ATTRA Funding in Jeopardy - Calls Needed! For twenty years, the Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA) program has been one of the most reliable sources of information for farmers and others on a wide variety of agronomic, livestock, organic, marketing, farm energy, and entrepreneurial questions. This week Congress announced its plan to completely cut the program. ATTRA is an extraordinarily efficient program. Though it has remained at the FY02 funding level of $2.5 million, the demand for its services increases annually, with 35,000 technical requests last year, and over 2.6 million unique visitors to its website and more than 1 million publications downloaded or viewed. You can help by calling your Senator and Congressperson and saying that ATTRA is a valuable source of information on sustainable practices and shouldn't be cut. Call right now, as Congress is acting quickly. Just call your Senator/Congressperson (Senator Reid for Nevadans, tollfree at 866-736-7343, and for Californians, Senator Feinstein at 202-224-3841. For other states, the Congressional switchboard phone number is 202-224-3121.) and leave the following message with their aide who handles agricultural issues: The message is simple. "Please ask Senator/Congressperson ___ to insist on restoring full funding to the ATTRA program to the 2006 level ($2.5 million) for 2007 and 2008." You might add a personal anecdote if you are a farmer who has used ATTRA services. Thanks! For more information on ATTRA, see http://www.attra.org/ Vicki Morrone Organic Vegetable and Crop Outreach Specialist Michigan State University C.S. Mott Sustainable Food Systems 303 Natural Resources Bldg. East Lansing, MI 48824 517-353-3542 517-282-3557 (cell) 517-353-3834 (fax) http://safs.msu.edu/ http://www.mottgroup.msu.edu/ If you would like to access previous postings to the Mich-Organic listserv you can copy and paste the following URL into your browser address bar http://list.msu.edu/archives/mich-organic.html