History

How the Cornell Organic Production and Marketing Program Work Team came to be.

In March, 1997, a meeting was convened at Cornell after organic growers expressed concern that Cornell did not respond to their research and extension needs. This had been one in a series of sporadically scheduled meetings, and the growers were frustrated with an apparent lack of progress.

At this meeting, it was obvious that there were several projects of interest to this community, but most of CU research and extension activities in organic agriculture were invisible to the larger organic community, since these happened based upon one-on-one or local interactions with growers or through research grants.

Also apparent was the attitude that organic growers are similar in many ways to other growers; while they have a unique set of production constraints that limit their choices, their ultimate goal is profitability. This changed in attitude reflected a change in Cornell staff.

In response, Anu Rangarajan, Brian Caldwell (extension educator) and Steve Gilman (organic grower) hosted the first Cornell Organic Research and Extension Advisory Committee meeting, in Dec. 1997. We invited growers and CU research and extension staff to a meeting to share needs, ideas and results.

There were definitely some negative feelings to be aired, but the final outcome was positive. Where originally focused on organic fruit and vegetable growers (given bias of organizers), the growers felt very strongly that it had to be multidisciplinary and include grain and livestock since most of them included these in their rotations/farm plans. The group was expanded in following years.


In 2001, the group received recognition from CU Extension as a Program Work Team (PWT) for three years. With this recognition came some funds to enhance the group's activities. Out of that came this web site to improve communications, field days to highlight organic research and workshops to enhance extension educator capacity in organic systems.

By 2006, although formal funding for the PWT has now ended, PWT meetings continue to meet once or twice a year, with an ever-expanding group of interested people. We now meet once or twice annually via video-conferencing technology, to more easily include growers and extension educators around the state. If you would like to participate, let us know, we can help you locate the nearest extension location hosting a video-conference with the group. Generally, we try to include an office in the NYC area, western NY, and in the Capital district.

The meeting involves some updates on ongoing research and extension efforts, including on-farm research. We also spend a good deal of time identifying research needs as described by growers at the meeting; and we often have a special topic or focus to finish off the day.