Cooperative Extension System Climate Action Plan

o Engage with other disciplines ranging from such as social science and to climate science.

▪ Enhance collaboration among Extension personnel and research faculty, and vice versa

▪ Strengthen relationship with NRCS, FSA, and others

▪ Collaborate with Climate Adaptation and Mitigation (CAMF) Fellows and others

▪ Identify other collaborators that benefit from ecosystem services and could become partners, including water management districts and utilities

Education and Training

o Actively promote all Extension climate-related events, research (social, educational, and physical), and programming

o Increase climate science literacy among Extension personnel

o Collate/collect a one-stop-shop for all Extension climate-related projects and programming

o Explore USDA-sponsored convening with other relevant collaborators

▪ Develop Extension Foundation marketing campaign (outreach examples to get people to attend convenings and events or contribute to inventory)

▪ Include Extension Climate and Extreme Weather Programming paper

Convene planning subgroups

o Add pilot communities and farmers from which to replicate planning process

Leadership and Strategy

o Work with national, local, Tribal and territory Extension leaders

Create buy-in

Get attention of more leadership

▪ Connect to initiative leaders (like EXCITE)

Investment Opportunities: Additional collaboration and resources would enable Extension to take more meaningful climate action. Extension climate professionals identified the following list of investments as those that would drive the biggest change the fastest:

Secure funding for personnel

o Hire additional Extension personnel (e.g. spec. agents) to develop climate-smart agriculture programs and to demonstrate climate-smart agriculture in action

o Hire 1 FTE to inventory existing climate training programs and curricula, and then maintain this library.

o Hiring and budgeting to support personnel training

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