Young Fijian Makes Good Use Of Govt Scheme

September 22

18:56 2018

by SWASHNA CHAND , SUVA

Entrepreneur, Rinesh Sharma.

A Fijian who studied in India has made the most of Government’s Young Entrepreneurship Scheme and embarked on a journey to combine engineering and agriculture.

Rinesh Sharma, 25, is an entrepreneur living in Lautoka who has started up something unique.

“While studying in India, I came across a software engineer who had an indoor hydroponics farm in Goa,” he said.

“After reading his success story, I made up my mind to do the same back home.”

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil by using mineral nutrient solutions in a water solvent.

“Engineering combined with agriculture allows me to grow plants in its special conditions and parameters, maximising faster yields,” he said.

“I grow include strawberries, mint, coriander, coral lettuce and butter crunch lettuce. The idea of hydroponics came to me in my third year of engineering.

“Since then, I have researched every day about executing this project on a commercial scale in Fiji.”

Mr Sharma said he came back to Fiji in May and started an automated hydroponics system, in which he grew green leafy vegetables in his backyard.

“This was a challenging process because it was almost impossible to find hydroponic system supplies in Fiji, but regardless I made a small prototype where I can harvest 372 plants per month,” he said.

“Doing farming is the best thing I have done and perception really does matter because we have a lot of people who left farms and moved to the urban life and this has created a huge gap to fill in the field of agriculture.”

Mr Sharma said for him it was a mission to feed the world and he was going to start with his country.

“Upon my arrival in Fiji, I had applied for the YES entrepreneurship scheme run by the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Industry with the intention to begin an automated hydroponics farm in Fiji on a commercial scale and got a grant of $20,000,” he said.

He is thankful to the Government for providing him with the assistance.

“The assistance is motivating and encouraging for us the younger generation to do step forward and do something,” he said.

“I keep challenging myself with growing the most impossible edible items such as blueberries, raspberries and apples as well.

“It is important that people of Fiji are able to afford proper nutritional meals every day and that to at low cost.

“So, as a hydroponics farmer, I am able to control any device in my farm through a single touch on my phone via internet and I am also able to receive any data changes that may occur, such as change in PH, moisture, temperature.

“It was a privilege to be given a scholarship by the Indian High Commission where I got to learn so much.

“I came back to Fiji with the intention of working with the Government and their expertise to change and shape farming methods in Fiji.”

Edited by Epineri Vula

Feedback: swashna.chand@fijisun.com.fj

State Grant Program Offers Money, And Legitimacy, For Urban Agriculture

By Taryn Phaneuf | 10/09/2018

MinnPost file photo by Ibrahim Hirsi

Michael Chaney, a long-time advocate from north Minneapolis who founded Project Sweetie Pie, a grant recipient, said he approached lawmakers with the idea about four years ago.

Urban farming in Minnesota reached a milestone this summer, when the state announced the first round of grants for agriculture education and development projects in cities.

It’s the first time the state has allocated money specifically for urban agriculture, and it took several tries to get the legislation passed. Michael Chaney, a long-time advocate from north Minneapolis who founded Project Sweetie Pie, a grant recipient, said he approached lawmakers with the idea about four years ago. At the time, he saw plenty of interest in urban agriculture — but not the kind of financial support that exists for rural farmers. “I was disenchanted and discouraged,” Chaney said.

Advocates said state investment is crucial because it lends credibility to what Chaney calls the “changing face of agriculture.” Such state funding, even a small amount, can usher in a shift toward seeing urban areas as potential farms and their residents as fellow food producers.

That shift can also bring education and economic opportunities that are often more associated with rural areas. “Agriculture has been deemed corporate ag with rural roots and conventional farming techniques,” Chaney said. “What we’re proposing with urban farming is a whole reconfiguring. … What’s the role of urban communities in growing food?”

Rep. Karen Clark, DFL-Minneapolis, authored the bill, which called for $10 million annually to fund urban ag projects in cities throughout the state. The legislation prioritizes poor communities of color and Native American communities. Clark kept the idea alive at the state level for years, and finally made headway when legislators commissioned a study of urban agriculture that defined its scope and the purpose and identified policy recommendations.

The study cost $250,000, the same amount the Legislature eventually earmarked for urban ag grants for each year in the current budget. It’s far less than program advocates wanted, but it maintained the original intent, said Erin Connell, who administers the grants for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Eligible groups include for-profit businesses, local governments, tribal communities, nonprofits, or schools in cities of more than 10,000 people. Cities with between 5,000 and 10,000 people are also eligible if 10 percent of residents live at or below 200 percent of the poverty line, or where 10 percent of residents are people of color or Native American.

“It’s exciting for me so see the acceptance of urban ag as a new standard for ag production,” said Connell, who grew up in the Twin Cities metro area and didn’t discover her interest in ag until she started studying food systems at the University of Minnesota.

Urban agriculture’s impact

Growing food in the city is partly about improving residents’ diets and food security, but it also extends to building wealth, culture, and independence. “Community members were very vocal about wanting to bring the benefits of ag into various urban areas,” Connell said.

Jolene Jones, president and interim CEO of the Little Earth Residents Association, said the community received a grant for nearly $45,000, which they’ll use to teach more children to help in their gardens by creating a storybook that shows them how indigenous people farm in the city.

