INNOVATION IN EXTENSION: University of Vermont

The following describes an innovative person.

Region: Northeast

Contact information for this innovator: Chris Callahan
Job title / position: Assistant Professor, Ag Engineer

Contact number: 802 773-3349 ext 277

Email address: christopher.callahan@uvm.edu

Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: He is looking at cold storage on smaller vegetable farms and helping the farmers build small remotely monitored coolers in which to store their produce. The work has shown a significant reduction in per farm wastage which is converted into additional revenue for the farmer. In addition he has designed and is testing a new piece of equipment that will enhance the ability of farmers to monitor and maintain better cooler conditions for stored produce.

Notes from phone interview:

A part of it is working on something that is going to be patented. When he first arrived three years ago, we all know we can buy produce from the West Coast here on the East Coast or in the Midwest and it will look like it just came out of the field or pretty close, a bit very high quality. We do a lot of local agriculture here and one of the things he'd noticed right off is that our storage capabilities, facilities or using the criteria used in California for storing vegetables in hard coolers left us with vegetables that didn't look as good after three or four weeks compared to Californian vegetable that may have been in transit for and in cold storage for a month or more.

So recognizing that issue, looking at both mechanical aspects and management aspects, he developed or in process actually with some start-up funding from our innovations office is doing some prototyping at developing a new piece of hardware then combining it with Internet connectivity and other monitoring software to better manage for farmers number one, and keep their produce as fresh as it is from California, not have to be checking the cooler three times a day or not checking it all night and have it go in bed. So having it connected to the Internet in your phone.

He just saw a whole package and his programmatic area is season extension and part of the season extension is the cooler and having fruits and vegetables for the winter, into the winter months or starting up early or in the spring. That's just a larger programmatic area and within that, he saw this particular issue and then has been pursuing that issue as part of this overall program in developing some new piece of hardware. I'm not saying it because it's in the process of being patented.


The following describes an innovative person.

Region: Northeast

Contact information for this innovator: Vern Grubinger
Job title / position: Professor, Small Fruits and vegetables

Contact number: 802 257-7967 ext 303

Email address: vernon.grubinger@uvm.edu

Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: He has a 20 year career in working with vegetable and small fruit to enhance production. This has included demonstrating the use of high tunnels to extend production seasons in Vermont, using alternative energy approaches to heat the high tunnels, working with others to initiate appropriate food safety measures being advanced by FDA. Vern has a long track record of being innovative on numerous occasions....always looking for a better, easier and more productive approach for farmers to use in their operations.

Notes from phone interview:

Vern is a very big thinker that has very grounded programs. Ten years ago, he was involved with the USDA [area of?] climate change before it was really becoming a more and more of a dirty word [chuckles]. He recognized it. He was working with scientists at USDA. They did at least, I know in the Northeast region, a number of workshops around climate change focused on farmers. How is climate change potentially going to impact farming operations in a region like the Northeast where we have lots of mountains and hills and valleys and streams and limited flat land, and that flat lands and crop plains. How would climate change, how is increased precipitation or reductions in precipitation at certain times a year impact us?

Not only was he thinking big, he also came back to the state and the region working with his counterparts looking at increased high tunnels. These are plastic-- they're like greenhouses. They're plastic-covered structures in which you can either plant directly into the ground, that have heating pipes underneath, that have irrigation. Not only do you extend season, you also mitigate against midsummer drought, you also can enhance your production per square foot and not have to use that bottom land that's next to the river that may, where it does flood once a year or every third year, you lose your crop.

In addition, he was working on food safety. He saw food safety as an issue coming down the pipe. He's been working on food safety here in Vermont with several colleagues developing different approaches to helping small farmers, medium farmers, and the large farmers deal with food safety. That came along in the last three years or so and he's been actively involved there, helping change the rules so that they better fit small and medium-sized farmers coming up with specific programs or approaches or wash water tests or just a whole range of things. So we can think big but then always scales it down, "Okay. What can a farmer do and what can I think of that they can do to meet these guidelines without it costing 10, 20, 50, $100,000?"

Biodiesel in the state, he saw an increasing interest in biodiesel so worked with one particular farmer. They have a Department of Energy grant now almost 20 years ago to build a structure and they began building a small reactor for producing biodiesel which has led now in the state to many other people working in it and he doesn't even had to work in it anymore - he's got on to food safety and other things. But he was the first one to help the farmer build the plant and follow safety guideline, do it in single batches, start growing canola, sunflower, and other oil seed crops that will need that operation. Now, you see sunflowers and canola and other plants all across the state. Others are actually taking the lead now and he said, "That's fine."

