4 pages, This article introduces the Regional Conservation Partnership Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service. The program encourages partnerships among Extension professionals, conservation agency representatives, and farmers that focus on addressing natural resources concerns through the development and implementation of regional watershed plans. These plans assist farmers in practicing sustainable crop and animal production methods. Extension professionals will find the program useful as a tool for building collaborations at watershed and regional scales to promote agricultural production practices that enhance natural resources conservation.
9 pages, Social media has been recognized as a powerful tool supporting communication of many topics in the agriculture industry. We explored the use of social media platforms among farmers market managers and specialty crop growers in Illinois through an online survey. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were platforms used by the majority of respondents. We found that social media was used primarily for communicating with consumers for marketing purposes. We identified major training needs of farmers market stakeholders related to using social media to promote business and convey food safety information.
