White Paper

eOrganic Mission Statement:

eOrganic is an interactive web resource that centralizes access to peer-reviewed certified organic agriculture information from scientists, farmers, agricultural professionals, and other appropriate sources. eOrganic provides a hub for the development and exchange of regionally applicable, relevant information that meets the diverse needs of organic practitioners.

Vision Statement

eOrganic will:

Develop a cooperative model of partnership among Land Grant Universities, government, policy-makers, business, industry, and farmers to rebuild American agriculture around the principle of long-term ecological, social and economic sustainability.

Serve a broad group of daily users: farmers, agricultural professionals, processors, suppliers, retailers, regulators, policy-makers, funders, educators, researchers, and students.

Be a well-known, trusted, and peer-reviewed source of organic information and resources for farmers and extension educators and other agricultural professionals seeking information on how to make farms profitable and sustainable.

Create original content and link users to existing content ranging from the fundamentals of organic agriculture to regionally-relevant strategies for managing specific organic crop and livestock systems.

Provide credible, peer-reviewed, science-based information as well as experiential information derived from farmers and agricultural professionals.

Identify organic research priorities based on the intersection of farmer experience and emerging science.

Elevate the profile and value of organic agriculture to the public and policy makers by helping improve the practices and performance of organic food systems.

Increase awareness of the relationships between healthy people, healthy food, and a healthy planet.

Inspire and support a diverse community of practitioners from all regions of the country to collaboratively develop and maintain eOrganic.

Guiding Principles:

Develop practical, useful, accurate content that is attractive, current, relevant and accessible to our audiences.

Provide credible, peer-reviewed, science-based, and NOP-compliant information as well as experiential information derived from farmers and agricultural professionals.

Actively engage site users in content development.

Inspire and empower site content providers and users.

Organize information in a simple, intuitive, searchable architecture supported by stable software.

Acknowledge and respect the work of others.

Focus on results that keep farmers farming.

Anticipate, respond to, and learn from, the needs of the site users.

Be efficient with resources.

Share ownership and work synergistically to achieve realistic goals.

Have fun.

Primary Target Audiences:

1. Experienced organic producers and agricultural professionals seeking to advance their understanding of organic agricultural systems management.

2. Conventional farmers, beginning farmers, and agricultural professionals interested in learning more about and/or how to transition to organic agricultural systems management.

3. Non-farmers wanting to learn more about organic agricultural systems management.

4. The public and policy makers interested in organic agriculture and food systems.

Partner Relationships:

A Consortium of Organic Agriculture Information Providers:

 Key Components to Partnerships:

Creation of an MOU between entities and consideration of an umbrella organization
Establishment and maintenance of clear, equitable, and complementary
relationships
Collaborative and/or complementary fundraising
Agreements on authorship, sourcing, and licensing.
Maintenance and development of common and unique audiences.
Editorial control and maintenance of original content
Regular meetings to discuss critical partnership elements.