Spring Greetings! We begin this letter by celebrating the wonderful success of our May 3rd CEFS Field Day. The NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services' Research Station staff, university faculty and students, the CEFS' programs and projects team, community partners, and farm apprentices worked together to create a truly memorable day for the nearly 300 participants who attended.

 

Attendees had the opportunity to visit the Small Farm Unit and community engagement sites as well as the Systems Research, Organic and Livestock units.  Comments by some of our stakeholders, including National SARE Program Director Dr. Rob Hedberg, showed that our research, outreach, and academic programs are well-appreciated nationally.

 

 In other exciting news, CEFS' work is being recognized in very meaningful ways.  We were recently awarded the NCSU Opal Mann Green Engagement and Scholarship Award, which recognizes the creation of inclusionary teams to pursue community-based learning and action around issues of local importance.  CEFS was also named a regional winner of the C. Peter Macgrath Community Engagement Award, a national distinction which recognizes outreach and engagement partnership efforts of four-year public universities.  We are honored to have our work recognized in these ways, and grateful for the many wonderful partnerships that give our work its true relevance.

  

Looking ahead, the 2012 Summer Internship Program is about to start.  Eighteen participants were selected from more than sixty applicants! We have made some changes to our program so that it continues to live up to the rave reviews we see ourselves getting in blogs and tweets across cyberspace.

  

We are excited about our new Produce Ped'lers rickshaws running between the Goldsboro farmers' markets and customers who lack convenient access to fresh and local produce. We were honored to have USDA Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon join us for the program's launch and announce that the Goldsboro market has been approved for SNAP benefits. 

  

Finally, the Farm to Fork Picnic paired 28 of the area's most amazing chefs and farmers in a sold-out all-you-can-eat feast on May 20. The weather was perfect for a celebration of local foods and great fun was had by all. The event is a fundraiser for the apprenticeship program at CEFS and the PLANT @ Breeze Farm Incubator. 

 

Here's to another season of fresh, healthy and delicious North Carolina produce. Let's work to make the bounty accessible to all.

 

Dr. John O'Sullivan

CEFS Director, NCA&TSU
 

Dr. Nancy Creamer

CEFS Director, NCSU

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Field Day attendees listen to Dr. Julie Grossman describe no-till organic corn production.

CEFS held an official Field Day on May 3, 2012 to highlight its innovative research projects and community initiatives.   More than 300 people gathered under clear skies at the CEFS Research Farm in Goldsboro, home to CEFS' eight research units. The units - Pasture-Based Dairy, Pasture-Based Beef, Pasture-Based Meat Goat, Alternative Swine, Small Farm, Farming Systems Research, Organic, and Composting - are managed by NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services staff in cooperation with NCSU and NCA&TSU faculty.

 

Farm tours gave participants a close look at activities in the Farming Systems Research, Organic, and Livestock units. Faculty from NCSU and NCAT&SU explained their various research projects with short talks on Soil and Water Studies, Agroforestry, No-Till Organic Corn Production, Organic Canola Production, Innovative Vacuum Systems for Removing Flies from Dairy Cows, and Outdoor Swine, among other topics. 

 

There were biofuels, composting, and vermicomposting demonstrations, as well as premieres of new videos showcasing the Pasture-Based Dairy and Alternative Swine units. More than 50 posters from CEFS-affiliated faculty and graduate students demonstrated the depth and range of CEFS-based research.

 

Open Houses were held in the Small Farm Unit, where visitors viewed the Unit's many innovative production techniques and met the season-long apprentices; and at community sites in Goldsboro, where visitors viewed the entrepreneurial, gardening, and local foods models that CEFS and community partners have created together.

 

Many distinguished guests were on hand to welcome participants, including Dean William Randle of the School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at NC A&T State University; Dean Johnny Wynne of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at NC State University; Associate Dean Ray McKinnie of the School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at NC A&T State University and Administrator of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Program; Sandy Stewart, Director of the Research Stations Division for the NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and NC State University; David Smith, Associate Dean and Director for NC Agricultural Research Service, NC State University; Rob Hedberg, Director of the National Sustainable Agriculture and Research Education (SARE) Program; and Goldsboro Mayor Alfonzo King.

 

The event concluded with a delicious local foods dinner by Green Planet Catering featuring pulled BBQ pork from Farmhand Foods (a CEFS initiative); vegetarian lasagna  made with tomatoes from the Agroecology Education Farm at Lake Wheeler Field Station (canned during peak tomato season); Sweet Potato Hash made with local sweet potatoes; creamed local greens; and Howling Cow ice cream, made with milk and cream from the NCSU Dairy. All organic waste (including plates and utensils) will be composted  at the Agroecology Farm.

 

A set of Proceedings (opens as a .pdf) highlighting publications and grants from CEFS-affiliated faculty was also published and distributed to attendees.

Thanks to everyone who made the event such a wonderful success, including Sustaining Sponsors Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (S-SARE) and North Carolina Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NC-SARE),Guardian Sponsor AgCarolina Financial, and Cultivator Sponsors Southern Bank, Delight Foods and Cape Fear Farm Credit.

 

 

CEFS Research Associate Silvana Pietrosemoli shows off finished compost full of red wriggler worms.

CEFS' new Composting Unit is up and running!  Since 2011, CEFS has been composting waste products from the swine hoop houses and spreading the resulting compost on various fields across the research farm. The work is done by NCDA&CS farm  staff in cooperation with university researchers.

The goal of the Composting Unit is to demonstrate both large-scale and small-scale composting methods that are replicable in backyard gardens and commercial farming operations alike.  As CEFS continues to move forward with integrated livestock and cropping systems, composting will be an important part of on-farm nutrient management.

Students also conduct vermicomposting and other small-scale demonstrations from time to time. Vermicomposting uses worms in a biological system to break down waste and produce high-quality, nutrient-rich compost. Careful management is essential for this process, which offers significant potential not only as a composting process but also as an income-generating enterprise for producers. For the past two years, this work has been supervised by CEFS Research Associate Silvana Pietrosemoli. 

Dr. Yasmin Cardoza, a CEFS entomologist from NC State, and graduate student Amos Little have been researching the effects of vermicompost on insect plant resistance. They found that incorporating as little as 20 percent vermicompost in the soil can increase host plants' resistance against caterpillar and aphid pests, although further research is needed to determine the exact factors responsible for these effects. Their work was recently highlighted on the Southern SARE website.