The Institute for Global and Community Resilience at Huxley College of the Environment has been awarded a $140,208 grant to involve local farmers in Whatcom, Skagit and San Juan counties, farm advocacy groups and collaborators within the university and region to develop a ranked set of farm resiliency indicators.

The grant, given by the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, is titled “Enhancing Resilience of Small and Medium-Sized Farms Through Extreme Event-Based Scenario Planning.”

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Planning workshops will allow for the development and analysis of policies to support farm resiliency in the face of four likely extreme events/rapid changes in our region: global climate change, seasonal flooding, urban/rural encroachment in farming areas and high energy process.

The final product, a Farm Resiliency Business Planning Tool, will be available for use within the region and beyond. The grant has a start date of May 2, 2009, when Gigi Berardi, the director of the project, returns from her sabbatical at the University of Florence in Italy, where she is researching the coherence of food and farm systems promoted by Slow Food International and its academic institutions, as well as food security studies at the University of Florence.

Rebekah Green (rebekah.green@wwu.edu) is the co-principal investigator. For more information, contact the principal investigators or Laura Jensen at laura.jensen@wwu.edu.