![Andrew Siebengartner
'03 excelled in the John Dewey Honors program and hopes to share his love of classical languages with the next generation of students and scholars.
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4.25.07 AGRICULTURE PROGRAMS GET A BOOST FROM ANONYMOUS DONORS
Two University of Vermont programs designed to support the sustainability and future viability of Vermont agriculture are benefiting from gifts of $50,000 each from an anonymous couple cimmitted to those goals. The gifts, to the Farm Viability Enhancement Program and the Agricultural Innovations Initiative, were motivated by the couple's wish to have an impact on Vermont farmers who are trying to remain viable by producing products in an environmentally sensitive way. Their support for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and UVM Extension, they said, expresses their confidence in the work that UVM is doing to keep Vermont agriculture vibrant by helping farmers adapt effectively to the changing marketplace.
UVM Extension's Farm Viability Enhancement Program, begun in 2004, provides farm families with technical assistance to help increase the profitability of their farms. The program does this by helping families to develop and implement farm business plans and enterprise budgets, add value through diversification, and, when appropriate, make steps toward farm transfer. The Agricultural Innovations Initiative, let by UVM's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, was begun this year with the goals of translating the research work of UVM faculty into patentable discoveries with commercial potential for environmental and agricultural applications. The initiative works collaboratively with the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies and the UVM OFfice of Technology Transfer to position UVM's farm facilities and other Vermont agricultural sites as testing facilities where research trials on prototype products can be conducted to determine their economic and environmental viability.