2024 NEDA Meeting in Louisville

The 2024 National Extension Directors and Administrators (NEDA) Meeting will take place in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky on September 17-19. Please update calendars with the location. The ECOP Meeting, New Extension Directors and Administrators orientation, and kick-off dinner will take place on September 17. Cooperative Extension Section business, dialogue, and leadership learning experiences will begin the morning of September 18, and conclude midday on September 19. Registration details, hotel information, and much more will be released during the second quarter of 2024. 

Speaking of Calendars - Click Here to view ECOP's Calendar that includes a few recent updates. 

USDA Announces Draft National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have released a Draft National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics. The strategy was shared at the USDA-NIFA's Institute of Food Safety and Nutrition (IFSN) Community Nutrition Project Directors' Meeting in New Orleans on December 4. The four main objectives in the draft National Strategy are:

• Prevent the loss of food where possible.
• Prevent the waste of food where possible.
• Increase the recycling rate for all organic waste.
• Support policies that incentivize and encourage food loss and waste prevention and organics recycling.

USDA National Climate Change Roadmap - A new resource, National Climate Change Roadmap - A Research Framework for Agriculture, Forestry and Working Lands, funded by USDA-NIFA and led by researchers from Colorado State University and Meridian Institute, was released recently. Within USDA, this report is a resource for program leaders to consider when developing strategies to support climate-smart agriculture and forestry as part of the research, Extension and education work at Land-grant Institutions and non-Land-grant Colleges and Universities. This resource was presented at the APLU Annual Meeting in Seattle.

USDA Now Accepting Loan Applications Online - The USDA has launched an online application for Direct Loan customers. More than 26,000 customers who submit a Direct Loan application each year can now use an online, interactive, guided application that is paperless and provides helpful features including an electronic signature option, the ability to attach supporting documents such as tax returns, complete a balance sheet and build a farm operating plan.

Through a personalized dashboard, borrowers can borrowers track the progress of their loan application. It can be accessed on farmers.gov or by completing FSA’s Loan Assistance Tool at farmers.gov/loan-assistance-tool. To use the online loan application tool, producers must establish a USDA customer account and a USDA Level 2 eAuthentication (eAuth) account or a Login.gov account. For the initial stage, the online application tool is only available for producers who will be, or are currently, operating their farm as an individual. FSA is expanding the tools availability to married couples applying jointly and other legal entities in 2024.