April 7, 2011 | Robert Puro

The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, or ATTRA, recently had its $2.8 million funding allotment for 2011 zeroed out.  The unfortunate shearing of the ATTRA allocation resulted from its inclusion in the $6 billion federal budget cutting measure that Congress recently undertook in order to keep the federal government funded through April 8^th.   However, as Congress is now in the midst of debate surrounding funding for the remainder of the fiscal year, there is still time to push for the restoration of ATTRA funding. So, if you’re an advocate for sustainable agriculture, call or email your senator or congressman now to demand that ATTRA be restored to the Fiscal 2011 budget! To find the contact information for the senators and congressmen in your state go to http://www.senate.gov or http://www.house.gov. According to ATTRA Executive Director Kathleen Hadley, “ATTRA has been the nation’s leading resource for information on sustainable agriculture, covering a wide range of topics, including reducing pesticide use on cropland, promoting food safety in organic production, enriching soils with the use of cover crops, and providing technical assistance in the growing areas of local farmers’ markets and urban gardening” for more than 25 years.  In 2010 alone, ATTRA distributed nearly 6 million copies of its sustainable agriculture publications and serviced more than sixty thousand individual requests for information.  Please help ATTRA by calling or emailing your legislators today.