From san@nalusda.govFri Jul 14 23:19:29 1995 Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 12:17:11 -0400 (EDT) From: "Andy Clark, SAN Coordinator" To: sanet-mg@amani.ces.ncsu.edu Subject: New SAN Coordinator Hello to all members of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN). As the new SAN Coordinator, I want to introduce myself to the membership. Since I know many of you only by name, from sanet-mg or through the literature, I would also welcome replies directly to me about yourselves, including any ideas you have for SAN or for how SAN can work with you or with your organizations to further the collection and dissemination of sustainable agricultural information. I want first to thank Gabriel Hegyes, the first SAN Coordinator, for his contributions to sustainable agriculture in general, and to SAN and its mission, in particular. I would also like to publicly thank Gabriel for the three days he spent training me. Jayne MacLean, who has been involved with SAN from its inception, spent two days working with me, and I'm grateful to her for her help, and for her many contributions to SAN. I'm still trying to digest everything we covered about the many duties of the SAN Coordinator. When I decided to begin graduate studies in agriculture (Agronomy), I did so with the conviction that change was needed in the way we farmed. I had been influenced by Rodale and others in the organic farming community, by Rachel Carson, and by my own experiences as the owner of a small, residential landscape company. Too often, it seemed, the solution to any problem was more fertilizer, more pesticides. I was disappointed to hear, from those I came to know in Agriculture, that we could not change these methods. I studied Plant Breeding, while keeping my finger on the pulse of the fledgling sustainable/organic/low-input community. As a technician in the Agronomy Department at the University of Maryland, I became involved in cover crop research with Dr. A. Morris Decker, and following completion of my M.S. in 1988, he agreed to work with me on a Ph.D project, designed to answer cover crop management questions resulting from his research and that of many other researchers. We were fortunate to obtain a grant from the Northeast Region of the LISA program, and embarked on a large project, which included small plots and on-farm studies. We later applied for and received a second, smaller grant from the SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) program, in which we again cooperated with Maryland farmers in field-scale demonstration plots incorporating aspects of cover crop management from my small plot research. I completed my Ph.D in 1993, then stayed on the staff at the University of Maryland, running the small grain breeding program while I looked for the right job, and the department looked for a new breeder. I did a one-year postdoc at the USDA/ARS in Beltsville, MD, studying heavy metals in wheat, and when funding for environmental research started drying up in late 1994, I was again looking for the right job, just when the position of SAN Coordinator came open. I am very pleased to be in a position where I can not only keep abreast of developments in sustainable agriculture, but also where I am responsible for helping all interested parties stay informed as well. Throughout my graduate work, I was involved in dissemination of information, particularly to producers. I am excited to again be in a position of information dissemination. As advances in information technology continue to accelerate, I hope that all members of the Sustainable Agriculture Network continue to contribute to that technology, and that we are all able to use the technology to contribute to the sustainability of agriculture worldwide. Because the membership of sanet-mg continues to grow, with new members every day (750 at last count), I want to refresh the memory of 'founding members', and inform our new members, of the mission, objectives and services of SAN. Particularly for members who have found their way to sanet-mg without any idea of what SAN is, I reiterate that sanet-mg is only one facet of a very large network with an incredible amount of expertise in all areas of sustainable agriculture. We welcome your input to the network, for all of us have some unique perspective or expertise to contribute! I will follow this posting with two additional postings describing SAN. I credit Gabriel Hegyes with senior authorship of these documents, since I have only updated them. I look forward to corresponding with many of you, and hope to meet and work with many of you in the future. Again, please contact me with ideas and comments, as well as for further information or assistance. Andy Clark SAN Coordinator c/o AFSIC, Room 304 USDA/ARS/National Agricultural Library 10301 Baltimore Blvd. Beltsville, MD 20705-2351 san@nalusda.gov PH : (301) 504-6425 FAX: (301) 504-6409