Virtual Network to Real-World Opportunities. Update on the Forest Farming Community of Practice

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1 Virtual Network to Real-World Opportunities Update on the Forest Farming Community of Practice

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3 Background Shares information about growing and selling high-value non-timber forest products. Members are from across the country and have experience farming and studying edible, medicinal, decorative, and craft-based products in woodlands. Provides woodland owners and managers with information about startup, best practices, and markets and policies.

4 Short and Long-term Goals Short-term Peer-reviewed educational resources developed by CoP members A repository of Frequently Asked Questions Functioning Ask an Expert system Audio, photo and video library Long-term Webinars Learning Modules Social media providing an exchange of information between CoP members and the Community of Interest Forest farming conference

5 A Growing Community- 85 Members

6 Membership

7 Original Issues of Newsletters (Print Only)

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9 Online, Interactive and Downloadable Version

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11 Partnership with American Forest Foundation The American Tree Farm System is a network of 82,000 family forest owners sustainably managing 24 million acres of forestland. Hosted the webinars and they are archived on their site.

12 Comments from Participants

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15 Two-day retreat designed to discuss and plan for the future of forest farming as an agroforestry practice in the cold temperate regions of the eastern United States. Researchers, educators, forest farmers, industry representatives, NGO leaders, media specialists, and government agency personnel attended. Three forest farming experts even made the trip down from Canada! Focus crops included log grown mushrooms, ramps, ginseng and other medicinal plants, and fiddlehead ferns. Also discussed were the state of the industry and public awareness.

16 Working Group Sessions Focus crops included log grown mushrooms, ramps, ginseng and other medicinal plants, and fiddlehead ferns.

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19 Results At least 3 proposals have been submitted: Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program Specialty Crops extension Foundation

20 Benefits of Participating in the Meeting Meet and engage with forest farming leaders and innovators Spend substantive time face-to-face to discuss and address forest farming issues and practices in-depth Learn about and advance forest farming research Build a stronger foundation for select forest farming products Interact with noteworthy forest farming professionals Develop new forest farming relationships Expand forest farming understanding beyond one product Gain support, guidance, feedback, and wisdom on forest farming efforts Expand the forest farming network

21 The PCO Forest Grown Verification Program establishes a voluntary, third party verification for non-timber forest grown products that are produced and harvested in a sustainable and legal manner. The program standards currently apply to producers, harvesters, and handlers of American ginseng products from private forestland in the United States.

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23 More Results Two producer/industry stakeholder meetings are in the works for the Fall in the western side of Virginia led by Eric Burkhart with multiple CoP members involved. Goal is to connect forest farmers of marketable medicinal plant raw products with companies that seek to purchase verified forest farmed raw material for their product lines.

24 Social Media Platforms

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27 Twitter

28 Traditional Model Agencies + Institutions Extension General Public

29 New Model- Holistic Inclusive Community Problem Solvers Extension Not Just Communicators General Public CREATION Of INFORMATION Agencies and Insitutions

30 Problem Solvers Not Just Communicators

31 extension Geo-Citizen Design Forest Farms GeoDesign computing and citizen science 2.0 to increase the precision of site and species selection for forest farming systems in the Appalachian Mountains Virginia Tech, Maryland University of Integrative Health, Appalachian Sustainable Development, Blue Ridge Woodland Growers, Rural Action, United Plant Savers, and USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station

32 Catherine Bukowski