85 billion every single year. It’s time we changed everything we thought we knew about soil.
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Training
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Videos and Webinars
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Article: Racial Equity in the Farm Bill
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Article describing the barriers for farmers of color as related to the Farm Bill and other policies
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Resources
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Background on equity and inclusion
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Podcast: The Land of Our Fathers, Part I
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More than a century and a half after the promise of 40 acres and a mule, the story of Black land ownership in America remains one of loss and dispossession. This 30-minute podcast explores how policies and practices have shaped Black farming and land ownership.
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Background on equity and inclusion
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Podcast: The Land of Our Fathers, Part II
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40-minute podcast that explores how prejudice and racism shaped agricultural loan programs in the U.S. and how it affects Black farmers today. June and Angie Provost, who trace their family line to the enslaved workers on Louisiana’s sugar-cane plantations, know this story well.
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Background on equity and inclusion
