Off the Farm and Into the Cities: Extension introduces new focus on urban and nontraditional audiences

Shannon Wiley, Ph.D., regional Extension Director, Urban and Non-Traditional/Underrepresented Audiences speaks during the 2023 Grassroots Empower Reception at the Cordelia Park Indoor Pavilion in Charlotte.

“We are really concentrating on reaching communities in urban areas who may not be engaged with Extension programming or might not even know about us,” said Shannon Wiley, Ph.D., who leads the new Extension Region for Urban and Underrepresented/Nontraditional audiences. “We need to be innovative and look at how agricultural practices can be adopted by urban audiences and other nontraditional audiences.”

Philip Cooper, executive director of Operation Gateway, presents a session on the lifestyle of a change agent during the 2023 Grassroots Leadership Conference.

Extension at A&T’s Urban and Underrepresented/Nontraditional Audiences region spans urban and nontraditional communities across the state. The effort will leverage Extension expertise on campus and in the field, including 11 new Specialized Agents for Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR), who will be based in county offices. Most importantly, the new region will partner with communities, nonprofit organizations, churches and schools to ensure Extension at A&T makes lasting community impacts.

“Partnerships are essential,” said Wiley. “It is essential to know who the key players are and who needs to be at the table. We are talking with partners across several counties to understand what it means to work in an urban setting.”

Listening to community stakeholders will help build trust in Cooperative Extension as a true partner dedicated to positive change, Wiley added.

“We want to listen and learn, versus coming in and saying, ‘We’re doing things this way,’ ” she said. “There are multiple ways to reach a goal. We have to listen, understand, and then collectively come up with a plan to move forward.”

For example, agriculture programs in urban settings might focus on container gardens and community gardens instead of row crops. It might mean growing crops from different ethnic traditions. Similarly, 4-H club members might not have experience with farm life or raising livestock, yet they could explore local food production, community service and the technology that powers the agriculture secto, Wiley said.

As the new region begins its first full year, Wiley aims to see impacts such as more families and community groups involved in urban farming and gardening, making them able to earn profits at local farmers markets. For youth, Wiley said, the new region will help engage children and their families in the next wave of technology used in agriculture, such as drones and electronic sensors. For communities, it will serve as a partner in urban food production and economic development efforts.

The new initiative will tap into a growing interest in urban agriculture and locally sourced food. It will leverage the work of the university’s Urban and Community Food Complex, which broke ground in November 2023 on the N.C. A&T University Farm. The complex will include space for consumer and post-harvest research, a food processing and food safety lab, and support for food entrepreneurs developing “valued added” locally grown products.

But the key driver of programming and outreach through the new region will be communities, according to Wiley.

“This is really more community driven than anything else,” she said. “It’s going to involve coming together with communities and relying on direct support from county Extension staff and stakeholders who are already situated in the communities.”

Attendees, including Randolph Keaton, left, and Kris Reid, center, confer during the Grassroots Empower Reception.

Cooperative Extension already has community collaborations across the state, agents based at county centers and specialists on campus who develop programming and conduct research. As programs progress, the new region will support efforts to strengthen and enhance collaborations in urban and nontraditional communities and ensure that existing programs for youth, families, and even farmers are repurposed for urban and nontraditional audiences, said Wiley.

Some of those community conversations kicked off at the Grassroots Leadership Conference (GLC), held last October in Charlotte. Each year, Extension’s GLC brings together Extension staff and community stakeholders to brainstorm on problem solving at the grassroots level.  This year, the conference was held in a diverse urban community for the first time, providing an opportunity for participants to discuss urban needs, issues and opportunities. A pre-conference reception for local community and business leaders was a chance for Extension staff to network with local stakeholders and discuss their vision for urban Extension programming.

“As the most populous city in the state, Charlotte is a social and economic powerhouse. By deciding to host the Grassroots Leadership Conference in Charlotte this year, we wanted to appeal to the diversity of interests there and stay true to our purpose,” said Michelle Eley, Ph.D., community and economic development specialist with Extension at A&T. “We wanted to focus on economic empowerment and innovation at the grassroots level and what community members can do to find solutions that address local needs and challenges.”

Eley said the 2023 conference was one of the most well attended and covered topics of interest to urban stakeholders, including economic development and inclusion, urban agriculture, land use planning, philanthropy, access to capital and credit, and small business and workforce development.

The success of the Extension urban and nontraditional region, said Wiley, will depend in part on Extension specialists working with “boots on the ground,” urban Extension staff and local community connections to create programming that is appropriate for urban, Latino, Indigenous, and other nontraditional audiences. According to Extension Administrator M. Ray McKinnie, Ph.D., this is the kind of work Extension was created for but refocused on more diverse audiences in a changing world.

“This is what Extension does; it takes the university to the people to help them improve their lives,” said McKinnie. “We’ve created this region because of the needs that have surfaced in urban communities and because we need to be more active in nontraditional communities. As the nation’s largest 1890 land-grant university, we have an obligation to change with the times and take our programs and expertise to North Carolinians, whether they live in a city or on the farm.”