A University of Puerto Rico (UPR) project has received $99,999 in funding to strengthen land protection tools and help preserve the productive capacity of agricultural land, given how difficult it is to reclaim farmland once its use has changed. Puerto Rico was selected by Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (Southern SARE) to receive the funds.
The project, titled "Building Capacity for Farmland Protection for Sustainable Food Systems in Puerto Rico," is led by Dr. Carol Ramos-Gerena of the UPR Graduate School of Planning, in collaboration with the Institute for Agroecology of Puerto Rico (IALA-PR). Over the next two years, the initiative aims to build the capacity of educators and extension agents so they can understand, use, and teach land-use planning and farmland protection tools.
It will educate participants on existing tools and their limitations, noting that public policy or a plan can set protections on paper but informed people enforce them on the ground. Ramos-Gerena said, "No plan is ever fulfilled unless there are people who validate and enforce it." The project includes four regional training sessions aiming to reach about 100 participants, mainly agricultural extension professionals and agroecology educators, with the goal that the tools eventually reach farmers in communities across the island.
It will also produce educational materials, presentations, and toolkits, and one training session will be recorded as a virtual resource.