Wednesday, August 6, 2008: 8:00 PM-10:00 PM
202 C, Midwest Airlines Center
SS 19 - Prioritizing Wildlife-Friendly Agricultural Research
Though agriculture is responsible in large part for declining biodiversity, due to its large footprint, it has a unique ability to help turn this crisis around. Conservationists and agriculturalists are becoming more interested in conducting wildlife-friendly agricultural research, but a sharper focus is needed. Piecemeal research, while valuable on some level, does not lead to bigger, integrated-system answers applicable on the ground. The Wild Farm Alliance and Community Alliance with Family Farmers, with the help of ESA participants and others, will create an agenda of wild farm research priorities (to be published as a booklet) that will guide academics, researchers, and innovative farmers toward cross-disciplinary on-farm research, and will influence funders and policy makers to put more resources into wildlife-friendly farming research. An interactive discussion will be conducted on research needed that addresses: (1) the economic viability of farming with the wild, and (2) the preservation and restoration of native species and ecosystems on agriculturally managed lands. Bring your ideas on what we need to know, which will ultimately help to shape the future of nature-friendly agriculture. They can be big, landscape-scale ideas related to watersheds and foodsheds, or smaller, farm-scale ideas related to the individual farm.
Organizer:	Jo Ann Baumgartner, Wild Farm Alliance
Co-organizer:	Sam Earnshaw, Community Alliance with Family Farmers

See more of Special Session

See more of The 93rd ESA Annual Meeting (August 3 -- August 8, 2008)