NEDA to Discuss Health Task Force Recommendations – ECOP National Task Force on Health, Michelle Rodgers,
chair, University of Delaware, reminds colleagues that the United States
continues to spend more on health care than any nation in the world but has
among the worst health outcomes of any developed nation. The task force
believes that our existing Cooperative Extension System can play an important
role in increasing health in America. Please review the executive summary at https://www.aplu.org/document.doc?id=5115
in preparation for discussion at the National Extension Directors and
Administrators Meeting this week in Sacramento.
Extension Award Nominations Due 5.30.14 – Take time now to submit nominations for the Excellence in
Extension and Diversity Awards. ECOP Program Subcommittee Chair, Jon Boren, New
Mexico State University, and ECOP Personnel Subcommittee Co-Chairs, James
Trapp, Oklahoma State University, and Chuck Hibberd, University of Nebraska,
together with Sandy Ruble in the ECOP National Office, have developed an
electronic submission, review, and notification process. To prepare a
nomination for submission, use the handy pdf version which
includes criteria found https://www.aplu.org/document.doc?id=5116. Then submit the nomination at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ECOPAwards2014.
Knapp Lecture Nominations Due 5.2.14 -- Each year the USDA National Institute of Food and
Agriculture (NIFA) joins with the Association of Public and Land-grant
Universities (APLU) to sponsor a lecture presented at the APLU annual
meeting. The lecture honors one of the three most important historical
figures of the Land-grant University System, William Henry Hatch for research,
Seaman A. Knapp for Extension, and Justin Smith Morrill for whom the Morrill
Act which created the Land-grant University system is named. Since
2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the Smith-Lever Act
passage, the Knapp Lecture will be delivered this year at the APLU annual
meeting in Orlando, FL, November 2-4. Nominations should include the name of
the nominee, title, address, telephone number, and e-mail address and topic
that could be discussed. Send to Kimberly Whittet at kwhittet@nifa.usda.gov by 5.2.14.
Celebrate Centennial Via Social Media --There are many ways to connect with the Cooperative Extension
Centennial through social media. Please encourage faculty, staff,
students, and volunteers to engage in the process and share their stories. The
100 Days of Tweets leading up to the Centennial Convocation is underway.
Twitter followers can use #Ext100Years on all Cooperative Extension related
posts. You can find Cooperative Extension at the following addresses: Centennial
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Extension100Years; Centennial
Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/Ext100Years;
Centennial Pinterest page: http://www.pinterest.com/ext100years, and YouTube
channel: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9GyqMs0FKlUKBTxtcyg04w/videos.
Honoring Borlaug’s 100th – Cathann Kress, Iowa State University, encourages celebration
of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Norman E. Borlaug,
famous agricultural scientist and humanitarian and founder of the World Food
Prize. On 3.25.14, the State of Iowa will install a bronze statue of Borlaug,
an Iowa native, as part of the prestigious National
Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, DC.
The statue unveiling ceremony at the U.S. Capitol will be webcast live at 11
a.m. ET at www.speaker.gov/live.
Further information is at www.iowaborlaugstatue.org. In addition, the Secretary of
Agriculture will host a Borlaug symposium 2:30 – 5:00 p.m. ET on 3.25.14. Watch
the symposium live at www.usda.gov/live.
FY 2015 Federal Budget Request (by Paula Geiger, USDA-NIFA Budget Officer) -- The
President submitted the FY 2015 Budget request to Congress on March 4, 2014.
The Budget includes discretionary funding of $1.34 billion, which is $58.4
million above the FY 2014 appropriations level. Highlights of the NIFA
budget include:
·
An increase of $9 million above 2014 for a
total of $325 million for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative;
·
Continued support for capacity funding,
minority-serving, and other programs;
·
A new investment creating public-private
partnership of Innovation Institutes focused on emerging challenges to
agriculture;
·
A new program to engage Veterans in the
agricultural sector;
·
A new program to support training and outreach
activities in food safety to assist small producers, processors, and vendors;
and
· An Opportunity, Growth and Security Initiative to provide
investments in competitive research including an additional $60 million for
AFRI and an additional $20 million for competitive grants under Hatch Act ($15
million) and Evans-Allen ($5 million).
Additional details can be found in the NIFA Budget Brochure
and the NIFA Congressional Budget Justifications at: http://www.nifa.usda.gov/about/offices/pdfs/fy2015_pres_budget_pro.pdf.
The NIFA Congressional Budget Justifications (Explanatory Notes) can be found
here: http://www.obpa.usda.gov/19nifa2015notes.pdf. Other useful
links are as follows:
- USDA Budget Summary: http://www.obpa.usda.gov/budsum/FY15budsum.pdf
- US Government Budget Material – posted by OMB - Agriculture Chapter: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2015/assets/agriculture.pdf
- Additional OMB Budget Material: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/
Health and Wellness Summit 4.7.14 – The National Coalition of Food and Agriculture Research,
of which Cooperative Extension/ECOP is a member, announces a half-day summit
Monday morning 4.7.14 at the Capitol Visitor’s Center in Washington, DC. To
register for the summit, called Cultivating a Healthy Future: Agriculture’s
Role in Improving Health and Wellness, go to www.cvent.com/d/x4q2c5/1Q.
Linda Kirk Fox, University of Georgia, Board on Human Sciences liaison to
ECOP, is on the planning committee. The purpose of the summit is to bring
together leaders from the health care and agriculture communities to offer an
innovative look at how U.S. food systems impact human health. Agency and
industry leaders will exhibit case studies that highlight the links between
agriculture and human health and how agriculture research programs can support
healthy outcomes in people, plants and animals.
Agritourism Liability Webinar
3.26.14 – Larry Katz, New Jersey (Rutgers)
Extension Director, encourages participation in the webinar Managing
Agritourism Liability on March 26, 2014 (1:00pm ET). This webinar, the
second in a series, is part of a multi-state project funded by the Northeast
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NESARE) Program designed to
support agricultural educators working in the area of agritourism
development. Liability risks associated with agritourism can never be
fully eliminated, but they can be managed. This webinar provides an
overview of the types of visitors you may receive on your farm, and your legal
obligations for their safety. Proactive measures to protect your personal
and business assets from legal exposure will be discussed. Connect to the
webinar at https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=783&password=M.42DF88C02D1B254AD2B7699FF73E6C.
