I just came back from visiting Capitol Hill with our Council of Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching (CARET) delegates for Ohio (Melanie Wilt, Nate Andre, and Bart Johnson) and our college team (Dean Kress, Gary Pierzynski, Adam Ward). Together, we performed more than 24 visits with congressional members to discuss the importance of our capacity funding (Hatch Act and Smith-Lever Act). We shared some of our key areas of focus and impact including water quality, addressing weather challenges, farm and rural stress, food security, opioid prevention, workforce development, financial literacy/resource management, and invasive pests. The members and their staff were very knowledgeable and appreciative of the work of our college research and Extension. I am looking forward to our continued conversations with our legislators during the PILD conference in April. I appreciate all you are doing in your communities that create the impacts we can share for continued support of our land-grant mission.
Upcoming communication:
Save the date for video updates on March 19 at 9am and May 5 at 9am; and look for the next “print” News and Notes in late March.