ANNAPOLIS, MD (May 16, 2011) \u2013 The Governor\u2019s Intergovernmental Commission for Agriculture (GICA) today launched a \u201ctoolkit\u201d designed to help Marylanders understand farming in the State and how they can support it. \u201cUnderstanding and Responding to the Changing Needs of Maryland Agriculture: A Toolkit for Local Communities\u201d aims to provide local communities and officials with a better understanding of the current state of Maryland agriculture. The toolkit suggests tools, methods and resources that will help farmers, their neighbors and local officials better work together towards creating communities that support both profitable agricultural production and a high quality of life.<\/p>\n
Maryland farms comprise roughly one-third of the State and are economically invaluable to rural economies.\u00a0 Nearly 14 percent of the State\u2019s workforce is engaged in Maryland\u2019s food and fiber sector, which exported nearly $450 million worth of products in 2009.\u00a0 However, rapid changes in a global marketplace and a developing Maryland have forced many farmers to find new ways of doing business.\u00a0 The GICA toolkit outlines many of these changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the face of Maryland agriculture continues to evolve, it is critical that decision makers and neighbors understand the changing context in which their farmers operate, and how communities can help create a sustainable industry ready to meet the food production challenges of today and tomorrow,\u201d said Secretary of Agriculture and GICA Chair Buddy Hance. \u201cWe hope this toolkit can be a resource to Marylanders interested in understanding how they can support their local farmers, and to farmers who are trying to access resources and information.\u201d<\/p>\n
Housed at the Maryland Department of Agriculture, GICA is a public-private and interagency workgroup that works to promote better collaboration and cohesion across State agencies and with citizens in an effort to support Maryland\u2019s agricultural sector.\u00a0 As a result, the toolkit includes broad-based input from a wide variety of contributors, to present a comprehensive look at the industry.\u00a0 The guide includes numerous policy options, informational resources, and points of contact for topics pertaining to agriculture, including market access, on-farm processing, conservation practices land-use conflicts, food safety, and wildlife management.<\/p>\n
The toolkit can be found online at:\u00a0www.mda.state.md.us\/pdf\/gica.toolkit.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ANNAPOLIS, MD (May 16, 2011) \u2013 The Governor\u2019s Intergovernmental Commission for Agriculture (GICA) today launched a \u201ctoolkit\u201d designed to help Marylanders understand farming in the State and how they can support it. \u201cUnderstanding and Responding to the Changing Needs of Maryland Agriculture: A Toolkit for Local Communities\u201d aims to provide local communities and officials with Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[146,190,189],"class_list":["post-806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release","tag-farmers","tag-local-officials","tag-toolkit"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":807,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806\/revisions\/807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}