University blog gathers information for farmers

The Internet provides farmers a wealth of information on crop marketing, financial management and dealing with crop diseases. But on a busy farm, it can be hard to find time to search the Web for useful information.

"We need someone to sort through some of this and put it in a nice logical manner where a farmer can look through it instead of looking all over the Web," said Chris Hausman, who runs a 1,300-acre farm near Champaign.

University of Illinois Extension is taking on that challenge with a new blog for farmers. The Farm Gate began publishing earlier this fall at http://www.farmgate.uiuc.edu and was announced this month.

It aims to be a place farmers can go to find information on agricultural topics, such as crop science, economics and veterinary medicine, among others.

"It’s really nothing but the classic function of the extension service, which is to take research and interpret and apply it in the field," said Scott Irwin, a UI agriculture professor who helped develop the blog. "It’s just using a new tool to do that – a virtual or digital county agent."

Full Story: http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/12/18/build/business/50-bloginfo.inc