Nonprofit seeks northern Michigan farmers for carbon farming education program
NORTHERN MICHIGAN — The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded a $50,000 grant to Crosshatch Center for Art & Ecology, a nonprofit dedicated to building up sustainable communities, to launch the Carbon Farming Planning Cohorts program.
The program combines virtual and hands-on education to help farmers adapt to changing climates. It includes support for planning, funding and implementing carbon farming practices.
Crosshatch is currently looking for six farms to participate within the 10-county region of Northwest Lower Michigan. Cohorts will be in communication with Crosshatch for a year and a half, while the learning and planning period will take place in the months of October through February.
Participants will meet and learn virtually and then meet at the farms of other participants for hands-on learning. In addition to learning about carbon farming practices, each participant will receive a $500 stipend to fund the planning process for their own farm.
“We think that farmers learn best from one another and benefit the most from hands-on learning experiences, such as, having the opportunity to visit one another's farms and really discuss practices in depth,” Crosshatch Program Coordinator Daniel Marbury said.
According to Marbury, Crosshatch chose to focus on carbon farming because carbon farming has climate change mitigation benefits when implemented at a large scale, but at the local level, soils carbon builds up crop resilience. The carbon acts as a buffer against drought and other weather-related stressors
“These are long standing practices used for ecological conservation,” Marbury said. “So it just has broad ecosystem benefits, which translates to benefits to (agriculture) production system as well.”
Applications for the program are not yet available, but any farmers interested in participating can contact Marbury via email daniel@crosshatch.org or phone 231-714-9730.
Additional information about Crosshatch can be found on the organization's website.
Contact reporter Tess Ware at tware@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on Twitter, @Tess_Petoskey
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Nonprofit to teach Northern Michigan farmers carbon farming practices
