SNR’s Prairie Pines to Host Community CROPS Training Farm

First-year grower Baoxia and AmeriCorps member Margaret install a bamboo trellis at the Community CROPS training farm.
First-year grower Baoxia and AmeriCorps member Margaret install a bamboo trellis at the Community CROPS training farm.

SNR and Community CROPS are excited to announce that the Community CROPS training farm will open at Prairie Pines in northeast Lincoln in early spring. Community CROPS founded the Growing Farmers Training Program in 2007 to help beginning farmers develop successful small businesses. They outgrew their former training site in 2012, so Prairie Pines, with its 145 acres of mixed-vegetation lands, will be the perfect place to continue and expand the training program.

James Brandle, a professor of forestry in SNR and the director of Prairie Pines, said he’s excited about this great outreach program. “This cooperation will help us inform kids about where their food comes from,” said Brandle. “Prairie Pines offers SNR the opportunity to put into practice our goal of introducing children to the wonders of nature.”

Prairie Pines is a large plot of land on the northeast side of Lincoln. Originally a Christmas tree farm, Walt and Virginia Bagley donated the acreage to UNL as a conservation and educational facility. The land features a wealth of ecosystems, including hardwoods trees, conifers, native prairies, and grasslands, making it an excellent site for farming education and research.

Initially, Community CROPS will be using approximately nine acres for its training program, though part of the benefit of Prairie Pines is the opportunity to increase the number of plots available to participants. Said Warren Kittler, Growing Farmers program manager, “We are very excited to partner with the University's School of Natural Resources at Prairie Pines. Not only will the site allow us to eventually triple the size of our training farm, but it will also give our participants the opportunity to learn how to integrate their farming practices in a sustainable manner with the surrounding environment.”

CROPS hopes that its work at Prairie Pines will continue the conservationist appeal of the region, especially as Lincoln continues to expand eastward.

“Prairie Pines offers a great opportunity to show how what we do while managing land impacts the land and provides for society,” said Brandle. He believes that this partnership will increase public awareness about land management.

Kittler is also excited about the new cooperation. “We'll be able to partner with university faculty and students to develop research projects,” said Kittler. “And we will strengthen our relationship with Extension as we train the next generation of vegetable farmers in our region.”

A formal ribbon cutting ceremony will take place on May 14, 2013 at 2:00 p.m.


—Michelle Hubele Rubin