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-- Home, Spring 2000 -- |
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-- Home, Spring 2000 -- |
Agriculture faces "four roads"Participants discussed opportunities for Iowa agriculturists during the Four Roads to the Future of Agriculture conference March 17. Emerging "roads" producers may take to succeed include commodity farms (produce crops/livestock for sale through open markets), product farms (produce specific crop/livestock products for contract sale through a supply chain), direct marketing/specialty farms (produce specialty crops/livestock for direct sale into retail or niche consumer markets) and part-time farms (portion of farm family income received from off-farm sources).
Agriculture is in a period of rapid change, but offers opportunities, said Stan Johnson, Iowa State University Extension vice provost. "Extension needs to be a risk taker as a public organization." Some of the projects ISU Extension will be working on to capture opportunities for Iowa agriculturists include developing supply networks in both the crop and livestock sectors, providing value-added agriculture grants, working with quality management groups (ISO 9000 training), and developing two new Web sites on electronic farmers markets and how to get into specialized businesses.
The conference was organized by the ISU Farm Economy Team.
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* Paper or plastic: Students want to know
* The GMO opportunity
* "Dynamic leaders" build skills for success
* Iowa horticulture keeps on growing
* Prison horticulture program named research site
* Celebrate 4-H Foundation anniversary
* Alliance addresses rural banking issues
...and justice for all. The Iowa Cooperative Extension Service's programs and policies are consistent with pertinent federal and state laws and regulations on nondiscrimination regarding race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, and disability.
- * Visit the ISU Extension homepage
* Send a message:- Stanley R. Johnson, Vice Provost for ISU Extension, vpforext@exnet.iastate.edu
- Mark Settle, Managing Editor, x1settle@exnet.iastate.edu
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* Last update: April 3, 2000
