Filling in the Gaps: Eight Things to Recognize about Farm-Direct Marketing

Local Food, Organic Food, Market Channels, Niche Meat, Community Supported Agriculture, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Marketing,

Leave Home! International Sabbaticals as Unfreezing Experiences

International sabbaticals provide exceptional opportunities for Extension educators to unfreeze and transform themselves personally and professionally. But relatively few ever take this type of sabbatical because of the numerous obstacles that must be overcome. This paper discusses why international sabbaticals are so valuable and provides tips and additional resources for the sabbatical planning process. The leave home message is that the gains will far exceed the costs

Using Speed Dating Techniques to Enliven and Improve Conferences and Workshops

Most Extension educators seek new ideas for organizing more exciting and animated workshops and conferences. This article describes structured networking activities (also know as speed dating ) that succeed in enlivening meetings, strengthening networking, and improving learning. A speed mentoring approach was successful in sharing knowledge among farmers\u27 market managers with different levels of experience. Farmers and chefs used a more classic speed dating approach to forge new relationships and make deals

Participatory Workshops: A Book Review

Participatory Workshops: A Sourcebook of 21 Sets of Ideas & Activities, by Robert Chambers, is a superb sourcebook for ideas and activities that can be used to enliven workshops and meetings. The book is organized like a cookbook and can be used in a similar fashion because it is easy to find specific activities, techniques, or ideas through both the table of contents and the index. Chambers presents 441 suggestions (21 lists of 21 items each) that range from the odd to the outrageous to the ingenious. It is reference book that will be used

More Change Than You Think: Tracking Oregon Farmers’ Markets and Their Managers 1998-2005

Marketing,

UNITED STATES AGRICULTURAL TRADE: WHERE ARE THE GAINS?: COMMENT

International Relations/Trade,

ACTING COLLECTIVELY TO DEVELOP MIDSCALE FOOD VALUE CHAINS IN THE U. S.

N° ISBN - 978-2-7380-1284-5International audienceMotivated by Lyson s concept of civic agriculture , this paper examines case studies of four innovative U. S. mid-scale food value chains to provide models of how mid-sized farms and ranches and associated processing, distribution, and retail businesses can prosper by acting collectively to construct -food system. Specifically we consider the importance of acting collectively functions at three distinct levels horizontally among producers, vertically within food value chains and horizontally across food value chains. These mid-scale food value chains represent strategic alliances among mid-sized farms and other agri-food enterprises that operate at regional levels, handle significant volumes of high-quality, differentiated food products, and distribute profit margins equitably among the strategic partners. Historically mediumbackbone of the U. S. agricultural sector. In recent decades, these farms have been severely challenged as they are often too small individually to compete successfully in international agricultural commodity markets and too large and/or poorly positioned to directly market food to local consumers. Yet they remain important for many reasons including their environmental stewardship, contributions to community vitality, and the role they play in maintaining a diverse, resilient, and more sustainable structure of agriculture. From a market perspective, the key advantage of these food value chains is their ability to provide high quality, differentiated products not available through the mainstream commodity market

The Grower\u27s Roundtable: Encouraging Conversations About Critical Farmers\u27 Market Management Issues

The Growers\u27 Roundtable Meeting provides a forum for open and productive conversations of difficult topics in farmers\u27 market management. Because these ad-hoc groups do not take decisions, participants are free to listen and interact with the intent of learning from each other. The useful ideas that are generated during the meeting will subsequently reappear in many different settings. In a more general sense, getting the right people together to focus on important topics with appropriate conversational rules results in an excellent recipe for success

Warming Overcomes Dispersal-Limitation to Promote Non-native Expansion in Lake Baikal

Non-native species and climate change pose serious threats to global biodiversity. However, the roles of climate, dispersal, and competition are difficult to disentangle in heterogeneous landscapes. We combine empirical data and theory to examine how these forces influence the spread of non-native species in Lake Baikal. We analyze the potential for Daphnia longispina to establish in Lake Baikal, potentially threatening an endemic, cryophillic copepod Epischurella baikalensis. We collected field samples to establish current community composition and compared them to model predictions informed by flow rates, present-day temperatures, and temperature projections. Our data and model agree that expansion is currently limited by dispersal. However, projected increases in temperature reverse this effect, allowing D. longispina to establish in Lake Baikal’s main basin. A strong negative impact emerges from the interaction between climate change and dispersal, outweighing their independent effects. Climate, dispersal, and competition have complex, interactive effects on expansion with important implications for global biodiversity

Economic Linkages and Impact Analysis for the Oregon Sea Grant Programmed and Operated Hatfield Marine Science Center Visitor Center

The Oregon Sea Grant Visitor Center at Hatfield Marine Science Center attracts 150,000 visitors a year and does not require an admission fee. Surveying visitors, 39% of all people indicated that half or more of their reason for coming to the Oregon coast was to visit the Visitor Center