I. WELCOME

Present

Jim Hunter, Rex Clonts, Shelley Nelson, J.W. Yarborough, and

Yolanda McGee

Dennis Langolis, Tom Minter, Clay Archey, Erin Keefe, and John

Lommerse

Absent

II. UPDATES FROM EXTENSION

• Farm Tour 2025 - This year's farm tour brought something new! UF/IFAS Extension

Seminole County worked with Orlando North and UF/IFAS Extension Orange County to bring

social media content creators on a tour of local agriculture and food systems. This project

demonstrates the power of collaboration as well as leveraging social media to increase

agricultural literacy and strengthen local food systems. Preliminary estimates suggest a cost

of less than one cent per person reached through the influencers.

• Florida First Detector - Invasive Species Webinar Series has been highly successful with

over 1,600 participants in the last two years. We are on our third year with this program and

are awaiting potential funds to do it for a 4th year. This has allowed for many people to obtain

CEU credits free of charge including FDACS pesticide and FNGLA CEUs. The webinars have

ranged between 50-120 people at each session.

• Farm to Fork 2025 Monthly Programming -In January, we started a monthly series where we

focus on a topic within agriculture, typically a commodity group. For the entire year, we have a

once a month one hour webinar followed by a part 2 hands on in person workshop a few days

after the webinar. This program will be designed to be farm to fork, talking about the

agriculture, how they can garden at home, and then how to harvest and utilize it in the kitchen.

So far it has been very successful! The committee suggested future topics including proper

cutting of a whole chicken for a livestock focused day.

• Final Friday's Gardening Webinars -. We are using this to try and connect more people with

plants and the local food system. We started again in January and the gardening topic rotates

every month.

• Spring Garden Expo - The 2025 spring Garden Expo this past February was a huge

success! If anyone is interested in being a vendor for next year, please contact Kaydie

McCormick K.mccormick@ufl.edu.

• 4-H Butterfly Explorers Project with local schools - This was our fourth year working with the

schools on the 4-H Butterfly Explorers Project. It has become one of our staple school

enrichment programs to connect youth with insects and the roles they play in agriculture and

beyond.

• 4-H Ag Literacy with Seminole County Public Libraries - This is our third year of a

partnership with the Seminole County Public Libraries to offer a 4-H Ag Literacy Program in

the Spring. This year we focused on livestock.

• Pesticide related programming and CEUs - Morgan continues to host pesticide license exam

reviews and other CEU opportunities monthly. Upcoming classes can be found on the

Page ' 2

UF IFAS Extension Seminole County Eventbrite page

https://www.eventbrite.com/o/ufifas-extension-seminole-county-7995917345.

• Plant pest/pathogen diagnostics and site visits - We are continuing to offer this so people

can reach out to Morgan if you have any questions or requests to visit.

Upcoming

• Reclaimed Water Educational Programming -Last year, our office hired Jacob Burris to be

our Reclaimed Water Educator. This program is part of an FDEP grant. We have started to

offer classes for residential audiences in the last few months, but we will be developing

classes for commercial audiences later in the year. The committee didn't feel that an

in-person workshop specific to the farming audience was necessary at this time.

• 4-H Youth Summer Sessions - We are hosting two different sessions this year for different

age groups. Both programs will be focused on insects, and we already have a good number of

youth signed up for the June programs.

• Growing Together: Central Florida Partners for Agriculture. For the past two years, this event

was hosted at the UF/IFAS Mid-Florida Research and Education Center and brought the

Central Florida Agricultural Community together with allied agencies who can provide support

in the form of cost shares, grants, loans, insurance, and other opportunities as well as help

growers and producers better understand programs, rules, and regulations that might impact

their operation. We are planning to host virtual sessions in late July and early August at the

request of many of the agencies and attendees.

• Greenhouse and Nursery Industry Training - UF/IFAS Extension Seminole County has been

working with a team of Central Florida extension agents to develop a training for greenhouse

and nursery workers on basic IPM practices. We are planning to offer this program in

October/November of this year. Dr. Liz Felter is the primary lead on this program and will be

retiring this month. It will likely be Brooke

University wide policy changes

2025 Extension Program Updates

Recent/Ongoing Programs

Upcoming Programs

III. CURRENT NEWS IN AGRICULTURE

• Ag Tax Exemptions - Morgan met with the Seminole County Property Appraisers Office to

get some more insights on their Ag tax exemption process. They said there were some recent

clarifications on the tax exemption process and updated information can be found here:

https://www.scpafl.org/information/agriculture-classification.

• FDACS is in the process of modernizing and updating their databases and webpages related

to pesticide licensing. There is a new webpage for all pesticide licensing access:

https://aeslicensing.fdacs.gov/.

• After October 1, 2025, pesticide licensing testing will no longer be at county extension

offices. The sole provider of exams in Florida will be FDACS through Everblue, remotely and

at testing centers across the state. We expect to have more information available by the end

of May.

• FDACS recently released updated BMP manuals which can be found here:

https://www.fdacs.gov/Agriculture-Industry/Water/Agricultural-Best-Management-Practices.

Morgan is going to see if there are any charts or references that outline the changes between

the old and new manuals. If the state office

Freeze Impacts 2026

Changes to FDACS pesticide licensing and testing

IV. ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Meeting Conclusions

Next meeting date, November 4, 2026, 12PM - 1PM