skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Minority Farm Program at Risk

play audio
Play

Thursday, November 29, 2012   

PHOENIX –Arizona's Native American, immigrant and minority farmers may be losing access to an innovative program that helps train them to become successful farmers.

The “Outreach and Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Program” could lose funding if Congress doesn't act on a farm bill soon. Rex Dufour, regional office director for the National Center for Appropriate Technology (N-CAT), a group that trains farmers about organic and sustainable ways to conserve soil and produce crops and livestock, says the program, also known as "2501," allows them to develop workshops and information that's much easier for this diverse group of farmers to understand.

“There’s lots and lots of information out there. The problem is it's not really accessible to a lot of these groups, so we try and make it a little bit more accessible by putting it into their language and also by making it easier to understand – and that benefits everybody.”

Dufour says they provide clear, concise and sometimes brand new information.

“Many of the growers we’ve talked to, nobody’s ever talked to them about the life in the soil and how you have to care for the soil. That's an important component of sustainable agriculture, but if nobody's ever told you, then you don’t really know how to manage soil very well.”

Just as our overall population is becoming more diverse, Dufour says, so are America's farmers.

“We need to get new farmers and we need to train them in sustainable farming techniques, and the 2501 Program is one of the ways to do that. I think it's really important. We need to be able to feed ourselves in a sustainable fashion.”

If the 2501 program were to disappear permanently, Dufour says, N-CAT and many other nonprofit organizations would be hard-pressed to train and develop informational materials for farmers that have been historically underserved by traditional outreach methods.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average age of America's farmers is around 60 years old and increasing every year.

More information is online at “http://sustainableagriculture.net” target=”parent”>sustainableagriculture.net.

"Many of the growers we've talked to, nobody's ever talked to them about the life in the soil and how you have to care for the soil. That's an important component of sustainable agriculture, but if nobody's ever told you, then you don't really know how to manage soil very well."

Dufour says just as our overall population is becoming more diverse, so are America's farmers.


"We need to get new farmers and we need to train them in sustainable farming techniques, and the 2501 Program is one of the ways to do that. And I think it's really important. We need to be able to feed ourselves in a sustainable fashion."

According to the Agriculture Department, the average age of America's farmers is around 60 years old and increasing every year.


Arizona's Native American, immigrant and minority farmers may be losing access to an innovative program that helps train them to become successful farmers. Doug Ramsey reports.

outreach methods.

Dufour is at 530-792-7343. More info at http://sustainableagriculture.net




get more stories like this via email

more stories
A report from the Tennessee HealthCare Campaign recommended the federal government needs to strengthen 340B drug pricing and other federal negotiation mechanisms to make needed medicines more readily available and less expensive for hospitals to purchase and administer. (Spotmatikphoto/AdobeStock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

A recent report examined how some rural Tennessee hospitals have managed to stay afloat despite financial challenges. The report includes interviews …


Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

Health and Wellness

play sound

Medicare and Medicaid are key sources of health coverage for many Americans and some people qualify for assistance under both programs. With lagging …


Organizations fighting wage theft said it harms affected workers and surrounding communities because the money withheld is not being circulated through the local economy. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

A mix of policy updates and staffing boosts has helped to put wage theft enforcement on the radar in Minnesota, and officials leading the efforts are …

Social Issues

play sound

New research shows more than six in 10 abortions in the U.S. last year were medically induced, and U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto - D-NV - is …

Social Issues

play sound

Missouri lawmakers are concerned with protecting people from the potential risks of the increasing accessibility of AI-generated images and videos…

Environment

play sound

A farm group is helping Iowa agriculture producers find ways to reduce the amount of nitrogen they use on their crops. Excess nitrates can wind up …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021