The 2011 ASHS Annual Conference

The growth in organic market opportunities has increased the demand across the country for information on all aspects of organic agricultural production. Until recently, there has been little published Extension information on organic agricultural practices as science-based information was scarce. In addition, science-, experience-, and regulation-based organic agriculture information must be aggregated and integrated to produce information of the greatest utility to farmers and agricultural professionals. eOrganic works to fill this need and become an important national source of organic agriculture information by: 1) convening a national community of researchers, extension and other agricultural professionals, farmers, and certifiers at eOrganic.info; 2) facilitating project management, networking, and co-learning; 3) supporting collaborative development and publication of peer-reviewed articles, FAQs, and videos at eXtension.org/organic_production; and 4) facilitating engagement with farmers and agricultural professionals through webinars, short courses, Ask-an-Expert, and other interactive tools and activities. There currently is no organic agriculture scientific/professional society, and researchers and Extension faculty and their collaborators do not have a mechanism to find, network, and learn with peers. eOrganic works to develop these opportunities at eOrganic.info as we see that networking and co-learning is critical to eOrganic’s capacity to develop high quality, science- and experience-based information to stakeholders in the short and long term. eOrganic members are experimenting with a variety of tools and strategies to determine which are most useful, including personal pages, project websites, online forums, webconference-based brown bag discussions, community and public webinars, and virtual field tours.