A map of the lower 48 U.S. states, showing eight USDA Climate Hub regions and potential cross-regional connections for climate change and specialty crops. The arrows show target-analog pairings between specialty crop-growing counties; from recent research by WSU scientists.
September 25, 2023
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New academy on climate resilience to connect specialty crop professionals
PULLMAN — A team led by scientists at Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture & Natural Resources (CSANR) is establishing the Specialty Crop Climate Change Extension Academy to improve Extension and USDA professionals’ capacity to support climate preparedness. The new training academy is being funded by a $1.5 million Climate Hub grant from the USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative’s Foundational and Applied Science Program. Its goal is to facilitate forward-thinking conversations about climate change resiliency among professionals in the fruits, vegetables, seeds, and other specialty crops industries. “This new academy is about finding peers in specialty crop agriculture and making connections across regions,” said Chad Kruger, CSANR director and lead investigator of the training project, titled “Analogs for Dialogs.”