The group working on Management of Organic Inputs in Soils of the Tropics (MOIST) continued, for a eighth year, to facilitate information exchange through its interdisciplinary seminar series on “Agroecological Perspectives for Sustainable Development” every Wednesday noon during the academic year. This is cosponsored with the Cornell Agroforestry Working Group. MOIST also continued to develop thematic electronic problem-solving networks on soil health and mulch-based agriculture and on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI).
The soil health community of practice revolves around a comprehensive web-based portal on soil health maintained in English and Spanish languages. This is associated with cross-linked global electronic discussion groups operating in English (mulch-L), Spanish (coberagri-L, co-managed by the Central American NGO CIDICCO), and French (evecs-L).
The Worldwide Portal to Information on Soil Health and its associated multilingual learning modules, search engine, browsing library, cover-crop extension access project, and newsletter access site have been developed by MOIST with USDA-supported ADEC funding, received on behalfof the Tropical Soil Cover and Organic Resource Exchange (TropSCORE) Consortium. Access to the Portal and its community is greatly enhanced through membership in the Agricultural Network Information Center Alliance (AgNIC), which includes the National Agriculture Library of USDA, land-grant institutions, and numerous organizations worldwide. In October 2004, MOIST co-organized a workshop at Cornell to facilitate inter-institutional collaboration with members of the global soil health community from seven countries (see the following Soil Health section). The outputs of this event will further strengthen this growing global network.
MOIST has also been instrumental in developing a CIIFAD-sponsored, global on-line community of practice supporting information exchange on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) through construction and maintenance of a global website (http://ciifad.cornell.edu/sri). Work was also done during 2004 to establish the global SRIrice-L listserv for problem-solving, the SRIupdate-L announcement mailing list, and to facilitate links between these lists and three operating national SRI listservs in Asia.
Electronic addresses for the portal and other electronic outreach resources developed and maintained by MOIST are:
• TropSCORE Worldwide Soil Health Information Portal and associated databases, learning modules, and search engines (http://www.soilhealth.org/)
• System of Rice Intensification (http://ciifad.cornell. edu/sri/).
• Management of Organic Inputs in Soils of the Tropics (MOIST) home page (http://ppathw3.cals.cornell.edu/mba_project/moist/home2.html).
• Cover Crops Information and Seed Exchange Center for Africa
(CIEPCA) (http://ppathw3.cals.cornell.edu/mba_project/CIEPCA/home.html).
• Tropical Soil Cover and Organic Resource Exchange Consortium home page and collaborative projects (http://ppathw3.cals.cornell.edu/mba_project/moist/ TropSCORE.html).
• Global green manure/cover crops on-line extension center
(http://ppathw3.cals.cornell.edu/mba_project/ CIEPCA/exmats/exmat.html).
• Global green manure/cover crops on-line newsletter center
(http://ppathw3.cals.cornell.edu/mba_project/ CIEPCA/allnews.html).
• English-language cover crop/soil health listserv (mulch-L).
• Spanish-language green manure/cover crop electronic discussion group, co-managed with the Cover Crops
(coberagri-L).
• French language cover crop/soil health electronic discussion group, co-managed with previous CIEPCA staff West Africa (evecs-L).From: CIIFAD Annual Report 2003-2004, Cornell University, 31 Warren Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853
http://ciifad.cornell.edu