e-Directions: 08/26/2005

• AgCenter Announces Hotline for Producers Seeking Farm Financial Assistance

• Web-based Content Management System

• New CMS Site a Success

• Farm Bill Listening Sessions

• Master Farmer Contribution from Louisiana Farm Bureau

• ERCLA Conference Announcement & Call for Papers

• Nominations for Extension Faculty Awards

• New Office Location

• New Plant Disease Diagnostician

• Relocation of Caddo/Bossier EFNEP Office

• Callegari Water Quality Lab

With dramatic increases in production costs and stagnant commodity prices, Louisiana producers may face some difficult financial decisions this fall. Sharp increases in the cost of fuel and fertilizer have drastically altered normal cost of production patterns. At the same time, commodity prices for many of the state’s agricultural commodities have found it difficult to remain at profitable levels. As a result, many agricultural producers may face some difficulty in paying off 2005 operating loans and securing operating loans for 2006 production. Producers will be forced to examine their financial situations closely and will have to make some tough decisions.

To help producers through these potentially tough times, the LSU AgCenter has established a hotline for those who seek assistance. It will be managed by personnel in the LSU AgCenter’s Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness. Producers who need help in examining their farm financial situations and in developing farm financial plans for the next growing season are urged to contact the hotline.

Once they contact the hotline, producers will be able to request information on farm financial management as well as individualized assistance. If individualized assistance is required, the producer will be referred to AgCenter personnel to establish meeting times and locations. As part of the individualized assistance, producers will be able to request the development of personalized farm financial plans. These plans will be analyzed and conducted by Dr. Kurt Guidry, Dr. Gene Johnson and Dr. John Westra, LSU AgCenter agricultural economists.

In addition to farm financial assistance, producers will be able to request information on stress management and professionals in their area who can help them cope with the stress and anxiety often associated with uncertain financial times.

Producers who need help or are interested in learning more about the types of services the LSU AgCenter can provide are encouraged to contact the LSU AgCenter’s Farm Financial Hotline at (225) 578-2266. 

The first phase of implementation for the LSU AgCenter’s new Content Management System (CMS) went live to the public May 1. In the interest of efficiency, the focus of the initial phase was on transferring topic-related content into the CMS environment. Parish and research station Web sites were, for the most part, temporarily transferred to the new server as they were, with the understanding they would be migrated at a later date.

The launch of the Content Management System has been very successful, and the Web statistics indicate that our audience has greatly expanded. Our new LSUAgCenter.com Web site is drawing significantly more traffic. The next step is to transfer those sites that were excluded from the initial migration into the CMS environment. September 6, 2006, is the deadline for moving all remaining content. After September 6, the old Web sites will no longer be available to the public.

For us to meet this deadline, at least one individual from each parish office and research station must be fully trained to use the Content Management System. The Web Development Team continually offers CMS training in the Computer Training Lab on campus in 223 H.D. Wilson Labs. 

After training, support sessions are available to help individuals having trouble transferring content. Registration for these sessions can be found at the same address listed above.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Fred Piazza, director of Web and Application Development, or Sandy Fiser, manager of Web and Multimedia Development.

This is a high priority for our parish Extension Service offices. More information and guidance will be forthcoming on “model” parish Web sites and recommended content.

Traffic to LSUAgCenter.com has increased dramatically since the implementation of CMS, and our placement in search engine returns has jumped significantly. Thanks to the implementation of metadata and better categorization of our content, our information is more easily accessed and more widely viewed than ever before. Last month, the site averaged about 278,000 hits a day. During the same time last year, the daily average was only 87,000 hits a day.

Please continue to contribute and enhance our newly designed site.

On August 31 and September 1, 2005, Kentucky and Illinois will host the USDA’s nationwide farm bill listening tour, where the public is welcome to attend and submit comments on farm bill policy. On August 31, a forum will be conducted in Louisville, Ky., from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. (EDT); on September 1, Decatur, Ill., will host a forum from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. (CDT).

A specialty Farm Bill forum hosted by Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner and Under Secretary Mark Rey was held August 25 at the Palmer Railroad Depot in Palmer, Alaska. Another forum was held August 25 at the Kellogg Conference Center in Tuskegee, Alaska. On August 26, a forum was held at the Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces, N.M.

When submitting comments, it is encouraged that one should respond to one or more of the following six questions:

1. How should farm policy address any unintended consequences and ensure that such consequences do not discourage new farmers and the next generation of farmers from entering production agriculture?

2. How should farm policy be designed to maximize U.S. competitiveness and our country's ability to effectively compete in global markets?

3. How should farm policy be designed to effectively and fairly distribute assistance to producers?

4. How can farm policy best achieve conservation and environmental goals?

5. How can federal rural and farm programs provide effective assistance in rural areas?

6. How should agricultural product development, marketing and research-related issues be addressed in the next farm bill?

For those who cannot participate in the Farm Bill’s listening sessions, written comments are welcome via the Internet.

As you encourage your clients and constituents to participate, please remember that it is important to make the connection between the specific programs they support and CSREES as the agency that facilitates those programs.

We are also planning to have a Farm Bill Listening Session in Louisiana. I will send details as soon as they are finalized.

