Improving Whole Community Animal and Agriculture Preparedness

The project goal is to engage youth and stakeholders at the local, state, tribal, and federal levels in animal and agriculture preparedness to improve whole community local emergency planning. Objectives to be reached by the end of the performance period of the project include: [1] increase youth involvement in community disaster preparedness; [2] integrate newly updated agrosecurity concepts into current Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN) Strengthening Community Agrosecurity Preparedness (S-CAP) trainers' knowledgebase and teaching skills; and [3] expand the cadre of EDEN agrosecurity planning trainers. Accomplishment of this goal and supporting objectives will be achieved through development of peer-reviewed teaching materials, conducting trainings, recruiting trainers/participants and evaluating results. The youth component will be piloted in two states for a total of four times, evaluating and revising the material at the conclusion of each pilot. An EDEN S-CAP trainer update will be developed and conducted to leverage previously trained state S-CAP teaching team personnel from states across the nation to maximize dissemination of the product as a natural and logical addition to the planning foundation established during EDEN's S-CAP workshops. S-CAP workshops will be conducted as Train-the-Trainer opportunities for expansion of the trainer pool. The project will help the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture achieve significant impacts in its priority areas: such as assuring food safety and global food security through increased community resilience. Additional project outcomes include local/regional/state/tribal/national education and communications leadership to add value to current educational materials regarding agricultural preparedness issues.