Harry R Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology

The end of fiscal year 2018 has meaningful accomplishments for the Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology. We introduced our first annual Russ Brinsfield Summer interns. We welcomed Nancy Nunn as our new assistant director and Josh Bollinger as our new communications coordinator. You???ve seen changes in the Board meetings and reports. We???ve introduced ???Hughes News??? as our first step into developing a comprehensive communications strategy.The Center worked in our strategic priority areas while finishing projects from previous years. Past projects completed include a BMP Compendium authored by Tom Leigh and a report on Evaluating Obstacles and Supports for Local Food Systems in the Chesapeake Bay region by Tassone and Bowen. We prepared proposal requests and funded more than $400,000 in agro-ecology stakeholder-driven research projects of which 92% went to UMD College of Agriculture and Natural Resources faculty. The Center will completed local implementation workshops for Phase III of the Bay Program???s pollution diet. The Board approved an effort to impact agricultural and forestry literacy in Maryland???s citizen consumers. Our partners at Choptank Communications are conducting surveys and focus groups this summer.