Implement Plan of Work for the Southern Region SARE program

The goal of Southern SARE’s PDP is to enhance agricultural professionals’ effectiveness in supporting their clientele’s efforts to make farms, rural communities, and perhaps even urban communities more sustainable. Extension workers and other land grant university faculty, staff and administrators are an essential resource in achieving this goal. By establishing a focused effort on LGU and especially extension personnel, the resources of the Southern Region SARE program can be more effectively utilized in this effort. The Southern Region SARE program Administrative Council has developed a “Model State Program” which describes the desired situation and activities of the SARE State Coordinators. This document essentially defines a large part of the mission of the SARE LGU Coordinator. The term “coordination” is used in a very broad sense in this document, including roles of evaluator, advocate, information broker, mediator and problem solver. Planned Outcomes: 1. Increased focus on sustainable agriculture in extension systems and land grant university programs throughout the Southern Region; 2. Extensive sharing of training resources among states, leading to more effective assistance for the farm community; 3. Buy-in and implementation of the “State Extension Professional Development Program Coordinators - Guidance and Expectations in Sustainable Agriculture” document; 4. Represent S-SARE PDP on national SARE committees, such as eXtension and increased demand for and use of the products of the Southern Region SARE program, the National SARE program and even interaction between extension workers in various regions.