Extension News: General News Archives

Project matches farmland owners with aspiring farmers looking for land

"Today, more than ever, there's a need to match farmers who want to sell or rent their farms with people who want to go into farming," says John Porter, New Hampshire Extension dairy specialist emeritus.

"Farmland is expensive and hard to find, and there's a younger generation with a desire to farm and supply local food. Some landowners have indicated a willingness to make special arrangements for people who showed promise of carrying on their enterprise."

A formal program to match farm owners with buyers or renters
Toward that end, in 2000 the New Hampshire Coalition for Sustaining Agriculture, a cross-section of people dedicated to preserving agriculture in the state, proposed the idea of a program to join aspiring farmers to willing renters or sellers of farmland.

"We called it New Hampshire Farm Link," says Porter. "Tony Mincu, a Coalition member and a law student at the time, took on the task of formally organizing Farm Link as part of a community law project at Franklin Pierce Law School. There have been a few applications kept on file over the years and some informal match-ups, but there wasn't enough funding or staff to maintain a full-service land-matching program.

Farm Link finds a permanent home
"After several years of relative dormancy, looking for a new home, New Hampshire Farm Link has merged with New England LandLink, a program of the New England Small Farm Institute (NESFI) in Belchertown, Massachusetts," says Porter "We're really excited about this move.

"New England LandLink, which serves all of New England and eastern New York, maintains a database that currently has 510-plus seekers and more 60 farm offerings. Merging with this regional program will provide a considerably larger pool of prospective farmers and available land and should be a win-win situation for everyone involved," says Porter. "LandLink director Warren Hubley is available by phone and email to provide personal contact (warren@smallfarm.org or 413-323-4531).

Looking for farmland? Want to sell farmland?
People who want to list their property or who are looking for land can obtain application forms from any UNH Cooperative Extension office or other cooperating agricultural agencies around the state, or directly from New England LandLink. It costs $10 to register for the standard LandLink services, which include contact information for any Web listings and advice about new properties.

Want to banish cabin fever for a few hours?

Bundle up the family and head for the 2009 New Hampshire Farm & Forest Exposition. Dubbed "New Hampshire's Greatest Winter Fair" since 1984, the Expo showcases the diversity and importance of the state's farms and forestlands.

This year's Expo takes place Friday and Saturday, February 6 and7 at the Center of NH--Radisson Hotel in Manchester. Admission is $7.00; children under 15 get in free both days.

Exposition
The giant Exposition features dozens of equipment and product vendors, as well as booths that showcase the work of many forestry, agricultural, and environmental organizations.

Workshops
Visitors can choose from among dozens of educational workshops which include using a chainsaw, harvesting firewood, growing vegetables in containers, making maple syrup, growing giant pumpkins, and restoring and using historic water-powered mills.

Seminars
In-depth seminars include leasing land and equipment, worksite modifications for farmers with disabilities, beekeeping basics, farm tourism, general farm emergency preparedness, and community agricultural commissions.

Kid's day
From 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, the Exposition welcomes children of all ages, with many special hands-on activities, demonstrations, live farm animals, and entertainment.

The Expo is sponsored jointly by UNH Cooperative Extension, the Division of Forests & Lands, and the Department of Agriculture, Markets & Food.

Ghostly apparitions emerge from the morning fog.

Many are old bedsheets and tablecloths draped over the vegetable garden's best tomato plant or still-green pumpkins. (Just another week without a frost is all I ask!)

But the most impressive of these spooky sightings are the trees draped with masses of light gray, silken webbing. They're inhabited by a caterpillar called the fall webworm, which seems particularly abundant this year.

I suspect it's because our cool wet summer favored caterpillar survival and reproduction over that of their natural predators, various wasps for instance.

Those hairy webworms eating your leaves at the moment will live in the soil this winter as pupae, emerging next July as pure white moths. Then the cycle will begin again.

Unlike that spring pest, the Eastern tent caterpillar, the fall webworm isn't very harmful to the plants it feeds on. Unsightly perhaps, but the leaf feeding happens so late in the year that little damage is done to the health of the tree.