He saw energy - or I guess is a lot more noticeable - but working with wood energy and alternative stoneware energy, other things to reduce in our propane being used in the high tunnels that he was helping innovate and bring into the state for season extension. He just always seems to be able to see all that occurs more than most. But then dial it back to what do we need to do now to help move that along and address the issues that come along. The issues don't stay up in the sky somewhere. He pulls the issues down right on to the ground and says, "Okay. How does that impact us here and what can we do?" I'd say that's enough about Vern. But that's just his strength.


The following describes an innovative person.
Region: Northeast

Contact information for this innovator: Mark Cannella
Job title / position: Assistant Professor, Farm Business Management

Contact number: 802 223-2389

Email address: mark.cannella@uvm.edu

Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: Is the manager of a program aimed at helping agricultural businesses create and follow through on business plans. He is currently also working with others to extend this program to include forest product producers in the state of Vermont.

Notes from phone interview:

That's it. Mark, about 10 or 15 years ago, with budget cuts, we had to reduce our - we're a dairy state but we have to reduce our nutrition specialist and our [account?] comfort specialist, the whole host of folks that we were currying out as we didn't have the funds to replace. So step back and love to see. I know that we actually-- what are the most innovative ways to support dairy farms? Then what we realized is we still had vets, we still had nutrition folks at the great dealerships. What they all seem to lack is the ability to know their finances, to have a business plan, to have a goal in mind, to be thinking about diversification of their operation, to know their enterprise budgets of the different enterprises they might be running on their farm. In that case, develop what we call a farm viability program.

But we just can't do a program by ourselves. There's something in Vermont called the Vermont Housing Conversation Board which gets tax dollars and other land transfer dollars because they do both public housing and land conservation. They thought this was a great idea. So they came on board and also, there's two or three other organizations - non-profits - in the state. One NOFA or Northeast Organic Farming Association working with organic dairy, Intervale working with innovative farmers on incubation farm and a couple of private consultants. That became the farm viability program of different contractors.

VHCB has the money. They're able to garner additional dollars and then we are all contractors with them for a certain number of business plans a year. It's a two-year. The first year, we think a year to help the farmer build business plans. We do not write it. We help them collect all the information and help them understand what they need to do. If they don't know how to do it then we slide them off into another series of workshops so they can learn what they need to do and they can come back into the program the next year.

Those that have everything they need, go through that program. At the end, they have written a business management plan. That business management plan doesn't just talk about what they're doing, it also incorporates the environmental restrictions they may have on their farm and what they may have to do and the investments they may have to make in order to stay in business. Also, it looks at diversification opportunities. What can they be doing with their land and time and farm if the return on the investment is not as great as they would hope that that is or they don't have the management skills to get it there?

It's really innovative in that we're not just trying to keep them in business, we're trying to help them think through their business and coming up with a management plan and a future approach. The second year is oftentimes, there are a lot of programs that build these types of business management plans, and then the farmer's kind of left on their own to implement and we follow up for the second year to keep talking to them and engaging with them. Most of the farms, I'd say over 90% of the farms in the last 15 years that have gone through the program are still in business. But we had a lot of other farms go out of business.

They have taken this to heart and they've been applying it and some of them have come back and gotten innovation grants from other programs to continue to expand their operation, to diversify their operation from coolers to going into producing [goals?] to fruits and vegetables to a whole host of turkeys and chickens and all these different things that had made their operation more financially successful. I guess the latest innovation in the last year is moving markets and moving to begin to incorporate our forest businesses in the state, having them eligible for the program. The whole program is doing that so that we're not just going to be doing that for our agricultural sector but also for our forestry sector, as well.


The following describes an innovative person.
Region: Northeast

Contact information for this innovator: Mary Peabody
Job title / position: Community Economic Development Specialist & WAgN Director

Contact number: 802 223-2389

Email address: mary.peabody@uvm.edu

Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: Designed A-Z program looking at women in Ag (WAgN – Women in Ag Network). Through a series of educational, technical assistance, and networking opportunities, WAgN works to increase the number of women owning and operating profitable farms and ag-related businesses, as well as their profile in leadership positions throughout the agricultural sectors of business, government and community. From developing and assessing a business idea through the advanced planning and implementation phases, WAgN offers a program to support and encourage these varying levels.

