OACC Prairie Coordinator Pushes Research

REGINA - May 5/03 - SNS -- The Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada's (OACC) prairie coordinator is now located at the College of Agriculture, University of Saskatchewan.

Dr. Brenda Frick's responsibilities include research, extension and building a network among researchers, farmers and extension specialists in the prairie provinces.

"One of my jobs is to make sure people know what others are doing in the area of organic agriculture; to ensure producers, researchers and extension people are talking to each other, so that we are able to build on commonalities, avoid duplication and, mostly, meet the needs of producers by facilitating the flow of information," says Frick.

"But I am discovering that there is more happening, more people connecting, than I expected. Not only does there appear to be a greater openness to and interest in organic agriculture in the research community, but farmers are also stepping up to the plate as researchers themselves, conducting trials on their own farms. It's a very promising trend."

The subscriber version of the article is available by Clicking here