Duarte Morais

Agriculture is the leading industry in many rural communities in North Carolina, including Bladen, Columbus, and Robeson Counties, despite declining numbers of farming operations and food access points. At the same time, food insecurity rates can be high in these rural areas and associated with chronic disease and poor health outcomes within the community. Many strategies for addressing food insecurity include supplemental cash and emergency food assistance programs. We would like to ask the questions: Could community-led food system infrastructure development compliment these food assistance programs in addressing food insecurity? Could supporting farm capacity, a farmer cooperative, and local food market diversification increase healthy food access points in the community? What strengths do existing community leaders and assets bring to the table and what is needed to build place-based strategies for resilient economic development and healthier communities? To answer these questions, we propose an inclusive, community-led process of food system evaluation, planning, and farmer capacity building with direction from the Center for Environmental Farming Systems and NC Cooperative Extension in coordination with the 3-county region������������������s community stakeholders and leaders.

The purpose of the CREATE BRIDGES Initiative is to build the capacity of rural regions to strengthen retail, accommodations, tourism and entertainment (CREATE) businesses and support employees working in CREATE businesses.

Tourism is an important economic sector in North Carolina with strong synergies with agriculture through the supply of product to restaurants, the direct sale of product to tourists in farmers markets, and the offer of tourism experiences in farms. The purpose of this project is to further develop opportunities for farmers to tap into the tourist economy by creating direct sale of produce bags to visitors staying multiple days in a vacation rental. The concept of Vacationer Supported Agriculture (VSA) consists of coordinating the sale of weekly fractions of farm shares over the tourism season. A group of farmers decides how many farm shares they want to sell, and vacation renters are invited to pre-buy a week fraction of those shares (i.e., vacationers can buy a bag of produce from farmers local to their host destination). The project team first works with farmers and local Extension agents to define the produce bags and their delivery to the vacation rentals; then the team works with realty companies and local tourism development authorities to promote the produce bags among vacationers. Finally, the team works with an internet retail company to administer the online pre-vacation sales and the disbursement of payments to farmers and delivery micro-entrepreneurs. The VSA project also allows farmer groups from economically depressed counties contiguous to popular tourism destinations to tap into strong tourism economies, and this way it creates stronger trickle-down economic opportunity for tourism to fuel more equitable economic prosperity in the state. The VSA project was piloted in 2018 in Ocean Isle Beach under the local name ����������������Vacation Vittles.��������������� During the summer 2019 season VSA was further developed in Ocean Isle Beach and also piloted in 6 other beach communities. In 2020 we intend to expand VSA into the vacation markets in the Northern Outer Banks, the Crystal Coast, and the High Country near Boone. With the support of this TTF grant we intend to further develop the existing markets and scale the project across the NC coast as well as in three more targeted communities with known concentration of vacation rentals.

The overall aim of this project is to increase visibility of local farmers and fishers that supply Carteret County restaurants. This will show visitors that some of the county's restaurants are truly farm-to-table and local catch, which is a claim used by many destinations but that can be substantiated with compelling images captured in the county.

NC State University������������������s Fork2Farmer project leverages the high visibility of celebrated chefs to enhance the viability of small farms through new direct to consumer income from product sales and farm visit sales. Fork2Farmer engages with celebrated chefs willing to contribute as catalysts for a marketing campaign promoting farm experiences and products offered by small farmers, and an Extension program mentoring small farmers on how to pursue new market opportunities. We collaborate with tourism, local foods, and Extension partners to create short films celebrating partnerships between celebrity chefs and small farmers that supply them; we build marketing coalitions that allow small farmers to sell farm experiences and products to the public; and we offer a train-the-trainer program that enables the recruitment and accompaniment of participating small farmers. Through the 2016 pilot of Fork2Farmer, we engaged high-profile chefs with video-production and social-media efforts, we obtained financial support for video production from participating counties, and we partnered with a tourism retailer to sell farm experiences by participating farmers. Our team is now positioned to use the resources afforded by this grant to build on the concept and develop partnerships, processes and materials to scale-up across the state and to other states.