Why not think of the nests as early Halloween decorations? I know I've seen worse draped over trees.

Article and photo by Steve Turaj, Coos County Agricultural Resources Educator

When Rockingham County 4-H Educator Rick Alleva began work in the fall of 2002, he began by asking around about programs for youth in what he calls the Lower Seacoast--Seabrook, Hampton, North and South Hampton, and Hampton Falls. "The answer? 'Not much,'" Alleva says.

Responding to the need
"Forty percent of adult males in Seabrook never finished high school, and the town has one of New Hampshire's highest unemployment rates. Hampton has one of the state's highest homeless and transient populations, including a lot of kids.

"Drug and alcohol issues are huge across Lower Seacoast towns. Yet the whole area had no special youth development programs for kids who needed them most," he says. So Alleva convened a November meeting of all the local agencies that deal with young people: social service agencies, schools

, police. "Like many such community initiatives, we decided to apply for a grant to fund a comprehensive program of youth development services," Alleva says. “We didn't get the grant, but we had energy. We kept on meeting. In fact we've met monthly ever since."

The Seacoast Youth Leadership Project kicks off
"At that first meeting, I connected with Vic Maloney of Seacoast Youth Services, a nonproft at the time working primarily as a diversion program, providing drug and alcohol education, anger management, and community service opportunities."

Alleva wrote a proposal that was awarded a $200,000 Children, Youth and Families at Risk (CYFAR) grant to jumpstart an after-school program for the middle-schoolers most at risk. Paula Gregory, the 4-H Youth Development specialist who directs the CYFAR program in New Hampshire, notes that Alleva's proposal "is one of six five-year, community-based New Hampshire projects collectively awarded more than $2 million since the CYFAR program began in 1991."

"The Seacoast Youth Leadership Project kicked off as a two-day-a-week after-school leadership program for middle-school kids who were dealing with personal, social and emotional challenges," says Alleva. "Vic had no staff for an after-school program, so the grant covered the cost for two new staff and I began bringing in interns from the UNH family studies department. We've had five to date, and they've all have been great. "We've gradually migrated most of the annual CYFAR funding to Vic, allowing him to hire a recent UNH graduate and former intern Stephanie Charron full time this year."

The project gets a home
"When the project began, Vic was working out of a condo office in Hampton. At one of our monthly meetings, Bruce Pierce, pastor of the Church of Christ, brought up that his church owned an1845 brick school building they weren't using in Seabrook. Bruce gave Vic a tour of the old Dearborn School that had been mostly a storage facility for years and they worked out a lease.

"With $10,000 cobbled together from small grants and more than $200,000 in volunteer services, we scrubbed and we renovated. We moved in in 2004. Today we have 5000 square feet at SYS with a new kitchen, floors, bathrooms, fresh paint—and the lights all work."

The original two-days-a-week after-school program evolved rapidly to become a five-day a week after-school program with SYS expanding its in-school supports for kids as well. A four-days-a-week, three-week summer program begun in 2006 has expanded into this year's five-days-a-week, eight-week Summer Extreme, featuring field trips, hiking, biking, adventure treks, and more.

Alleva brought special skills
Alleva came to the job after years of experience as a community youth organizer and a direct service provider who'd worked the streets, managed homeless shelters, and run a residential treatment center for youth. The best way to start a program? "You just start hanging out with kids," says Alleva. "All kids are cool. Parents will get involved if you show respect, commitment, and care for their kids."

Alleva adds, " One important feature that distinguishes our programs from many others: we don't kick anybody out. We work around their problems. If a young person has difficulty reading, you need to give him or her extra help and teach them to read better. If a kid has emotional or behavior issues, you don't exclude them, you give them a place to belong where others can help them feel and act better."

Besides hanging out with kids, "I've served as a sort of jack of all trades in the project," says Alleva. "At various times, I've served as grantwriter, participant recruiter, activity leader, and staff trainer."

