[cs_content][cs_section parallax=”false” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”https://mesaprogram.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/farm-love.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][x_custom_headline level=”h2″ looks_like=”h4″ accent=”false” class=”cs-ta-center”]Working with farmers to collect Working with farmers to collect Working with farmers to collect Working with farmers to collect Working with farmers to collect [/x_custom_headline][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px 0px 45px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/6″ style=”padding: 0px;”] [/cs_column][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”2/3″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text]With conventional agriculture as one of the biggest contributions to climate change, it is imperative that we build solutions to reduce the impact of farming on the environment and while also making farmers and their farms more climate resilient. MESA is proud to announce our new project, “Building Climate Resilience: By Farmers, For Farmers”. Launching in early 2018, this innovative project aims to work closely with farmers and ranchers to face and adapt to climate change.
The project will combine online coursework with in-person farmer-to-farmer knowledge sharing. This hybrid approach aims to help farmers create and apply voluntary, low-risk strategies to improve environmental conditions on-farm while helping build resilience and productivity within management practices. It will additionally focus on creating mentor relationships between advanced and beginning farmers to strengthen community-based farmer-to-farmer networks.
By bringing farmers together to share experiences while drawing on MESA’s innovative community-sourced curriculum, participants will learn and create important long-term climate adaptation strategies and agricultural system management practices designed by and for small-scale farmers and ranchers. Potential topics include practices to increase carbon sequestration, water application and management, no tillage transition, crop selection and diversity, building soil health, and more.
Initially the project has a regional focus of the Western United States with a particular emphasis on California, with a long-term goal to share materials with farmers worldwide across MESA’s open-source online learning network.[/cs_text][/cs_column][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/6″ style=”padding: 0px;”] [/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/3″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”https://mesaprogram.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Climate-Resilience-Toolkit-Image.jpg” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/3″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text]This Project Aims To:
Reduce both the production and financial risks of climate variability
Encourage critical mentor relationships by creating an activity-driven learning community
Connect advanced and beginning farmers in the Rogue Valley, OR and California Bay Area in a hybrid format, emphasizing collaboration and self-assessment
Build on-farm adaptive capacity to climate variability
Activate Mentorship networks and engage beginning farmer mentees
Give all participants a strong understanding of how to create on-farm climate resilience
Help implement agroecological risk management strategies on participants’ farms
Interested in participating? Learn more about the different ways you can be involved.[/cs_text][/cs_column][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/3″ style=”padding: 0px;”] [/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][/cs_content]