The U.S. government has long been in the business of
supporting education for farmers. In 1914, Congress passed the Smith-Lever
Act, which formalized a system of agriculture education that is still
ongoing. Known as cooperative extension, it was a partnership between the U.S
Department of Agriculture and the land grant
colleges. The partnership allowed the government to help those state universities get
farmers the most up-to-date knowledge on the best agricultural practices in
their area.
The extension system still exists today, although many
grumble that it only serves large, conventional farmers. The farm bill of 1985
partially addressed that problem by creating a resource for smaller farmers
looking to grow sustainably. Back then the program was called ATTRA, and
although its name has changed to the National Sustainable Agriculture
Information Service, most people still refer to it by its former acronym.
Or they used to. In the recent budget bill passed by
Congress, ATTRA,* a 35-year-old program
that has provided knowledge and training to new and existing farmers looking
for information on how to use sustainable production practices, had all of its
funding eliminated. Overnight, the program went from a $2.8 million budget to
$0.
“(It’s a) terrible disservice to anyone who wants to
farm sustainably,” says Patty Bancroft, who farms 300 organic acres in
Vermilion, S.D.
Bancroft relied heavily on ATTRA’s services when she
transitioned her family’s Evergreen Farm, which grows corn, beans, and alfalfa,
from conventional to organic agriculture.
“It’s really difficult to make the transition. And we
had a lot of trouble with weeds and we had a lot of trouble with how to apply (organic) fertilizer,” says Bancroft. The information she got from ATTRA,
which was based on current research, helped her family make the transition
successfully, said Bancroft.
“We’re the only organic farmers in our area, actually
within 100 miles. So there’s no other farmers really that can talk to us. I’ve
called other people, they’re harder to get a hold of and they aren’t as
accurate. (ATTRA) sends us information that we can study out at length and
really learn what we need to learn.”
ATTRA staff conducts research and gathers information on all
kinds of farming, from organic wheat production to rotational livestock
grazing. Their website hosts over 300 instructional publications they’ve
published to help sustainable farmers learn how to conserve the soil, combat
pests organically, and market their products so they make money. And they’ve done this all free of
charge, since 1986.
As soon as they got word of the budget bill, ATTRA was required
to make immediate cuts, says Kathy Hadley, executive director of the Butte,
Mont.-based National Center for Appropriate
Technology, which manages the ATTRA program. The organization has already
laid off about 50 percent of its staff of horticulturalists, livestock and
other agriculture specialists.
“We help people around the country and have for more
than 25 years, so this was quite a shock to us,” says Hadley.
Hadley says she believes the program was cut because it was
considered an earmark, even though it helps farmers in all states.
Although Hadley says she hopes ATTRA can garner funding from
outside sources, its future is unsure. Hadley is committed to keeping the
content-rich website, which has multiple databases on sustainable agriculture
information, up through the end of this summer, but after that she doesn’t know
what will happen.
Dan Nagengast, executive director of the Kansas Rural Center, which works
to keep rural communities vibrant by promoting sustainable agriculture, calls
ATTRA “a clearinghouse for how-to information having to do with specialty
crops, specialty livestock production, food processing and sustainable
agriculture.”
ATTRA helps new farmers who cannot afford a lot of land, or
who want to grow in a sustainable manner, get off the ground by offering them
experience, advice, and research data for free, says Nagengast.
“I think it’s a really economical way to do that to
broaden and deepen the kinds of range of agriculture in the U.S. and especially
those that require natural systems and those that are more entrepreneurial,
sort of startup kind of businesses.”
With a 14 percent cut to the overall USDA budget from 2010
spending levels, it was inevitable that some important programs got cut.
But it’s a shame that a service so valuable to the small,
sustainable farmer — an already underserved member of the agriculture
community — is no more.
Stephanie Paige Ogburn is High Country News‘s online editor
*The acronym ATTRA comes from the program’s original name,
Appropriate Technology Transfer to Rural Areas. Although it’s new name is the
National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, most people still refer
to it by the acronym ATTRA.
Image of wheat in a farmer’s hand courtesy the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
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