Laramie, June 10-11, 2002

FY02 expenditures were discussed and Bill Taylor presented the FY03 budget for the team. The total allocation is $10,632.

The “Managing the Young Beef Female” program was discussed in detail. Four programs were presented around the state with a total non-CES attendance of approximately 64 persons. The evaluations returned were generally favorable, but competition is high for beef type programs and people are generally not willing to cross county lines to attend. It was also felt that the lack of timely and sufficient publicity was one of our deficiencies. Partnerships need to be developed for these programs and we need to use the partners and their newsletters, ads, etc. to help publicize events. Bill will contact Ag Communications to develop a publicity packet that will provide guidelines for issue teams in publicizing their activities. It was agreed that the Sustainable Livestock Issue Team efforts need to be continued via their website, in-service training, producer meetings, and whatever venues seem appropriate. The team also needs to send a follow-up evaluation to those who attended the winter meetings to see if they are using the information presented.

Karen Panter spoke to the group about some of the problems being experienced with the horticulture program and particularly the Master Gardener program. There are not enough state staff to supervise any more MG programs, and some county MG programs feel they are autonomous and are not subject to supervision. Wyoming Extension, and the PSAS team in particular, needs to decide what direction they want to take with horticulture and provide guidance to the state programs. After discussion, the team decided to respond to this need by appointing a Sustainable Horticultural Systems Issue Team chaired by Jim Gill and co-chaired by Scott Hininger. The team was charged with developing a vision or scope for the Wyoming CES horticultural program, determining the resources required, and preparing an implementation plan which would address Karen’s concerns in addition to other priority issues identified. The initiative team developed and published the following statement concerning CES horticulture:

“It is self evident by the demand for service that UW CES must maintain and support a quality horticulture extension program. Horticulture is important to urban and rural clientele to enhance quality of life and economic viability and sustainability for private and commercial enterprises. As part of this goal it is important that UW CES adequately support those services in place to solve horticultural problems (disease, entomology, soils, etc.). Horticulture should be a recognized and rewarded portion of the field educator’s job description as outlined in the UW CES Strategic Plan.”

John Hewlett explained two programs he is involved with. He will facilitate a grant-funded program provided by Montana State University which will be a train-the-trainer workshop about risk management tools for crop producers. These workshops will be held in Powell and Worland. The second effort is a Risk Management Agency funded project to provide an on-line risk management simulation for producers in 6 western states. This simulation will allow producers to practice using various risk management strategies on several available scenarios to see what the results would be. They will be able to choose past years with actual data or future years using event probabilities. The grant will also fund a traveling computer lab which can be used by each of the states. The team agreed to endorse this activity under the PSAS scope of education.

Bill Taylor presented a state-wide program he is coordinating called “Commodity Challenge.” This is a multi-state granted program sponsored by the Montana Grain Growers Association and allows participants to hedge commodities via futures and options contracts through a web-based simulation program. Each participant can choose various scenarios which simulate a producer with commodities to sell and make futures market choices which are based on the daily market reports. The team also agreed to endorse this program under their umbrella of activities.

The initiative team decided to establish a Sustainable Cropping Systems Issue Team at this time. The team will be chaired by Jim Krall and was charged with developing appropriate Extension programming to address sustainable cropping as outlined in the Strategic Plan. It was felt that irrigated crops is the area most in need of programming at this time and cropping systems in the Big Horn Basin, Fremont county, and the Goshen/Platte county areas should be addressed. Not only does this issue team need to develop programming for immediate needs (1-2 years), but also develop a strategy to address future need in sustainable cropping systems.

The PSAS team received a request from Mike Smith to provide a representative to work on a small acreage project with Scott Cotton from Colorado called “Coached Land Planning.” Scott Hininger agreed to help with the project.