Newsroom

Updated Guide to USDA Programs Opens Door to Millions of Dollars of Available Funding

Building Sustainable Farms, Ranches and Communities covers 62 government programs and has been updated to include program updates from the 2018 Farm Bill. Each program listing provides a description of the program’s available resources, information on how to apply, and in some cases, examples of how the funding has been used.

New SARE Bulletin Addresses Ecological Approach to Managing Pests

A flock of sheep is vital to the success of one particular vineyard in Winters, California. While many operations struggle to manage weeds, this vineyard used a SARE-funded grant to test grazing sheep as a pest management practice, and they are seeing many whole-farm benefits. The sheep were trained to avoid the grape crop’s leaves […]

National Farmer Survey Documents a Wide Range of Cover Crop Benefits as Acreage Continues to Expand

Despite the crippling rainfall that significantly delayed planting across much of the country in 2019, more than 90% of farmers participating in a national cover crop survey reported that cover crops allowed them to plant earlier or at the same time as non-cover-cropped fields. Among those who had “planted green,” seeding cash crops into growing […]

Conservation Tillage Systems in the Southeast: Production, Profitability and Stewardship

“What could be more important to a farmer than soil erosion and soil quality? High-quality soil is a business asset,” says Bob Rawlins, a Georgia farmer who has been using no-till farming for 40 years. SARE’s newest book, Conservation Tillage Systems in the Southeast, explores the importance of conservation tillage and provides in-depth management guidance […]

The Future of Agriculture Depends on New Faces and New Ideas

"I grew up on this farm and had no desire to become a farmer,” says Liz Brownlee, talking about a 250-family property near Crothersville, Ind. But eventually, Brownlee and her husband Nate came to see farming as the ideal way to combine a passion for food with an ethic of environmental stewardship.  SARE’s 2019/2020 Report from […]

Free Fact Sheets Identify Broad Benefits of Cover Crops

Along with cutting costs and increasing crop productivity, cover crops provide various ecosystem services that benefit the environment both on and off the farm. For instance, adding cover crops to a rotation can significantly increase the portion of the year when living roots are present for soil organisms to feed on, which can have a […]

Cover Crop Economics Report Now Available in Print

Cover Crops Offer Options in Wet Soil As more farmers across the nation begin to incorporate covers into their rotations, they find that this valuable conservation practice pays in more ways than one. Many farmers in states suffering from oversaturated fields that prevented or delayed planting are considering cover crops. To help farmers evaluate the […]

When Do Cover Crops Pay? New USDA-SARE Report Addresses the Question

Farmers around the country are planting cover crops on millions of acres to protect and improve the soil, and the more that farmers use cover crops, the more they value this conservation practice. Cover Crop Economics, a new report published by USDA-SARE looks at the economics of cover crops to help farmers answer that big […]

Podcast Series Finale: Why On-Farm Research Matters

The final episode of SARE’s Our Farms, Our Future podcast series features Michigan State University Extension educator Dean Baas, who serves as the SARE co-coordinator for his state. Baas speaks with Alan Sundermeier, a fellow Extension educator with The Ohio State University and a former SARE co-coordinator in Ohio, about the importance of farmer participation in on-farm […]

Our Farms, Our Future Podcast: Aquaponics

The latest episode of SARE’s Our Farms, Our Future podcast series features JP Knobloch, co-owner of Straw Hat Aquaponics in Ferguson, Missouri. Knobloch speaks with his fellow co-owner Tim Hydar about growing food indoors while saving water and minimizing waste. Listen to or download the episode now. Aquaponics allows Straw Hat to raise high-quality, pesticide-free produce within […]

Our Farms, Our Future Podcast: Building Resilience

The latest episode of SARE’s Our Farms, Our Future podcast series features Laura Lengnick, a soil scientist and founder of Cultivating Resilience, LLC, a consulting firm that offers ecosystem-based climate risk management and planning services. Lengnick speaks with Donn Teske, a fifth-generation farmer in northeastern Kansas who is currently transitioning from cropping to cattle grazing on his […]

Our Farms, Our Future Podcast: Protecting our Pollinators

The latest episode of SARE’s Our Farms, Our Future podcast series features Eric Lee-Mader, co-director of the Xerces Society pollinator program speaking with Rachel Coventry, beekeeper at Curtis Orchard and Pumpkin Patch in Illinois, about the relationships between crops and pollinator conservation in agriculture.  Listen to or download the episode now. “We’ve seen this ongoing trend of both hard years […]

Our Farms, Our Future Podcast: Bridging the Rural-Urban Divide

The latest episode of SARE’s Our Farms, Our Future podcast features Becca Jablonski, assistant professor and food systems extension economist at Colorado State University, speaking with Charlie Jackson, the executive director of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP) in North Carolina, about diverse market channels and the impacts of interactions between farmers and consumers within […]

Our Farms, Our Future Podcast: Finding a Catalyst for Change in Agriculture

Catapulting the sustainable agriculture movement into the mainstream takes more than telling corporations, communities and producers that being sustainable is the right thing to do. It requires demonstrating how sustainable practices can be scaled to improve the resilience and profitability of agriculture as a whole. On the latest episode of SARE’s Our Farms, Our Future […]