Commissioners hear about OSU Extension

Representatives of the OSU Extension Office gave a presentation to the commissioners on everything they do.

Representatives of the Ohio State University Extension Office gave a presentation Aug. 28 to the Lorain County commissioners on everything they do.

Extension Area Leader for Lorain, Medina and Summit Counties Kyle White, Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator Ann Chanon and 4-H Positive Youth Development Educator Jackie Baca gave the presentation.

Chanon started by discussing algal blooms and how the Extension Office is seeking to educate county farmers on how to combat them.

“(We can) get in front of that with education, developing nutrient plans which I am helping our producers do,” she said.

Commissioner Matt Lundy jumped in at this point to ask about how outreach efforts between the Extension Office and local farmers are going.

Lundy noted that agricultural communities may push back on government attempts to make sure they aren’t intensifying the algal bloom issue.

Chanon agreed that agricultural nutrients are a significant source of the algal blooms.

“When you couch it in good agricultural practices, how they can be more efficient, how it can actually reduce their costs you can actually get them to listen to you,” she said.

Chanon said she’s proud that the Extension Office has reestablished its master gardener program this year and work with community gardens and that farmers now are approaching the office asking for help with weed, nutrient and farm management.

White, who has formally joined the Extension Office as community development educator, grant writing classes will begin this fall.

“The point of most of our programming is to teach people the skills so that they can do the work themselves,” she said. “Quite often, we’ll get a call where people will say ‘Will you write me a grant? I’d like $50,000 for something.’

“Let’s teach people how to fish so that if something happens and they move away and they want to take that skill with them, we want them to be able to write their own grants.”

There will be an introduction class and a “You Write the Grant” class where participants will walk out with a rough draft that can be used as a grant proposal, White said.

“We’ve had great success with that in Medina County, and we’re hoping to repeat that here in Lorain County,” she said.

White said she is connected with Southside Pride and the Greater Lorain County Partnership and she said the Extension Office is trying to get on board with groups across the county.

Baca spoke about her work with 4-H and how it teaches children life skills through experiential learning.

“One of the programs that we’ve really focused a lot on this last year is our OSU 4-H STEM in the City program, and that’s bringing that same dynamic behind 4-H development work to the kids in the urban area,” she said.

The program works with children both in school and out of school to give them opportunities to learn the basics of STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math, in a safe environment, Baca said.

It allows them to apply critical thinking and problem solving, she said.

“Which is really what our kids need nowadays,” Baca said. “They’re going to be the ones that are going to be solving the world’s problems.

“So, we need to equip them to be able to do that.”

County’s contributions

There was a brief moment of tension as County Administrator James Cordes looked over a budget summary and noticed that it did not list the facility the extension uses as an in kind support.

The Extension Office is housed in the county’s Agricultural Building, 42110 Russia Road in Elyria, and uses it without paying rent.

“Between Solid Waste and the general fund, it’s $107,000 (in county funds),” Cordes said. “But I’m not seeing anything on the inkind supports that are provided.”

White said she would look into the issue and the summary would be updated.

Tariff woes

Lundy also asked for an update on how recent tariffs imposed by President Trump in a protracted trade war with China have impacted local farming families.

Chanon said the tariffs have caused significant stress on local farmers on top of the environmental stress the county’s extremely wet spring has caused. She said OSU has a website specifically focused on farm stress and farm management which it has distributed throughout the farming community.

“Unfortunately, associated with (the increased stress) family stress, suicide rates, all of these things have increased significantly in the farm community,” Chanon said.