Monday, November 28, 2011

Conservation Agriculture

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines "Conservation Agriculture" as
“a concept for resource-saving agricultural crop production that strives to achieve acceptable profits together with high and sustained production levels while concurrently conserving the environment.”

Wikipedia is a widely-used source for background information on an untold number of topics, from personal histories of public figures, to detailed descriptions of Anime characters, to the history of bread. 


For those who would like to learn more about conservation agriculture, check out Wikipedia's article on the subject. 

It lists key principles of Ag Conservation, including "practicing minimum mechanical soil disturbance" (i.e. no-till farming) and "practice of crop rotation with more than two crop species" (i.e. cover cropping).

This photo of a beautiful cover crop is from PlantCoverCrops.com

Conservation agriculture is a worldwide movement, and has been for quite some time. Here in Indiana we have a strong Conservation Partnership that works to encourage landowners to engage in conservation practices. If you want to get involved, feel free to contact me via commenting on this blog post, or contact your local Soil and Water Conservation District! (PDF)


EPA's "Apps for the Environment"

The EPA held a contest this summer to challenge "app" developers to come up with a tool that uses EPA data. The apps can be used on smartphones. The top five apps are:

  • Winner, Best Overall App: Light Bulb Finder by Adam Borut and Andrea Nylund of Eco Hatchery
  • Runner Up, Best Overall App: Hootroot by Matthew Kling of Brighter Planet
  • Winner, Best Student App: EarthFriend by Will Fry and Ali Hasan of Fry Development Company and Differential Apps
  • Runner Up, Best Student App: Environmental Justice Participatory Mapping by Robert Sabie, Jr. of Western Washington University 
  • Popular Choice Award: CG Search by Rajasekaran Bala of Cognizant Technology Solutions

I think my favorite for everyday use is HootRoot, which helps users map out the greenest way to get where they're going, but the Environmental Justice Participatory Mapping app can be an important tool in recognizing environmental discrimination. According to the website, it "give[s] citizens access to basic information on unregulated water sources and abandoned urnanium mine features. The map also provides citizens with the basic tools to visulize the spatial elements of potential environmental hazards"

Check them out! A full list of contest submissions can be found here. What's your favorite?

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Agriculture - Based Scholarships

A variety of scholarships are available to students of Agriculture. A great list is featured on Brownfield Ag News' website. Some are available to a limited audience - Boone County residents or Ball State students, for example - and some are available to a wider audience, like one offered by the Indiana Beef Association.

See all the scholarship listings here.

For a large listing of ag-related scholarship programs, check out this link on Scholarships.com.

Attention young writers!

An essay contest co-sponsored by Indiana's Family of Farmers and Indiana Humanities is available to students in grades 4-12. The Contest is entitled, "Our Food, Our Farmers: Feeding the World." For details, go to this website. Sponsored by Indiana's Family of Farmers and Indiana Humanities, the essay contest encourages students to recognize and share all the ways Indiana agriculture plays a positive role in their own lives -as well as in the lives of those around them. The essay competition includes three grade levels: 4-6; 7-9 and 10-12. Entries must be received by Feb. 1, 2012. Details about how to enter the contest, guidelines for different grade levels, and prizes can be found here.



Conference: Special Opportunities

Welcome back after a long holiday weekend! The season has just begun and the IASWCD office is busy preparing for the 2012 Annual Conference of SWCDs. The theme is The Power of Conservation: Local Action with Global Impacts! This will be the 69th time this educational and informative conference has been offered to the conservationists of Indiana, and we are looking forward to it! It will take place January 9-12 in downtown Indianapolis. For more information and to register, check out our website here

There are still exhibitor booths available for any organization or company that would like to seize this excellent opportunity to reach out to the over 400 conservationists that will be in attendance at the conference. For more information, please contact Liz Rice, our project assistant.

This year, IASWCD was pleased to be able to offer up to 10 full conference scholarships to local Soil and Water Conservation District supervisors. (Supervisors serve as board members to their local SWCD. In Indiana, there are 92 SWCDs - one for each county. Learn more about supervisors, their role in promoting conservation, and how you can be one here!) The application deadline for this year has past (we awarded 7 full scholarships), but be ready to apply again in 2013!

IASWCD is also offering two grants of $750 apiece to the two SWCDs that recruit the most supervisors, staff, or associate supervisors to go to Conference this year. Those recruited must meet these criteria: 1) they have never been to Conference before, or 2) they must not have been to Conference since 2008. Recruiters may recruit individuals from outside of their own District. More information and the application can be found here. It is due January 4.