Web-���������based networks have fueled tremendous entrepreneurial engagement for formerly economically inactive people by creating virtual marketplaces where micro-���������entrepreneurs can interact directly with markets at the global scale. Unfortunately, under-���������resourced individuals often lack the ability to dependably rely on web-���������based networks to participate in online exchanges of information or transactions. An estimated 2 billion people are not connected via the web, but many in this population are using cell phones with SMS capabilities. Funding this proposal will result in a system to reach these underserved people by SMS.

The purpose of this initiative is to provide for the programmatic institutionalization and enhancement of compatible natural resource use in support of military readiness and at the same time enhance the maintenance and improvement of natural resources, including agriculture and forestry lands (i.e., working lands), through the operation of a voluntary, market-driven initiative called the Partnership for Sentinel Landscapes. The Partnership for Sentinel Landscapes is a coalition of groups representing conservation, natural resource, and economic interests to address preservation on a landscape scale in association with the military. The coalition will work in the public interest to advance national defense, conservation and working lands in North Carolina simultaneously to ensure that development or use of land, water, and/or air resources remains compatible with military missions. The current implementation strategy includes assistance for individual landowners active in specific aspects of the program. Private landowners will be recognized for the unique value of their land and land management practices, essentially "green readiness." These lands will stand as true "Sentinel" landscapes - protecting military readiness due to their location - and thereby supporting national defense.

This proposed work is part of a larger project by Purdue University to US AID to improve the university educational system in Agricultural Universities in Afghanistan. NC State will take the lead in the area of Forestry and Natural Resources. We will: (1) make NCSU faculty visits to Afghani universities to meet with them, review their curricula and provide guidance on improving their curricula and instructional methods. (2) provide graduate education for two Afghani faculty members leading to masters degrees in forestry and natural resources. (3) host a senior Afghani faculty member in the U.S. for four months. Through these activities the educational capacities of the target universities will be improved, leading to a more sustainable educational system.

The mission of NC Tourism Extension “is to improve the quality of tourism across rural NC by helping individuals and communities develop healthy,prosperous and enduring tourism enterprises that will boost economic and community development efforts.” We believe that Bycicle Tourism may help foster economic development and improved community wellbeing in the Central Park region; therefore, we are pleased to respond to your request for proposals for the execution of a marketing study for this form of tourism in the region. Our office and the proposed project team have an extensive record of research and community engagement in rural North Carolina. We lead statewise projects like People-First Tourism, and the NC Birding Trail, and we have helped NC counties, regions and organizations with marketing planning and research (e.g., agritourism study with VisitNCfarms). This previous work, and our affiliation with the NC Cooperative Extension Service, provides us access to key community leaders in all eight counties in the Central Park NC region. Moreover, we have already explained this study and obtained the support of key contacts in cycling and bicycle tourism organizations like IMBA, TORC, and Cycle to Farm. Our work is evidence-based and grounded on mixed methods participatory action research with stakeholder groups. We propose to collect data from a diverse set of regional stakeholders (e.g., community groups, extension and tourism division staff, small and micro entrepreneurs, road cycling and mt-biking enthusiasts and shops, to name afew. We propose to develop a three-phase study: On phase 1 of the study, we will use individual and group interviews to collect qualitative input; on phase 2, we will use that insight to develop an online and intercept survey to current and potential bicycle tourists; and on phase 3 we will share summary findings to key informants and stakeholders groups to validate the findings and improve stakeholder engagement. We propose to disseminate the findings of this market research study using a combination of outreach printed (e.g., short factsheets with infographics) and digital (e.g., Youtube videos) materials to extend the impact of our study results across a varied audience. We also propose to develop a geo-visualization visitor-origin map using open-source GIS technology.

Agriculture produces a wide variety of valuable ecosystem services in addition to the traditional commodity outputs of food and fiber. Examples of these ecosystem services include biodiversity preservation, socially desirable aesthetics, as well as social and economic viability for rural areas. A central issue faced by federal and state governments, as well as agricultural producers, is how to assess the value of non-commodity ecosystem services generated from agricultural landscapes. For social scientists, this a particularly difficult issue to address given the limited availability of methodological tools through which non-market goods can be accurately estimated. The proposed research offers two novel and exploratory methodologies?immersive virtual environments (IVEs) and online marketplaces?to expand upon the existing literature surrounding the valuation of agricultural landscapes? non-commodity outputs.