American Farmland Trust Seeks Texas Gulf Coast Outreach and Education Coordinator

This position is initially funded through a contract with the GCERT. Our hope is that following completion of this contract, this person will be absorbed into a new AFT Texas team that will be working closely with Texas NRCS and be located in a mutually agreed upon location. If this happens, the roles and responsibilities of the position will remain fairly constant, while the geography covered and tie to a specific watershed will change and most likely broaden significantly to include a larger part of the state. This AFT position, located in Robstown, TX (a suburb of Corpus Christi) reports to AFT’s new TX State Director and works closely with both the TX NRCS resource team leader and Assistant State Conservationist - Partnerships & Initiatives. This position will support the Petronila Creek Watershed Nutrient Reduction project funded by the RESTORE Council in response to the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil spill. The project is focused on driving nutrient reduction in the Petronila Creek Watershed in Nueces County, TX via outreach and financial and technical assistance to voluntary participants to develop and implement conservation practices on agricultural land that is vulnerable to nutrient and sediment runoff. The Outreach and Education (O&E) Coordinator takes the lead in shaping and carrying out strategic outreach and education efforts on available technical and financial assistance opportunities in this project area with the goal of driving sign up and participation in this project and for ginning up interest in farm and ranchland protection efforts while carrying out these outreach and education efforts.

 

 The Texas Gulf Coast Outreach and Education Coordinator develops and executes outreach and education strategies, foster partnerships, develops public education and marketing materials, supports and promotes on-farm demonstration field days, and builds and maintains relationships with farmers, ranchers, non-operating agricultural landowners as well as state and federal agencies, agricultural service providers, conservation leaders, and others to develop and implement outreach and education strategies to drive participation among current and potential customers for the Petronila Creek Watershed project. This will include a focus on conducting outreach, delivering educational programming, providing one-on-one support services, and developing new resources, trainings, and online tools to support historically underserved and marginalized farmers and address social, economic, and environmental challenges. 

 

 

Travel: Frequent car travel throughout the Petronila Creek Watershed region of Texas with occasional travel to the state office to conduct community outreach, put on and attend demonstration events, provide one to one direct farmer/rancher/landowner support, and host workshops and program events. This could change over time after completion of this Petronila Creek Watershed project contract in which case the region of travel would be likely to shift or expand while the amount of travel is likely to remain fairly constant because of the nature of the position.