Ashley Wagers on LinkedIn: Walking away from this event I felt a sense of appreciation for all the… (2024)

A group of Purdue Extension Educators is visiting Costa Rica between April 2-12 to learn about extension models and topics relevant to agriculture, community development, nutrition and natural resources. The program is jointly-organized between Purdue Extension and Costa Rica Tec. Why is this important? Purdue is a global organization and everyone in it needs to understand the connections, issues, and opportunities in other regions of the World to better serve our own communities.#Purdue #PurdueExtension

62

FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces Over $5 Billion to Support Rural Communities During Investing in Rural America Event SeriesBRIEFING ROOM - STATEMENTS AND RELEASESToday, President Biden will travel to Northfield, Minnesota to visit Dutch Creek Farms to lead his Administration’s Investing in Rural America Event Series and highlight investments from the Biden Administration in Rural America. During the visit, President Biden will announce over $5 billion in new investments from his Investing in America agenda – including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act – to advance rural prosperity, economic development, competition, and sustainability. President Biden will also discuss how Bidenomics and his Investing in America agenda are ensuring rural Americans do not have to leave their hometowns to find opportunity.Over the course of two weeks, President Biden, Cabinet members, and Senior Administration Officials are barnstorming across the country as part of the Investing in Rural America Event Series to highlight how the Biden-Harris Administration’s investments are bringing new revenue to farms, increased economic development in rural towns and communities, and more opportunity throughout the country.To lead the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in Rural America Event Series, President Biden will announce over $5 billion in new investments in rural America, including:$1.7 Billion in Investments in Climate-Smart Agriculture: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is announcing nearly $1.7 billion in funding to support the adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices, which have direct climate mitigation benefits, advance a host of other environmental co-benefits, and offer farmers, ranchers and foresters new revenue streams. Dutch Creek Farms, where President Biden will visit today, is a family farm that grows corn and soybeans and raises hogs. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, Dutch Creek Farms has used several climate-smart agriculture techniques to make their farm more sustainable, including growing crops that naturally sequester carbon and improve soil quality, farming in a way that limits soil disturbance, and creating riparian buffers to protect nearby waterways from pollutants.The funding President Biden will announce includes an unprecedented $1.1 billion investment across 81 projects through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), which takes a voluntary approach to expand the reach of conservation efforts and climate-smart agriculture through public-private partnerships. The announcement also includes fiscal year 2023 investments from the Inflation Reduction Act that are helping farmers adopt climate-smart agriculture practices###

1

From classrooms to communities: Nine foundation programs don't justeducate, they empower. Students learn to calculate a tree's age,understand the importance of seed dispersal, and participate intree planting initiatives, making a real difference in theirenvironment.#NineOrgEmpowers #ClimateAction#HandsOnLearning

1

Christmas as Demo Day.I am a conscious male mammal living in the Northern hemisphere of a spinning planet tilted at an angle to its star. My ancestors on both sides lived for a dozen generations at similar latitudes in Northern Europe (maternal) and Iran (paternal), subject to the same predictable variance of life-giving sunlight.I grew up in New England and now live in Northern California. The days grow longer/warmer, then shorter/ and colder. Sunlight is the life-giver.When our ancestors abandoned the tried-and-true wandering mode of hunting and gathering in favor of the promising but uncertain experiment of fixed living beside crops and farmstock, the yearly change in sunlight ruled everything.Before the farm, there was seasonal meandering, winter and summer camps, following the resources, the animals we hunted seeking still-green pastures.After the farm, our ancestors had to make plenty out of scarcity with each new season to outlast the cold short days and then the spring planting, until the next harvest.It required a commitment to iteration and learning that was less advantageous in our species' wandering past. We became tinkerers and engineers, inventors and builders. Every successful farm had an ad hoc R&D budget to try new seeds, techniques, machines. To cultivate an environment for food production sufficient to sustain a family is both craft and creativity, applying technology and knowledge to impact the growth and/or evolution of predictable biological algorithms. The goal was always to maximize energy available in the end-product, the crop yield or the animal’s finished weight.The result either produced sufficient calories for survival until the next harvest or it did not. Luckily the sun provides a subsistence to even low-output cultivation. Surplus was the goal. And as agtech improved, so did yields, and surplus became more common. Never certain though.Soon after the shortest day of the solar year, i.e. the orbit of least sunlight, a.k.a the Winter Solstice, it’s customary to celebrate our surplus with family and friends. Christmas is a demo day. We demonstrate our competence at turning the previous year's sunlight into stores of value. We demonstrate our consideration and commitment to others by gifting some of that surplus.As we enter an age of powerful new AI tools in a world connected by the internet and bitcoin, we laptop/startup farmers will be served opportunities to 100X our output of ideas to online products to cashflow.It's never been more important to tinker and experiment, create and collaborate. And invest in the makers and hackers who are already turning these new tools into surplus for themselves and their communities.This is my gift to you, a demo day of my competence and care. Take a moment between now and the end of the year to express your idea for a startup. I'll leave this wizard setup link here through the end of the year: https://shorturl.at/bpMNX