Wider Extension involvement
"We've also had other Extension staff involved," Alleva says. "Rockingham County Nutrition Connections coordinator Terri Shoppmeyer does food and fitness activities--healthy food is part of everything we do, and the kids are planting a garden this summer. 4-H specialist Trent Schreiffer co-leads our after-school technology program. He has kids building rockets and remote-controlled cars, doing digital videography, and educational computer gaming. Our county family and consumer resources educator, Karyn Blass, co-leads a Girl's Space group and helps with other family activities, and our other family educator, Claudia Boozer-Blasco, has helped with family and parent programs as well."

"But this isn't the sort of project where Extension can come in and give a few isolated workshops," Alleva says. "While our role will change, we need to stay involved and engaged here on an ongoing basis. Vic and three of his staff have all signed on to become trained 4-H volunteer leaders, which will expand their own capacity as well."

Making a difference
"Cooperative Extension programs are supposed to answer the question, 'How did you make a difference?'" says Alleva. "In our case, that's both tough and easy to answer. With very limited financial resources, we now have a program for middle school kids in grades fifth to eighth that began with an idea, started up as a two-days-a-week after-school lifeskills program that in less than five years has evolved into a dynamic five-days-a-week after-school and summer program.

At the same time, substance abuse prevention and intervention activities for middle- and high-school-age youth have been greatly expanded at SYS as well. "We have monthly family nights, when kids cook a meal for their families, movie nights, substance-abuse support groups, cooking classes, a leadership program that does service projects (including adopting a half-mile stretch of Seabrook beach to keep clean). We teach media literacy, team building, healthier living, food and fitness, science and technology, and help kids make good decisions for themselves and their community. This fall, our Techno-Team will be 'going green' and exploring sustainable energy (wind and solar) and environment-sensitive activities."

But the project's evolution hasn't followed a smooth, linear path. "I'd characterize what we've been doing as building the merry-go-round while we're whirling around on it," Alleva says. The network of organizations and individuals that began meeting in 2002 has recently formalized itself as the Lower Seacoast Youth and Family Coalition by drafting a memorandum of understanding that articulates its mission and commitment.

Their vision: The youth and families of the Lower seacoast area are engaged in positive community activities and are empowered to do whatever it takes to lead healthy lives. "You got that?" says Alleva. "Whatever it takes."

Current Conditions in New Hampshire:

• Road conditions and travel alerts
• WMUR-TV Weather
  
• National Weather Service – Interactive Weather Information Service for NH
• NOAA - WaterWatch – current NH water resources conditions
• Real-time NH - NH Department of Environmental Services (NHDES)
  water level monitoring site

General:

• American Red Cross (ARC)
  • Disaster Services
• Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – Floods
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
  • FEMA En Espanol
  • Guide to Disaster Assistance

Recovery:

• Food & Drinking Water Safety:
  • Food and Water in an Emergency (FEMA)
  • Food Security and Emergency Preparedness - Food Safety
    Inspection Service, USDA
  • Keeping Food Safe During an Emergency - fact sheet
  • N.H. Drinking Water Testing
    • Fact sheet on private well water testing
    • Request water sample containers
    • Understanding your water test results
    • For other drinking water questions, call Bernie Lucey at (603) 271-2952
• Shelter-In-Place (American Red Cross) What it means, what to do (PDF version)
• Cleaning Flood Damaged Homes
• Cleaning Household Utensils and Metals & Salvaging Papers
• Disaster Recovery: A Guide to Financial Issues - (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), AICPA Foundation, the American Red Cross, and the National Endowment for Financial Education® - NEFE®)
• Helping Children Cope With a Disaster
• How To Repair a Flooded Home (ARC)
  • English (PDF)
  • En Español (PDF)
• Recovering From and Coping With Flood Damaged Property (FEMA)
  • After a Flood: The First Steps (PDF)
  • Returning Home
• Removing Odors from Refrigerators & Freezers
• Restoring Emotional Balance After a Disaster
• Saving Family Treasures Guidelines

Safety:

• Are you Ready for a Flood or a Flash Flood?:
  
  • English
  • En Español
    
    
  • Blackouts
    
    • English
    • En Español
      
      
  • Flood Safety (National Weather Service)
  • Fact Sheet En Español
    
  • Turn Around Don’t Drown (National Weather Service)
  • Your Family Disaster Plan

   

  Posted May 15, 2006