What are the social implications of sustaining agriculture?
Farmers, government agency personnel, county Extension Service
agents and others will try to answer that question at the fifth
annual workshop for the Southern Region Sustainable Agriculture
Research and Education Program. They will meet on Jekyll Island
Jan. 20-22.

National speakers will discuss the benefits and costs of American
agriculture to society, human capital in agriculture and the
changing profile of agricultural professionals.

“We’ll explore ways agriculture can reconnect with the urbanized
consumer society,” said Mark Risse, coordinator of the University
of Georgia’s sustainable agriculture program.

“We’ll also look at the environmental and societal impacts of
agriculture, careers in farming and ways our research and
education programs can benefit producers,” said Risse, an
agricultural engineer with the UGA College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences.

The program begins Thursday, Jan. 20, with 7:30 a.m. registration
at the Clarion Resort Buccaneer Hotel. It includes a field trip
Friday to Bacon and Coffee counties. Participants will tour
family farms, a carrot processing plant and a city/county
composting facility.

Sessions continue through noon Saturday, Jan. 22. The meeting is
followed by the Sustainable Agriculture Working Group’s Ninth
Annual Conference and Trade Show, Jan 22-23.

Find registration information on the Web at
http://www.griffin.peachnet.edu/sare/2000wkshp.html For more
information about the conference, contact Risse at (706)
542-9067.