New online training is designed for beginning farmers and those or transitioning to organic practices. Photo courtesy of UC SAREP
Farmers who want to learn organic production practices for California specialty crops can now get training at their convenience on their own computers. The organic farming training is designed by the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, Organic Farming Research Foundation and California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.
“This course includes information from the latest scientific research conducted by our University of California colleagues across the state, and boils it down into practical information for beginning or transitioning organic farmers of fruit, nuts, vegetables and other specialty crops,” said Sonja Brodt, UC SAREP academic coordinator for agriculture and environment.
The training program contains six learning modules: soil health, weed management, irrigation and water management, insect and mite pest management, disease management, and business management and marketing.
The training covers soil health, weed management, irrigation and water management, insect and mite pest management, disease management, and business management and marketing.
“We were able to draw on the expertise of 22 technical advisors, the majority of them from UC Cooperative Extension, UC campuses and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, to ensure the scientific accuracy of the information provided,” Brodt said.
The program provides a combination of written content, videos and do-it-yourself exercises that allow students to follow along at their own pace and test their grasp of the knowledge. Farmers may read or view any parts of the course they choose, in any sequence. No certificate or credit is given at completion.
“While it was developed for California specialty crop farmers, the content is based on foundational principles that are relevant to all organic farmers and our hope is that growers across the U.S. find it to be a useful resource,” said Lauren Snyder, OFRF education & research program manager.
UC Davis Student Farm coordinator Raoul Adamchak discusses irrigation. To ensure the scientific accuracy of the information provided, the training draws on the expertise of 22 technical advisors, the majority of them from UC Cooperative Extension, UC campuses and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
The organic farming training is free. To obtain a link to the training, submit a request at https://ofrf.org/beginning-farmer-training-program.
Funding for this online training program was made possible by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service through grant AM170100XXXXG011. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the USDA.
Posted on
Monday, September 28, 2020 at
7:09 AM
- Author:
Pam Kan-Rice
- Author:
Vickie Lowell
Focus Area Tags: Agriculture
Healthy Soils Workshop
February 19, 9am – 11am
University of California Cooperative Extension Office
669 County Square Drive Suite 100
Ventura, CA 93003
CDFA's Healthy Soils Program is opening and will be accepting applications on a rolling basis. Join us to learn about exciting changes to the grant opportunity, how to apply, and how to get technical assistance for your grant.
This event is free and open to anyone interested in soil health practices. Please share with your networks! We are also putting together a field day to discuss healthy soils practices in early March.
To RSVP and save your spot please follow the linkhttp://ucanr.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=29382
**If you cannot attend but want to learn more, please contact
Alli at amfish@ucanr.edu for application questions and assistance or visit http://ciwr.ucanr.edu/Programs/ClimateSmartAg/ to locate a
technical assistance provider near you**
citrus root health
Posted on
Friday, January 31, 2020 at
6:29 AM
Focus Area Tags: Agriculture
A recent website just posted hopes to make research papers available to the general public. Many times these papers are locked away in archives or libraries and are hard to access. This website wants to change that. It is sponsored by various group0s, including USDA, University of Missouri, industry, Resource Conservative Districts and other entitites. It's a small data base at this point, but hopes to build over time. check it out:
http://soilhealthinstitute.org/about-us/
There's a lot of distracting stuff at the site, but the guts are at
http://www.soilhealthinstituteresearch.org/Home/Search
Other good ag websites are the USDA's National Ag Library:
https://www.nal.usda.gov/
USDA's Agricola
https://agricola-nal-usda-gov.ezproxy.lib.vt.edu/
USDA's ATTRA which is loaded with basic and detailed farming information:
https://attra.ncat.org/
USDA's Farming Information Center
https://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic
It's a new year, READ ON!!!!
soil
Posted on
Friday, January 13, 2017 at
9:13 AM
It just came to my attention that there is a map of all the oil pipelines in the US. If you go to the bottom/left side and put in the state and county, it will be revealed. This is mainly for those growers who need to be aware of pipelines and tillage or any other work in the aerea of a pipeline.
https://www.npms.phmsa.dot.gov/PublicViewer/
Posted on
Friday, September 30, 2016 at
8:01 AM
Because of potential contamination of mulches from pesticides, mulch use is being called into question and testing may be required for mulches applied to organic orchards. This is a recent ruling. As always, anything applied to a certified organic operation should be cleared with the certifier first.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/beyond-pesticides-federal-court-finds-usda-process-for-allowing-pesticide-contaminated-compost-improper-and-stops-use-300288112.html
agritourism2
Posted on
Wednesday, June 29, 2016 at
6:23 AM
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