Mini Grants

The Wisconsin Sustainable Agriculture Professional Development Program is making mini-grants available to Extension Educators for programming in sustainable agriculture. 

Who can apply?  UW Extension county agriculture educators may apply for a grant.  Collaborative projects with partners such as county land conservation departments, technical college staff, the Department of Natural Resources, or Resource Conservation and Development groups are encouraged. 

What is the maximum grant amount?  You can apply for up to $2,000 through the SARE mini-grant program.

What is the application process?  Fill out the mini-grant application form and e-mail it to Diane Mayerfeld at dbmayerfeld@wisc.edu.  Applications are due by March 30, 2012, and funding decisions will be made by April 20th, 2012. 
We also accept rolling mini-grant applications later in the year, if there are still SARE funds available.. Please allow at least 30 days for a decision on your application. 

What kinds of project are eligible?  The project must

• address the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of an aspect of Wisconsin agriculture and
• promote the professional development of agricultural educators. 

Examples of possible project types include

• organizing a workshop or field day focused on a sustainable agriculture topic,
• setting up a demonstration of a sustainable agriculture practice,
• establishing a new network of farmers and educators to explore or promote an aspect of sustainable agriculture.

If a significant proportion of your project audience will be educators, then the project will satisfy the professional development requirement.  If your primary audience will be farmers, then the project should address a program focus that will be new for you, and you must have a plan for sharing the results with your colleagues in order to satisfy the professional development requirement. 

Sustainable agriculture topic areas include (but are not limited to) organic agriculture, grazing, local foods, cover crops, agro-forestry, energy conservation and sustainable energy production, soil quality, and conservation of pollinators

What is the review process?  Your application form will be reviewed by the Wisconsin Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Task Force. You may be contacted by the SARE coordinator for more information or clarification before a final decision is made on funding.  The following criteria will be used in the review:

• Does the project promote sustainable agriculture?
• Will the project result in new knowledge or skills for educators?
• Is the project well thought out and feasible?
• Will the project measure its impact?
• Will the project be completed within a year of receiving the grant?

How will the money be given out?  The money will be provided on a reimbursement basis or invoices will be paid through the ANRE Program.  Jennifer Lord at (608) 263-7320 will handle the reimbursements and payment of invoices. 

Questions?  Comments?  Please contact Diane Mayerfeld at (608) 262-8188 or dbmayerfeld@wisc.edu

Completed mini-grants:

Title: New Forage Crop Rotations
Grantee: Keith Vandervelde
Summary: Cover crop demonstration. This project clearly demonstrated the ability to grow a fall cover crop of winter rye and hairy vetch and harvest the crop as hay in early June. The forage yield was 1.85 tons per acre. Part of this project was to measure the nitrogen contributions of the vetch to following crop. The yields of the pearl millet crop that followed closely match the 60 lbs per acre nitrogen fertilizer application areas that yielded 3.2 tons per acre of pearl millet hay with a protein value of 12% and a RFV of 121.

Title: Sustaining Our Food, Our Health, Our Livelihoods
Grantee: Aerica Opatik
Summary: Public workshop on local and sustainable food and nutrition. Project highlights included a diverse group of agriculture producers and nutrition educators who were able to share their experiences, knowledge, and ideas to help attendees learn more about sustainability. Our program focused on supporting local food systems, availability and access, and nutrition of sustainable foods. Our intention with broad topics was to draw in people of various interests within sustainability. The intention was good, but ended up being a downfall because we felt that we were too broad and not focused enough to appeal to more people. 43 people attended, including presenters.

Title: Publication of NPM  bulletin entitled "Frost Seeding Red Clover in Winter Wheat"
Grantee: Jim Stute
Summary: We printed 300 glossy copies of the 4 page color bulletin, which is available from the NPM program and will be used at educational events. The electronic version is available either at the NPM website: http://ipcm.wisc.edu/Publications/tabid/54/Default.aspx or the UWEX soybean/ small grains website: http://soybean.uwex.edu/
Copies will be mailed to clients without high-speed internet access upon request.

Title: Breeding and Genetics in Grazing Beef
Grantee: Kelly Jacobs
Summary: Public workshop on genetics for grazing beef. By bringing in additional partners such as the Vernon County Cattleman’s Association, we were able to reach out to a a very diverse group of people to spread the sustainable grazing message. 18 new addresses were added to the Grazing Group mailing list as a result of this event. About 90-100 individuals attended, including farmers, ag. teachers, and Extension educators.

Title: UW Peninsular Research Station Fruit School
Grantee: Richard Weidman
Summary: Workshop on IPM in fruit production, about 55 attendees.

Title: Incorporating summer and fall cover crops to apply dairy manure
Grantee: Gene Schriefer
Summary: Demonstration of cover crop cocktails. Summer cover crop of BMR Sorghum/Sudan & Cowpeas – very wet June and crop was seeded later than planned, but still yielded 3.3 tons of DM. Late seeding date limited opportunity for 2nd harvest.  Producer satisfied with having opportunity to spread manure in summer months, amazed with growth rate and cattle acceptance of feed.  Fall Cover Crop mixture – 5 tons of organic bedded pack material applied to alfalfa/grass stand, tilled under and seeded end of August. There was VERY limited moisture after seeding. We had excellent germination and establishment, all species in the mixture were readily identified, but limited growth of only 1000 lbs dm/acre by October.   Cattle acceptance was very good, exceptionally high quality feed.  Unsure if issue was soil moisture or planting date.  For producers, summer cover crops demonstrated an alternative manure management strategy that produced acceptable forage yield and quality in the case of the early summer seeding of warm season annuals.  The second late summer seeding demonstrated the risk associated with seeding annuals in low moisture periods; while forage quality was excellent, yield suffered. 

Title: Sustainable speaker honoraria for the ACEEE Forum on Energy Efficiency in Agriculture
Grantee: Laura Paine
Summary: This mini-grant paid for speakers to highlight the contribution that small scale pasture-based dairy farms can make to
sustainability in the dairy industry. The speakers we contributed included Joe Tomandl Jr. who gave a presentation on the economic and environmental performance of his own farm and grass-based dairies in general. Rick Adamski highlighted his family's process in financing and constructing an on-farm wind generator and other energy efficiencies they've adopted. Both speakers were very well received by this national audience and participants came away with a better understanding of the diversity of the Wisconsin dairy industry and of the diversity of
practices and systems that can be sustainable.