Project Overview

S22-030

Project Type: IPM Centers Grant

Funds awarded in 2022: $28,915.00

Grant Recipient: Alcorn State University

Region: Southern

State: Mississippi

Cooperating States: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, U.S. Virgin Islands

Project Coordinator:

Dr. Daniel Collins

Alcorn State University

1890 Small Farm Integrated Pest Management for Underserved Audiences Working Group

Reports

Commodities

Additional Plants: flowers, greenhouse, hemp, herbs, native plants, trees

Agronomic: cover crops, sugarcane, sunflower

Community and Urban Pest Management: food preparation, safety & storage

Ecosystem: Ecosystem

Fruits: berries (blueberries), berries (brambles), grapes, melons, persimmon, tree fruit

Human Health: workers, residents, applicators

Miscellaneous: mushrooms, postharvest, syrup

Natural Areas: forestry (conifer), forestry (hardwood)

Pollinators: habitat, honey bees

Vegetables: beans, beans (snap), brassicas, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbages, carrots, cauliflower, cucurbits, eggplant, garlic, greens (leafy), greens (lettuces), okra, onions, peas (culinary), peppers, radishes (culinary), sweet potatoes, tomatoes, turnips

Target Pests

Target Pests: European swallow-wort, ants, aphids, apple scab, bed bug, black root rot, blight (early), blight (fire), blight (late), brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), conifer and Christmas tree nursery pests, fire blight (Erwinia amylovora), flea beetles, fungus, lepidoptera, mummy berry disease, potato leafhopper, powdery mildew, predatory mites, rodents

Practices

Pest Management: exclusion, host resistance, mulches - living, mulching - plastic, soil solarization

Production Systems: agroecosystems

Soil Management: composting, earthworms, green manures, organic matter, soil microbiology, soil quality/health

Sustainable Communities: urban agriculture

Proposal abstract:

Challenge: Small farmers in the southern region of the U.S. face serious challenges in managing plant diseases, weeds, and insects in crops and forest ecosystems. Yield losses due to sub-tropical climate conditions, weather extremes (e.g., hurricanes, drought, tornados), and pest outbreaks have been substantial. Socially disadvantaged small farmers are more vulnerable to losses due to lack of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) knowledge, limited resources, and challenging circumstances for managing plant pests. Typically, most IPM projects have focused on large farms. This is a unique project in that it addresses Small Farm IPM. Alcorn’s agriculture research and extension program has created a niche in serving small farmers in Mississippi. Leveraging on this strength, Alcorn is taking the lead in organizing a multi-state-territory interdisciplinary IPM working group of 1890 Land-Grant Universities, and uniting with a diverse group of small farmers, entrepreneurs, students, and agricultural alliances to address key agricultural problems and identify IPM research and extension needs of small farmers.

Overall goal: Overall, the proposed planning working group will unite an experienced team to help facilitate the economic development of small farmers. We will strive to enhance the growing of safe, nutritious food and promote best pest management strategies. Our goals are aligned with USDA National IPM Roadmap goals. This new group will support the Southern Region IPM Center mission to foster the implementation of IPM practices and follow the scientific approach to managing pests in ways that generate economic, environmental and human health benefits. In addition, we support the Southern IPM Center’s goal of outreach to underserved and diverse audiences, urban and rural famers.

Project objectives from proposal:

Planned outputs and anticipated outcomes:

Limit 2 pages, in the tabular format provided

1890 Small Farm Integrated Pest Management for Underserved Audiences Working Group Proposal
Planned Outputs for Year 1 What you plan on doing or making	Anticipated Outcomes What change are expected to occur as an effect	Problem or priority targeted What situation you are addressing
Promote Team building and Partnerships across Regions
	Strengthen member relationships and partnerships and increase exchange of knowledge, sharing of equipment, information flow, connections. Facilitate collaboration across states, territories and multi-disciplines. Expose each member’s strengths and encourage collaborations amongst farmers.	Limited resources and farmers knowledge of IPM, lack of trust of stakeholders. Little interaction amongst farmers, researchers, students, and stakeholders. Stuck in old patterns, opening farmers to see an IPM vision on their farm.
Design, Publish, and Print Publications to Launch Project
	Increase farmers’ knowledge on pest and beneficial organisms’ identification, monitoring and possible combinations of management strategies by developing card sets and a collective IPM Extension bulletins on current management tools.	Lack of publications and IPM exposure to underserved and diverse audiences.
Address Southern Farm IPM Priorities and Important IPM Issues
	Introduce farmers to prevention tools, best practices, health of plants to minimize pest problems. Identify problems and needs.		Lack of exposure and training of underserved farmers of the benefits of adopting IPM practices.
Identify Extension Activities for Grant Writing
	Prove our seriousness, willingness to listen, and dedication of time to help the farmers increase productivity.	Unite with stakeholders across regions to help solve farmer problems regarding lack of IPM implementation.

Training, Mentorship, Increased Knowledge
	Increase knowledge base to students and farmers	Lack of experience across territory with minimal interaction between stakeholders
Organize, Set Logistics for Selecting and Writing a Regional Multistate-Territory Grant
	Inclusive approach involving underserved small farmers, diverse urban and rural communities and multistate intuitions coming together to collectively provide input to farming concerns. Set up tasks and timelines for identifying and expanding on ideas for a larger grant.	Not having the opportunity to help develop research ideas, extension needs, and educational programs targeting underserved and diverse audiences.
Evaluate Structure and Effectiveness of IPM Working Group Meeting
	Establish milestones at beginning of group meeting. Evaluate at end to see if we achieved our goals.	Lack of organization, collaboration and leadership to move IPM on small farms forward
Identify field pest problems and presence of beneficial organisms at on-farm tours
	Improve decision making by accurate identification of problems and factors affecting pest levels.	Unable to identify many plant pest problems and reasons for their presence.
Identify limitations and barriers to IPM implementation
	Understand reasons for not implementing an identified solution. Increase small farm adoption of new, practical, and economical IPM practices.		Minimal amount of IPM practices is being implemented, likely due to lack of exposure and training targeting underserved and diverse farm audiences.