The Master Farmer Program is proceeding with great success and more than 1,600 farmers are enrolled statewide. Phase II of the MF Program is moving forward; it involved the demonstration of BMPs on selected Model Farms in each watershed. To achieve certification, a producer must attend a Model Farm Field Day. They are being set up across the state. Approximately 12 are anticipated to be conducted between now and April 2006. Lunch will be served at these field days, and the Louisiana Farm Bureau has donated $4,000 to cover the lunches and possible room rentals. For more information on Model Farm Field Days, please contact Carrie Castille Mendoza, Master Farmer coordinator.

The Environmental State of the State X (ESOS) Annual Conference is Friday, October 28, at the Lindy C. Boggs International Conference Center at the University of New Orleans. The hosts/organizers are the Environmental Research Consortium of Louisiana, the Tulane Department of Tropical Medicine and the UNO Department of Biological Sciences. Sessions will include the Environmental Research with Public Health Implications and oral presentations including air, water and habitat quality. Other sessions will include a poster presentation with special recognition of research funded by J. Bennett Johnson Science Foundation 2004 grants and the restoration of sub-tidal habitats that include submersed aquatic vegetation, oyster reefs, clams and artificial reefs.

Call for abstracts submission deadline is Friday, September 16, or as soon as possible. Format guidelines include 1-inch margins (top and sides), Times New Roman font at 12 point size and no bold or caps. Poster size must be a maximum of 5 feet wide by 4 feet tall, and easels and board will be provided. Submittal guidelines include the abstract and related information to be e-mailed to cfranze@uno.edu as an attachment in MS Word or as text in the body of the e-mail message. Abstracts can be mailed on a diskette or CD ROM to: Carol Franze, Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of New Orleans, Lakefront, New Orleans, LA 70148.

Additional information and an example of an abstract for submission can be found at the ERCLA Web site at http://www.ercla.org. Closer to the date of the conference, pre-registration will be available online at the ERCLA Web site. Early registration deadline is October 7.

Recognizing outstanding faculty through award nominations is a responsibility we all share. Please take this opportunity to submit an award nomination for your co-workers and colleagues who have developed and continue to develop and implement excellent Extension programs in a parish, region or throughout the state. The deadline for submitting award nominations is September 30, 2005.

The LCES Professional Awards (which include a monetary honorarium) include: 

• Floyd Edmiston Award
• Extension Excellence Award
• Denver T. and Ferne Loupe Extension Team Award

The Denver T. and Ferne Loupe Extension Team Award is a new Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service award established to recognize significant contributions to extension programming excellence made by a team of at least three faculty who have developed, implemented and evaluated an extension program that emphasized collaboration that included both intra- and inter- unit extension activities, as well as joint efforts with other universities, organizations, governmental agencies and the private sector. Nominations should stress accomplishments resulting from the team’s extension programming accomplishments that would not have been possible by a faculty member acting alone.This award is supported through an endowment honoring Vice Chancellor and Director Emeritus Denver T. Loupe and his wife Ferne Loupe.

For an explanation of individual awards, and a copy of the nomination form, access LCES Policy Statement 21, Awards Programs for Professional Personnel.One original hard copy of all award nominations must be submitted to the director's office by the September 30 deadline. Thank you for taking the time to respond to this important request. I look forward to many excellent nominations!

Kevin A. Savoie, Southwest Region area agent, has been relocated from downtown Lake Charles to the Calcasieu Parish Extension office next to Burton Coliseum in south Lake Charles. His office phone is (337) 475-8812, office fax is (337) 475-8815 and cell phone is (337) 263-2880. His office address is 7101 Gulf Highway, Lake Charles, LA 70607.

Please make note of this change.

Denita Hadziabdic is the LSU AgCenter’s new plant disease diagnostician. A native of Sarajevo, Bosnia, Denita comes to the Department of Plant Pathology and Crop Physiology from the University of Tennessee, where she completed the M.S. in May 2005.

Denita’s duties will be to diagnose physical disease samples, maintain and update the clinic’s Web site and add to the digital image library of diseases. The clinic is in 336 Life Sciences Building. Her telephone number is (225) 578-4562.

Please welcome Ms. Hadziabdic to the AgCenter.

The Caddo/Bossier EFNEP office has a new address: 401 N. Holzman Street-Room 33, Shreveport, LA 71103. The new telephone number is (318) 676-5900 and new fax number, (318) 676-5919. Please make note of these changes.

The Callegari Center’s new water quality laboratory is complete. The new labs will allow water analyses for a wide range of purposes from producers’ water samples, well water samples to water samples from investigators. Package analyses are offered in Phosphorous Speciation, Nitrogen Speciation, Solids, Runoff from Animal Feeding Operations, CAFO Waste Treatment Water and Agricultural Runoff along with 25 different analysis including Biochemical Oxygen Demand and Fecal Coliforms. The added instrumentation will allow the lab a great deal of flexibility in meeting your needs as well as your clientele’s. Also, in the coming months our organics lab will again be fully operational, providing us with the ability to analyze all organics, sludges, compost and the like.

Information on water lab procedures including downloadable and printable forms can be found on the Callegari Web site at: http://www2.lsuagcenter.com/compost/.

Please continue to visit the director’s website.

If you have any comments or suggestions to improve e-Directions or the director’s website, please contact me at pcoreil@agcenter.lsu.edu.