New Farmer Network and supporting new farms – entrepreneurs. Comprehensive Farmer Pre School. Internet marketing.

Notes from phone interview:

She was one of the originators way back when almost 15, 20 years ago, she's helped expand it to other states here in the Northeast. She's been very good about developing programs for people that think they want to go into farming. So a whole series of courses, and at the end of it, they have the financial plan and they can decide, "I want to make more than 2% a year in my money because I still want to take that Caribbean vacation twice a year."

So it's just being innovative about not just saying, "You want to be a farmer. Let me show you what it requires," but making sure they understand all the stuff going along with the business aspect of that and really understanding what it would take to become a farmer. If you want to do that, wonderful. At the end of it, if you don't want to that, it's wonderful as well. In fact, that's [a win?] rather than spending hundreds of thousand of dollars and deciding you don't like it and losing your shirt. We're better off having people decide after going through the program that they don't want to go into farming. I would say other than the three I already have, those will be two others which I'll add in the youth development and the community development realm.

Two things there she's done for a number of years. I can't say all came together. But WAgN, this Women Ag Network, it was set up over a decade ago in Vermont as the first state. Now, it's expanded to at least several other states and I can't tell you how many. But she recognized that there were more and more women farmers that their experience, the equipment and tools, the design of the tools, a whole host of things that there were difference between men and women. A lot may have worked perfectly fine for a man in an agricultural setting was more back-breaking or difficult to use for a woman. Also, they've never had the broader experiences with certain types of equipment or what the finances related to agriculture.

She developed a re-program looking at all those things and more to support women and how we're going into agriculture. In reality, over time, it extended to any new person, whether a male or a female or whatever gender was interested in agriculture is welcome into that program and it's still there, WAgN is still there in states but they also have a parallel program that's just new farmers, the New Farmer Network. Again, it's focused on those individuals that think they want to leave whatever they are doing and become a farmer. It's again, an intense series of classes and workshops over a year whereby they also are developing a business plan so that at the end of all that, even if they have enjoyed all the physical labor, they don't like the potential financial returns of all that labor during that year.

I guess it's a comprehensive preschool for those that want to become farmers and she has just been very innovative from thinking about the Internet - the Internet marketing - to even realizing that there were these different groups of people in agriculture that needed educational opportunities different from the long-standing dairy farmer or the bee farmer or the corn farmer or the wheat farmer. There is this other whole segment that were farming or thinking about farming and needed support.


The following describes an innovation.

Region: Northeast

Main contact information for this innovation: Sarah Kleinman

Main contact job title / position: State 4-H Program Director

Main contact number: 802-656-0311

Main contact email address:  sarah.kleinman@uvm.edu

Innovation name: PROSPER

Brief description of innovation as provided in online survey: The vision of PROSPER is to support community partnerships that sustain the most effective programs for promoting positive youth development and strong families, and to facilitate translation of prevention science into widespread community practice. PROSPER stands for PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships toEnhance Resilience.

This evidence-based delivery system links university-based prevention researchers with two established program delivery systems within a state—the Cooperative Extension System at the Land Grant University and the public school system. The public school system offers collaborators who support evidence-based programs access to youth in the community. Extension offers knowledge of the community and experience in disseminating educational programs. In this way, the delivery system entails a partnership-based approach to evidence-based programming, called the PROSPER Partnership model.

Notes from phone interview:

PROSPER is a evidence-based program that's in the, I think it's eighth to ninth grade. It comes out of Iowa, and I think association with Penn State, as well. It has ten years of documentable data that shows when you apply, the program says the [stability?] of the program, the actual projects. PROSPER is the umbrella that says [videos?] are effective programs when applied the way they were designed. So PROSPER says, "This is how they were designed, this is how we have to implement them and then follows up to make sure we're implementing them correctly in the schools." As a result, we're beginning to see some documentable results around drug and alcohol or risky behaviors, I guess, so they'll be on that, too. That was something that my state director-- I originally had gotten an invite to join that program and I turned it down. We talked about it, we looked at it more closely and I ended up changing my mind and say, "Okay. You've convinced me based on those three questions. Maybe we should pursue this." We've been doing it four, five years. I provide the bulk of the funding out of the dean's office to support that. We've been developing financial connections with schools where we're applying it. As they see it being effective, they're more willing to loosen the purse strings and saying, "This program works. We should be spending our money here, not on two or three others we have no clue if they work or not."