Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service

09/23/2026

Registration is now open for After the Harvest 2026! 🥕🧑‍🌾

Join food system professionals from across Arkansas in Little Rock on November 4-5 for a two-day conference focused on strengthening local food supply chains from producer to market.

Whether you grow it, make it, sell it, or buy it, there's a place for you here. Growers, food entrepreneurs, processors, farmers' market vendors and managers, buyers, Extension professionals, and community partners are all invited.

This year's program is built around three themes:

💵 Sell Local Food: strategies for accessing and preparing for new markets
🚚 Move Local Food: postharvest handling, storage, processing, distribution, and infrastructure
🤝 Connect Local Food: partnerships that strengthen local and regional food systems

You can also join a specialized bootcamp on Farmers Markets, Arkansas Food Freedom, or Food Processing & Manufacturing. 💪

Space is limited, so reserve your spot today!
🔗 Register: https://tinyurl.com/hjkjwsfu



Local, Regional & Safe Foods UA Extension

09/22/2026

🍚 September is Arkansas Rice Month, and this year's celebration comes with a $130,000 boost for rice research!

Anheuser-Busch is investing in projects across the state, everything from rice quality for brewing to water-saving irrigation. Arkansas grows more rice than any other state, and Anheuser-Busch uses more of it than anyone else in the country, buying around 20 million bushels a year and spending $700 million annually on American-grown ingredients like rice, barley and corn. 🌾🍻

Read the full story here: bit.ly/Anheuser-Busch-Supports-UADA-Rice-Research

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station UofA Northeast Rice Research and Extension Center

09/18/2026

What's actually on your ballot this season? Tonight on 'Arkansas Week,' our Public Policy Center's Dr. Stacey McCullough and Kristin Netterstrom Higgins join host Steve Barnes to walk through all four Arkansas ballot initiatives. 6pm, don't miss it! 📺🗳️

UA Division of Agriculture Public Policy Center

Tonight at 6 on “Arkansas Week,” as voters prepare to head to the polls, host Steve Barnes speaks with UA Division of Agriculture Public Policy Center Director Dr. Stacey McCullough and Program Associate Kristin Netterstrom Higgins about the four initiatives that will appear on the ballot this season. Then, Arkansas Civic Action Network Co-founder and Executive Director Gail Choate extends the mid-term elections conversation by sharing her knowledge and expertise about civic engagement and the state’s political climate. Learn more now — and find additional resources — on the Arkansas TV Blog: arkansastv.gov/blog/why-we-dont-vote-and-what-we-can-do-2026-arkansas-ballot-initiatives-arkansas-week.

09/17/2026

🎡🎃 Behind every blue ribbon is a story. A grandmother's canning recipe nobody's allowed to mess with. Somebody's first quilt. Somebody who painted a horse so good it trotted away with Best of Show. The UADA Cleveland County Fair had all of that and more this week!

📸 Show us YOUR county fair pics in the comments! 👇🏽

09/17/2026

The 2026 Arkansas Ballot Issues Voter Guide is now online for Arkansans to read over the three proposed constitutional amendments and bond issue on their Nov. 3 ballot.

View your guide at uaex.uada.edu/ballot

Help spread the word by sharing with friends & family.

What’s Inside?
- Q&A’s explaining the four statewide ballot issues.
- A checklist for you to mark how you want to vote on the issues.
- A sample of what supporters and opponents say.
- The wording of the ballot titles you’ll see on Election Day

A limited number of printed copies will be available for pickup at all Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service county offices in October.

Early voting starts Oct. 19. Election Day is Nov. 3.

The Public Policy Center at the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture has published neutral, research-based fact sheets on all statewide ballot measures since 2004 to provide voters a better understanding of what is being asked of them.

09/16/2026

Farming brings its own kind of pressure, and financial stress can show up in ways that are easy to miss or explain away. This piece from Erica Fields, associate director and financial manager for the Southern Risk Management Education Center and a licensed social worker, walks through how to recognize the signs of financial strain in yourself or a neighbor, and what to do next.

🔗 Read more: https://bit.ly/Surviving-the-downturn-stress
📖 Full report, "Surviving the Farm Economy Downturn: 2026 Update": https://afpc.tamu.edu/research/publications/735



Southern Risk Management Education Center

09/15/2026

🗳️ Arkansas has 1.8 million registered voters. This is your chance to join them. It only takes a few minutes to register to vote, and it's one of the most direct ways to have a say in your community. Today is National Voter Registration Day, make it count. 💪

✅ Paper applications are available at your local library or your county clerk's office. Already registered? Take a minute to confirm your information is current here: https://www.voterview.ar-nova.org/VoterView

✅ Find your county clerk's office here:https://www.sos.arkansas.gov/uploads/elections/ARCountyClerks.pdf



UA Division of Agriculture Public Policy Center

09/14/2026

"Our goal is to meet Arkansans wherever they are and teach them the foundation of cooking." 🍽️❤️

Please join us in congratulating Quadarius Whitson on his new role as Extension's first culinary nutrition, hospitality and tourism instructor! Whitson joined the Cooperative Extension Service in 2024 as a culinary nutrition and food safety program associate, and now he's taking his work to the next level, bringing Arkansans culinary skills, nutrition education and hospitality excellence.

🔗 Read more about his new role and what's ahead: https://bit.ly/Ark-hospitality-instructor

Arkansas Extension Family & Consumer Sciences

09/11/2026

📺🐞 Our extension urban entomologist Jon Zawislak and entomology instructor Austin Jones sat down with Good Day NWA on KNWA/FOX24 ahead of Saturday's Arkansas Insect Festival!

"You can't have art without arthropod," says Jones, and he's not wrong. Join us Sept. 12, 9 a.m.–3 p.m. at the Pauline Whitaker Animal Science Center for cockroach races, a butterfly house, live arthropod exhibits and hands-on insect-inspired crafts. Free and open to all ages! 🦋❤️

🎥 Watch the full segment: https://www.nwahomepage.com/video/arkansas-insect-festival-returns-to-the-university-of-arkansas/12156349/

📸 Credit: Good Day NWA on KNWA/FOX24

Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology Arkansas Insect FestivalDale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life SciencesArkansas Insect Festival

09/10/2026

Proof that 4-H impact (& fashion) never goes out of style! 🍀💃🏽✨ Arkansas 4-H