What Is Eorganic, and How Can It Help Foster a National Organic Agriculture Research and Outreach Community?.

The growth in organic market opportunities has increased the demand across the country for information on all aspects of organic production. Extension has traditionally been a source of reliable, science-based agricultural information, but until recently there has been little published Extension information on organic agricultural practices as science-based information was scarce. Emerging and existing 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 web community of researchers, 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 is a recently formed, member-driven initiative experimenting with various tools and strategies to identify which are most productive. Examples include: personal pages, project management tools and descriptive pages, virtual brown bag discussions, community and public webinars, and virtual project field tours. This initiative is seeking input and participation from community members with interest and expertise in organic agriculture. This poster will be interactive, so please visit this poster and let us know how eOrganic can best support and engage you and other members of the organic research/outreach community and stakeholders.