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February 27, 2004
C-FAR Presents 2004 Achievement Award to Farmdoc Research Team
SPRINGFIELD--The Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research (C-FAR)
presented its 2004 Donald A. Holt Achievement Award at the organization's
annual meeting on February 17th in Springfield. Each year, C-FAR recognizes
a C-FAR-funded research team that has demonstrated outstanding and innovative
team research and outreach that addresses priorities of Illinois' food,
agriculture, and related sectors. This year, Illinois Department of Agriculture
Director Charles "Chuck" Hartke joined Dr. Donald Holt, a longtime
advocate for practical and sound food and agricultural research, in presenting
the award to the farmdoc research team: Scott Irwin, Paul Ellinger,
Darrel Good, Robert Hauser, Dale Lattz, Joao Martines, Gary Schnitkey,
Bruce Sherrick and Donald Uchtmann. The farmdoc team was honored
for their work to develop Web-based resources and decision tools to assist
agricultural decision makers. "The farmdoc team's work will
continue to generate a high return on the public investment in C-FAR research,
thereby meeting the expectations and fulfilling the vision of C-FAR's
founders and current member organizations," said Holt.
Members of the farmdoc team are faculty and staff in the Department
of Agricultural and Consumer Economics in the College of Agricultural,
Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign. University of Illinois Extension educators who are
members of the farm business management and marketing team are also affiliated
with the project.
The farmdoc project was initiated in 1999 with the goal of developing
innovative and comprehensive programs to improve farm decision making
through education and research. Funding for the project was provided by
the State of Illinois through C-FAR's Information Systems and Technology
Strategic Research Initiative (IT-SRI). The heart of the project is the
website found at www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu.
The website is organized around the general agricultural topics of finance,
law and taxation, farm management, marketing and outlook, and agricultural
policy, and includes information on specific issues such as crop insurance
and the performance of market advisory services. "The farmdoc
project was developed in recognition of the increasing use of the Internet
by agricultural decision makers, and their desire for more information
and decision analysis that is relevant, in an easily consumable form,
and conveniently available," said Scott Irwin, farmdoc team
leader. "The overall goal of the project has been to provide decision
makers in agriculture with round-the-clock access to integrated information
and expertise on important management topics."
A suite of decision tools and agricultural databases is available at
the website. Current information on commodity prices and live weather
radar images can be easily accessed by visitors to the site. A broad portfolio
of publications is found at the site, including weekly outlook reports,
bi-weekly farm management newsletters, and quarterly policy digests. The
overall result is that agricultural decision makers are provided with
access to integrated information and expertise on business-related subject
matter.
Usage of the farmdoc website has grown from 10,000 requests per
month in early 1999 to an average of about 110,000 requests per month
in 2003, representing a total of 4.1 million page requests. Since the
project was initiated, there have been over 100,000 downloads of research
reports on the performance of agricultural market advisory services, nearly
8,000 downloads of the financial analysis solution tools (FAST) spreadsheet
decision aids, and the distribution of over 4,000 FAST CDs at workshops
and meetings. In addition, there are now more than 4,000 email subscribers
to farmdoc updates.
Several University of Illinois Extension programs have been developed
based on farmdoc materials. Regional farm income seminars held
throughout Illinois feature information and decision tools available from
the farmdoc website. Nearly 900 producers, farm managers, lenders,
and other agricultural professionals have attended these meetings. In
northern Illinois, county Extension personnel have established a program
called Agriculture On-Line, a train-the-trainer program that is based
around farmdoc resources and tools. Illinois Farm Business Farm
Management (FBFM) field staff are also making extensive use of farmdoc
resources and tools. "Over 6,500 farmers have access to this
information through their FBFM field staff," said Roger Allaman,
producer and Illinois FBFM Board of Directors president. "Our staff
uses many of the spreadsheet tools available on the site to help farmers
make the many difficult decisions necessary to run a profitable farming
operation."
Agriculture.com magazine named the farmdoc website as one
of the "Top Ten" land-grant sites assisting farmers. The website
was also named as one of the "Top Five" farm management information
Internet sites by Top Producer magazine. The United States Department
of Agriculture selected the farmdoc project as a Satellite Center for
the North Central Regional Risk Management Education Project to serve
as a risk management "portal" for agricultural producers in
the 12-state North Central region of the U.S. Also especially noteworthy,
is the farmdoc project's selection in 2002 to receive the highly
prestigious Distinguished Extension Program Award from the American Agricultural
Economics Association.
"The farmdoc website is the best resource I have been able
to find that allows producers to have quality information at their fingertips
on a wide variety of today's important risk management, marketing, financial,
management, legal and taxation issues," said Doug Yoder, Illinois
Farm Bureau director of marketing and risk management.
For additional information on farmdoc, please visit the project
website at www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu
or contact C-FAR at 217.244.4232 or via email at cfar@aces.uiuc.edu.
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