Places of Interest...

CalAgEd
This site is for Secondary and Community College Students and Teachers.  It is sponsored by the Agricultural Education Unit of the California Department of Education.

USDA
The US Department of Agriculture is the country's largest conservation agency, encouraging voluntary efforts to protect soil, water, and wildlife on the 70 percent of America's lands that are in private hands.  In 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln founded the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he called it the "people's Department." In Lincoln's day, 58 percent of the people were farmers who needed good seeds and information to grow their crops. Today, USDA continues Lincoln's legacy by serving all Americans. USDA remains committed to helping America's farmers and ranchers.

USDA: Rural and Community Development
The United States government has been involved in rural development support for over seventy years, and the United States Department of Agriculture's Rural and Community Development program has spearheaded many of these initiatives directly. Users of the site should first look at their homepage, which provides a "Spotlights" area, profiling recent announcements and website features, such as information about rural development policy and related pieces of legislation. The homepage also contains a "Related Topics" area which includes quick access to a broad range of related topics, including backyard conservation, utility services, and drought assistance. Near the bottom of the homepage, visitors will find links to recent reports, such as "Promoting Tourism in Rural America". Additionally, the homepage also provides access to the Journal of Extension and Rural Cooperatives Magazine. Finally, the site also includes a database of farmers' markets across the United States.

Board on Agriculture & Natural Resources
Since the early 1900s, the Board on Agriculture & Natural Resources has served the United States as a unit of the National Research Council. BANR's work largely revolves around providing expert advice on "issues of food and fiber production and related matters of natural resource development, including forestry, fisheries, wildlife and land and water use." On the organization's website, visitors can learn about the events it sponsors (such as conferences and meetings), its reports, ongoing projects, and its well-known Animal Nutrition Program. The report section is well-developed and visitors can view recent works dealing with genetically engineered organisms and the nutrient requirements of nonhuman primates. Cat or dog lovers will definitely want to take a look at Petdoor, which serves as a guide for pet owners who would like information on specific nutrient needs for their animal.

AgNIC Portal
Started in 1995, the Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC), is part of a collaborative alliance between various libraries and extension programs at different universities and other institutions. This partnership is designed to bring quality agricultural information to those parties and to the general public as well. Starting at the Center's homepage, visitors can view their featured site, search the entire contents, or look at the portal's features in detail. Visitors can also browse by topic, which include such subjects as entomology, plant science, and rural and agricultural sociology. Within each topic, visitors will find a host of informative resources, such as the proceedings of relevant conferences, plant and insect management guides and notes on how to maintain an optimal environment for dairy cows. Finally, visitors can also browse through a very well-maintained calendar of events and a news center.

Farm to School
The National Farm to School Program is a project of the Center for Food and Justice, a division of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College. The project brings together nine partners from four states to work on promoting farm to school programs nationwide. These programs connect schools with local farms with the objectives of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing health and nutrition education opportunities that will last a lifetime, and supporting local small farmers. The program has helped create pilot projects directly in schools that buy from local farmers, provided on-going technical assistance to potential and current projects, conducted educational seminars and workshops on farm to school, and evaluated existing projects. The project is creating a database of every school or school district that has an operational farm to school program.

Sustainable Table
The sustainable agriculture and food movement continues to garner attention from many quarters, and the focus of this site is to educate consumers about the many aspects of supporting such efforts in their own homes. Appropriately enough, the centerpiece of the homepage is in fact a dining table. From this virtual table, the different sections of the site (such as "An Introduction to Sustainability") may be accessed. Visitors may elect to learn about the issues surrounding sustainable agriculture, view recipes, learn about sustainable food in school lunches, and how they may choose to get involved. The site's homepage also contains a "Features" section, where visitors can access the Sustainable Table's blog and view articles on different food preparation techniques, such as grilling.

The Tofte Project: Sustainable Living
The Tofte Project is an exercise in sustainable living, a case study on how to design and construct a home that can exist in harmony with the land and ecosystem in which it is located. The Tofte Cabin was built with high levels of consideration paid to the surrounding area and its long-term impact on the environment. Visitors will learn about the highly conscious design process of the cabin, with interviews of the architect, carpenter, landscape creator, electrician and other people involved in the project. Take a virtual tour of the Tofte Cabin, and read about things to consider when building your own sustainable home.

World Health Organization: Food Safety
Growing concern about food safety has spurred a number of international organizations to action, and the World Health Organization (WHO) is one group that has been concerned with this issue for the past few years. The WHO has worked closely with a number of like-minded organizations (such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) to address food safety issues "along the entire food production chain-from production to consumption". To help disseminate some of their findings, they have created this site that provides information on microbiological risks, food borne diseases, and consumer education. The homepage provides access to a number of recent publications and presentations, along with information about upcoming meetings and research studies. Those working in the fields of public health and food safety education will definitely want to take a look at their fact sheets, which include the publication "Five keys to safer food", which is available in a number of different languages.

Exploratorium: Science of Gardening
"Like all great endeavors gardening is both a science and an art", and this new feature from the Exploratorium uses video clips, interactives, photos, and articles to make this point in way that will appeal to visitors of all ages. For example, the interactive Garden Variety presents basic facts (vitals), information on seeds, and lore, for vegetables and fruits such as peas and carrots, corn, strawberries, and pumpkins. Visitors can also virtually tour a hydroponics' greenhouse located in the arctic, where fancy lettuces and herbs are growing despite sub-zero temperatures, read a photo essay about a pumpkin-growing competition in California, and learn how grafting, hybridizing, and genetic engineering are used to develop new plants.