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  • From: Thomas Kumpf <tjkumpf AT yahoo.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] A Farmer's Opinion on NRCS and why its a poor program...
  • Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2011 16:24:51 -0700 (PDT)

I applied for this program in early 2010 along with 2 other growers
that I knew of in my county, and none of us received the grant. However,
another grower in an adjacent, but more highly urbanized county got one.
Initially, NC was not on the list of states that were going to use the
program, so I spoke with with someone who talked directly with the state NRCS
director. To the best of my recollection, NC initially was not included
because the existing monies in the states NRCS fund were fully allocated, and
many more requests were still pending for those existing programs. However,
it seems more monies were found, and a few growers received tunnels, one I
know of is working with one of the NC ag schools.
I think the big problem are the differences in the amount of tunnels and
monies spent state by state, as published in Growing for Market. Every
grower feels they should qualify, and they probably do. I think it should be
based on more rigorous criteria, i.e. experienced vs. non-experienced, part
time farmers vs. farmers who make their whole income from farming, etc. and
so on. But, the disparity in funding is most likely a function of the amount
of funding available overall for ALL NRCS programs, not just tunnels. I know
my county agent is trying very hard to just get farmers to plant winter rye
for erosion control, which there is a NRCS grant for that and other cover
crops. The amount of monies made available to each state and each county
within that state varies b/c local conditions vary, i.e. more erosion/soil
quality issues, more or fewer acres in cropland, larger or smaller
watersheds, more or less urbanized, etc. and so on.
Not getting a tunnel doesn't mean you are not a good farmer, it just
means some people were lucky to live in a state and county that actually had
some money available to pay for the program. The luckier dogs had their
days, that's all. Its funny how the early adopters like the Wiedegers can't
get a grant to expand on what they have already done in their own research,
while others have to be pushed and plied with freebies to do something that
is a no brainer to others. Go figure. One good farmer role model should be
all one needs to convince others what direction to go.
Tom Kumpf
Tom Kumpf




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