Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Agronomic: corn, cotton, oats, peanuts, potatoes, soybeans, sunflower, grass (misc. perennial), hay
- Fruits: melons, apples, berries (other), figs, grapes, peaches, berries (strawberries)
- Nuts: pecans
- Vegetables: sweet potatoes, asparagus, beans, beets, broccoli, cabbages, carrots, cucurbits, eggplant, garlic, greens (leafy), onions, parsnips, peas (culinary), peppers, rutabagas, sweet corn, tomatoes, turnips
- Additional Plants: herbs, ornamentals
- Animals: bees
- Miscellaneous: mushrooms
Practices
- Animal Production: feed/forage
- Crop Production: conservation tillage
- Education and Training: demonstration, extension, networking, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research
- Farm Business Management: new enterprise development, community-supported agriculture, marketing management, value added
- Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity
- Pest Management: biological control, botanical pesticides, competition, cultural control, disease vectors, economic threshold, field monitoring/scouting, flame, mulches - killed, mulches - living, mating disruption, physical control, mulching - plastic, prevention, sanitation, smother crops, soil solarization, trap crops, mulching - vegetative, weeder geese/poultry
- Production Systems: transitioning to organic
- Soil Management: earthworms, green manures, organic matter, soil analysis, composting, nutrient mineralization, soil quality/health
Abstract:
Georgia Organics’ project improved the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of agricultural professionals throughout the state on organic farming. GO did this by holding workshops for approximately 250 agricultural professionals in 2000, 2001, and 2002, as well as by giving presentations for 500 agricultural professionals at their own conferences in 2000-2003. Trainings also included when available a visit to an organic farm. A project design team comprised of agricultural professionals and organic farmers, helped develop, implement and evaluate the program, particularly in its first year. Instructors in the program were organic farmers, university and ARS researchers, the NRCS state agronomist, and extension specialists.
A Resource Manual on Organic Agriculture was developed and provided to each agricultural professional at the workshops organized by Georgia Organics. At the conclusion of the project remaining funds were spent to supply each extension office with a Resource Manual.
The relationships and communication network with agricultural professionals that this project has enabled since 2000 is resulting in agricultural professionals participating in nearly all of GO’s outreach and educational events. In addition, the project leveraged an Enhancement Grant from SARE PDP to reproduce the Resource Manual in 2001, a SARE Research and Education grant in 2002 for the Southeast’s first Farmer-Researcher Roundtable on Organic Horticulture, and a SARE PDP 2003 grant to develop both curricula in organic agriculture for agriculture teachers and a module on organic gardening for extension agents to use in their Master Gardener Program. This project also helped GO leverage two grants from the EPA Region 4 Strategic Agricultural Initiative.
Project objectives:
Georgia Organics (GO) reached approximately 250 agricultural professionals in 2000, 2001, and 2002 through workshops that GO organized. The quality of these workshops lead several organizations of agricultural professionals to invite GO to speak at conferences of agricultural professionals. Speaking at such conferences allowed GO to reach another 500 agricultural professionals and with cost efficiencies. GO did not have to organize these events and it reached those agricultural professionals interested in organic agriculture yet unable or unwilling to attend a full day or multi-day training that GO organized.
A program design team helped plan and evaluate the first year’s program. The results were incorporated into the second year’s program. In addition, the program coordinator met with all six of the district program development coordinators and their senior administrator to ensure the second year’s programs were at a time and format in which more extension agents could participate. As a result the 2002 workshops were done during in the first half of March when agents were most available for two consecutive days. This resulted in the middle-Georgia workshop being oversubscribed with over 50 participants.
Presenters included organic farmers on practical aspects of organic farming as well visits to their farms when possible. Other presenters of more conceptual topics fundamental to organic production and marketing were from the University of Georgia, Fort Valley State University, the USDA Agriculture Research Service (ARS), and the NRCS State Agronomist.
Organic farmers were treated as consultants and paid for their time and travel. Participants liked the farm visits the most. The final farm visit of a four-part workshop the first year was to an upscale restaurant and boutique in Atlanta just as the produce truck of the organic cooperative arrived. Participants heard from the chef-owner, the produce buyer as well as the cooperative manager as to why they buy organic produce. Not only hearing that buyers want this produce, but actually seeing its quality was highly convincing. The group then visited a farm supplying some of the produce they just saw. This farm is a CSA right in the city, part of a new intentional community incorporating eco-housing principles. Most participants had never heard of the CSA-concept let alone to see it surrounded by homes it served.
The program helped bring more researchers from both land-grant universities and from the ARS, as well as extension specialists to bear on the needs of organic growers in Georgia. Some had never been asked to speak on organics before, but they prepared presentations and in the process learned how their work integrated with the needs of organic growers, and furthermore, that this was a sector of farmers needing their attention.
Each workshop participant was provided with a Resource Manual on Organic Agriculture. The three-ring binder format allows participants to update it as they pleased, particularly with new ATTRA materials as they were issued. Our original concept was to use the manual produced by North Carolina State University (NCSU). But NCSU decided not to do a three-ring binder and instead to do a peer-reviewed, bond piece. The peer-review process itself took more than two years. As a result GO reallocated project funds toward producing a manual.
Each year GO’s manual was updated and reproduced. Among the best resource materials were those from ATTRA and from the Soil and Water Conservation Society (NRCS). The latter provided a wonderful Soil Biology Primer and Soil Quality Fact Sheets. A 2001 SARE-PDP Enhancement Grant allowed the reproduction of not only the agriculture manual, but also a gardening version. The organic gardening manual was in demand by extension agents who teach Master Gardener Programs. Part of that program is a three-hour unit on organic gardening.
In the project’s final year, GO utilized remaining funds to make an index for the Manual and to reproduce it for each extension office. The growing demand for organic products is helping to spur a growing interest among farmers, and importantly, the capacity of the state’s agricultural professionals to address that interest.
The demonstration plots were not done largely because of declining interest on the part of the hosts and their concerns as to maintaining the plots long-term. It turned out that organic farms were near both of the potential demonstration plots. This reduced the need for the plots. In reality agricultural professionals would likely be too busy to visit the plots during the growing season despite their interest to do so.
Continuing education units were available at all trainings for certified crop advisors and pesticide relicensing by the Georgia Department of Agriculture. Participants appreciated these credits, which were an additional benefit of participating.
GO was able to stretch out the funding beyond two years due in part to a less than anticipated need for travel support by agricultural professionals. While the NRCS administration, for example, asked that GO cover their staff’s lodging, vehicle travel to the training was not a problem. In addition, few extension agents asked for their mileage to be covered.