FREEPORT, Maine — University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment will host a 15-week distance education seminar offered by the Wisconsin School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers (WSBDLF). The seminar for new and beginning dairy and livestock farmers starts Thursday, Nov. 2, from noon to 2 p.m., at Wolfe’s Neck Center, 184 Burnett Road, Freeport. The class continues through early March 2018.
Experienced graziers, business leaders and University of Wisconsin faculty teach the WSBDLF seminar. Topics include the economic, environmental and agronomic principles of managed grazing; milking center design; dairy, beef, goat and sheep production; organic marketing and herd health; farm selection, design and remodeling; winter feeding and housing strategies; and goal-setting and farm enterprise development. Facilitating the remote seminar will be UMaine Extension professor Rick Kersbergen, who will provide additional educational and networking opportunities with a local perspective.
WSBDLF seminars emphasize business planning and pasture-based farm management, and are part of the core curriculum for the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship (DGA), a new nationally recognized, guided pathway to independent dairy farm ownership. Wolfe’s Neck Center is a partner in the Northeast with DGA and currently hosts five apprentices at the organic dairy farm in Freeport. WSBDF is also an approved vendor of the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) Beginning Farmer Loan Program for new borrower business training.
Apply for the WSBDF for credit online http://wsbdf.wisc.edu/how-to-apply.
To register for the noncredit seminar, for more information or to request a disability accommodation at the remote host site, contact Rick Kersbergen, 207.342.5971, richard.kersbergen@maine.edu.
University of Maine Cooperative Extension:
As a trusted resource for over 100 years, University of Maine Cooperative Extension has supported UMaine’s land and sea grant public education role by conducting community-driven, research-based programs in every Maine county. UMaine Extension helps support, sustain and grow the food-based economy. It is the only entity in our state that touches every aspect of the Maine Food System, where policy, research, production, processing, commerce, nutrition, and food security and safety are integral and interrelated. UMaine Extension also conducts the most successful out-of-school youth educational program in Maine through 4-H.
—University of Maine Cooperative Extension
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