3

How have perceptions of #libraries changed among governments, communities, and libraries themselves since before the COVID-19 pandemic?#IFLA's Regional Council drew together experience and insights from around the world - read more herebit.ly/4d3AEv0!

10

In 2022, the global COVID-19 pandemic entered its third year; political, economic and digital divides grew; and book challenges and bans surged across the country. But despite all these challenges, libraries thrived, pivoting to offer new and updated services to their communities. Adaptation and innovation shined in 2022, proving that there truly is “more to the story” at libraries.Read all about The State of America's Libraries at https://bit.ly/3oKXCTp#libraries #librarianship

2

What am I reading? Defining rural America: The consequences of how we count, Center on Rural Innovation https://lnkd.in/dpmK8smE Women of color are starting new businesses faster than anyone elsehttps://lnkd.in/dVn52htM What’s in it for rural? Analyzing the opportunities for rural America in IIJA, CHIPS, and IRA https://lnkd.in/dt3EqujV They Didn’t Plan to Be at the Center of a Civil Rights Battle. Then the Fearless Fund Was Sued https://lnkd.in/djPfuQHtInvesting in Enterprises That Work for Everyone https://lnkd.in/dfPRJUM9 Building the Ship to Sail: Now Is the Time for Rural Philanthropy to Collaborate to Win https://lnkd.in/dWyW27wC Beyond the Ladder of Participation: A Trellis For Community PowerBy: Laura Zabel, Executive Director of Springboard for the Artshttps://lnkd.in/dnn6Pupp “Exploring the cooperative economy” 2023 report from the International Cooperative Alliance and the World Cooperative Monitor is now available https://lnkd.in/dVqzuFVw

1

Check this out. USDA Rural Development today unveiled two new web resources that underscore the agency’s mission to ensure all people have equitable access to federal programs.A new history webpage traces USDA Rural Development’s evolution from the Great Depression and New Deal to the present, highlighting the many ways the agency supports efforts to create prosperity in rural communities.One of the agency’s more recent initiatives, the Rural Partners Network (RPN), has brought together a coalition of 24 federal agencies that offer programs and funding designed specifically for rural communities.A new feature on Rural.gov makes it easier to find these federal resources in one place. The Find Programs and Opportunities tool includes hundreds of millions of dollars in financing and technical assistance opportunities that are easy to search, filter and find.The information will help people in rural areas access funding for a variety of business, health care, housing, community and economic development needs.History of USDA Rural Development: https://lnkd.in/eUG_t3nrRural.gov website: https://www.rural.gov/Find Programs & Opportunities: https://lnkd.in/evP4-EMG

47

If you are interested in Greenspace, then check this SAVI article where we discuss the measurement of Greenspace Community Need (GCN) and offer Greenspace Priority Index (GPI) for Marion County.#greenspace #marioncounty #enviroment #equity

3

Worms are one of the most important creatures on the planet. They eat through organic waste and turn it into fertiliser for our plants.This webinar will look at how worm farms enhance learning about the environment and sustainability. It will cover how to set up and take care of a worm farm, and using the by-products produced by worms.We will discover some fun facts about worms, and get ideas on how to extend children's knowledge about worms.Register for the webinar here: https://buff.ly/3HCwCuw #wormfarms #children #earlychildhood #webinar

3