This fall, they’re learning to construct a hoop house that will extend their growing season, and learn how to grow the four medicines – sage, cedar, sweetgrass, and tobacco. “To actually be able to grow them, it will be awesome for them,” Jones said. “Culture is very sustainable. … the way to put culture in agriculture is to teach children the traditional value of their plants.”

A local food system – which includes everything from growing food to processing it to buying and consuming it – also creates jobs, income, and infrastructure. That’s the mindset used to justify public spending on agriculture development in Greater Minnesota, like one that helps farmers modernize their livestock operations by, say, expanding their facilities to hold more animals. That has visible impact, Peterson said, by providing more work for veterinarians and feed companies.

That’s exactly the kind of ripple effect local food advocates imagine in places like north Minneapolis. Project Sweetie Pie, for example, will put its grant toward establishing a greenhouse that will belong to a broad coalition of groups, who will use it to operate year-round, Chaney said. It’s another step forward in their vision to grow their local food economy.

The fight for funding

Urban agriculture joins a suite of initiatives funded through the Agricultural Growth, Research, and Innovation program (known as AGRI), which supports the state’s agricultural and renewable energy industries through various grants and loans.

AGRI was an important win for Minnesota agriculture when it was established in 2009. At the time, the state subsidized ethanol production. “When those payments were going to end, we got concerned we were going to lose investment into agriculture,” said Thom Peterson, who lobbies the state government with the Minnesota Farmers Union.

Advocates convinced the state to establish AGRI, and the program will allocate a little more than $13 million a year for fiscal years 2018 and 2019, according to the most recent report.

The Farmers Union backed the bill to add grants for urban ag to the AGRI program, Peterson said. And he sees its addition as a chance to expand public support for state ag funding as a whole. “There’s agriculture all over the state, including in the metro areas,” he said.

He credits Clark, who is leaving the Legislature at the end of her term, with pushing the matter forward for years, until Rep. Rod Hamilton, a Republican from Southwest Minnesota who heads the House Agriculture Finance Committee, got on board.  “Urban ag is going to need a new champion at the legislature now that Karen Clark is gone,” Peterson said.

Connell repeated the concern, saying the top question facing the urban ag grant program is whether funding will continue past 2019. She said communities that benefit from urban farming, especially from the grants handed out these two years, will need to show up when 2020-2021 budget talks begin.

“Getting the funding this first time is very difficult,” Connell said. “I also feel like after you get that first round of funding, some people who may have been very passionate may get less interested. They might get comfortable in a sense. Every two years, we’re going to get a new budget. Every two years you’re going to have to fight to continue that funding until it’s been there long enough that it’s assumed it goes in the budget.”

Sarbanes Announces Federal Grant to Support Maryland Urban Farming and Environmental Education Program

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Representing The 3rd District of Maryland Congressman John Sarbanes

Funding Will Help Local Nonprofit Provide Hands-On Urban Farming Classes and Environmental Learning Experiences for Maryland Students

September 18, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman John Sarbanes (D-Md.) today announced that ECO City Farms, a local urban farming and education nonprofit, will receive $97,844 in federal grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide Maryland students with immersive urban farming classes and hands-on environmental learning experiences.

Funding comes from the EPA’s Environmental Education Program, which offers grantmaking opportunities to education programs that promote environmental stewardship and outdoor learning. The grant will support ECO’s “Growing Young Stewards Through Urban Farming,” a program that educates Maryland students about sustainable agriculture and environmental conservation, and encourages youth to play a larger role in protecting local ecosystems.

“This new federal grant will allow ECO City Farms to provide more Maryland students with hands-on urban farming and sustainability education and better connect them to our natural world,” said Congressman Sarbanes, a longstanding environmental education advocate who authored the No Child Left Inside Act. “By providing our students with access to outdoor learning experiences, we can instill them with environmental values and inspire a lifelong commitment to environmental stewardship.”

To learn more about ECO City Farms, visit: http://www.ecoffshoots.org/about-us/

For more information about the EPA’s Environmental Education Program, visit: https://www.epa.gov/education/environmental-education-ee-grants.

Webinar Series - Funding Opportunities For CEA Energy Efficiency

The GLASE Consortium Webinar Series features the latest technological innovations and best practices in the CEA field providing the audience the opportunity to discover new solutions and to connect with field experts.

Webinar Series

Funding Opportunities For CEA Energy Efficiency

This webinar will introduce some key funding opportunities to help CEA growers install energy efficient equipment. Growers and manufacturers will learn how to leverage federal, state, and utility funding to identify opportunities for energy efficiency and contribute towards the installation cost of the identified projects. Attendees will also learn about utilizing the joint GLASE/EnSave software tool to share operational details of their CEA facility to further the GLASE mission.

Date: July 12th, 2018
Time: 2 pm EST
Presented by: EnSave

Register here

EnSave is the United States' leading designer and implementer of agricultural energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction programs. Since 1991, EnSave has worked with a variety of clients including federal agencies, state government, energy utilities, and industry organizations to help drive sustainable growth within the agricultural sector. We are proud to be a GLASE industrial member.