Danélle McKnight Cutting recently received the 2017 Achievement Award from the National Association of County Agriculture Agents during their Annual Meeting and Professional Improvement Conference held in Salt Lake, Utah.

This award is given to agents with 10 years or less of service in Cooperative Extension who have exhibited excellence in the field of Extension education. This award is only presented to 2 percent of the County Extension educators in North Carolina each year.

Cutting started her career in 2010 at the Montgomery Cooperative Extension office. Her position was in horticulture and local food for the county and many of her projects are still used today. Some highlights from her career in Montgomery County are: The Sandhills Farm Tour, Troy Farmers’ Market, N.C. Farm School, the Star Food Hub building, Senior Center community garden and the first Extension Master Gardener Association in Montgomery County.

In 2013, Cutting transferred to Rowan County where she works as the horticulture and local food agent. She is still working hard for local growers by providing programs such as the N.C. Farm School, pesticide courses and grower workshops.

To help increase grower profits, she has worked over the past three years with five county extension agents and Piedmont Research Station on different horticulture crops to see what local farms can grow to diversify their crops.

She has helped publish posters that have received state and national recognition on these crops. Cutting’s passion for local food and horticulture is shown in her regular newspaper articles, radio shows and through her work with the Rowan County Extension Master Gardeners and the local farmers’ markets.