08/29/08 Being Energy Efficient on the Farm

Being Energy Efficient on the Farm. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. We have been talking about being energy efficient in a world where every drop of energy we use comes at a substantial cost both financially and globally. It is important that ag producers do whatever they can to get the most out of their energy. Kathy Hadley, Executive Director of the National Center for Appropriate Technology says they work with producers to expand their efficiency. HADLEY: For more than 20 years we've had a national technical assistance program that's targeted at farmers and ranchers, agriculture producers all over the country who are interested in trying to adopt sustainable farming practices. When it comes to energy, energy is a cost to farmers. Hadley says they have a staff of people that are either from a farming background or are currently farmers. HADLEY: And their experience we put to the test by answering phone calls from farmers around the country trying to figure out ways to reduce their energy costs or the might be trying to figure out how to improve the fertility of their soils without using farm chemicals which is another cost for production. We get lots and lots of calls from around the country from people interested in organic agriculture both as a way to increase their income and people are also interested in it because more studies showing organic agriculture uses far less energy inputs. You can contact NCAT by phone or through their website and Hadley says they may be coming to a location near you. HADLEY: We do workshops all around the country on these sustainable agriculture energy topics so they contact us and they ask for example how they might be able to conserve fuel on the farm. So what our specialists will do is try first to interview the person and say, well what kind of farm do you have, how big is it, what type of equipment do you use, what do you produce. Hadley says the NCAT has a wealth of materials that they can provide either through email or snail mail. HADLEY: We also try to put them in contact with local people if we know about somebody who'll help them. A lot of time the co-op extension agent is real helpful to people. But a lot of times folks don't even know where to start in terms of trying to solve problems like energy costs on a farm and so they use us and our service to see if we can't walk them through identifying their biggest energy uses on the farm and different ways they might be able to reduce their energy use. Their web address is www.ncat.org and for additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network. www.harvestcleanenergy.org www.ncat.org