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How does homeland security affect your farm?
Purdue University's Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN) program wants to know how well US farmers and ranchers understand issues of homeland security including agroterrorism, biosecurity and domestic terrorist activities. By surveying producers, USDA and EDEN aim to help USDA identify educational needs on a local and national level.
"It is important to have farmers in every state represented in this needs assessment," Abigail David, a spokesperson for the EDEN program, told Agriculture Online today. "With cooperative, across-state involvement, EDEN will have the ability to make available an extensive collection of educational materials on homeland security."
The results will help Extension staff, at the state and national levels, determine what direction educational programs should take. EDEN specialists will use the information to identify educational materials and make them available to producers.
"There are factors concerning agriculture that lead experts to disagree about whether or not farming and the food supply are at risk to bioterrorism," Steve Cain, EDEN delegate and Purdue Extension specialist said in a release. "Whether or not there is a real threat to the American food supply - even the risks - bring up issues that society must deal with."
"Since September 11, the news media have done a credible job of providing information about homeland security," Cain said. "But often that information raises questions and debate that can only be addressed with educational programs."
Source: Successful Farming's Agriculture Online News
Posted Nov 12th