Agricultural cooperatives

Gurusamy Gandhi post this in another area - I'm copying it here because it is relevant! [quote]Posted: Oct 01 2007 - 08:21 PM Subject: re: re: Thank you for invitation I feel I could have participated but I think it's not too late to share anyting good for the farming community across the globe. From my past 4 years experience of launching an exclusive site for 'organic farming'[url=http://www.farminggroup.org](www.farminggroup.org)[/url] I could learn many things. Firstly , the no. of visitors of the site has steadily grown and so also the queries from people. Many are interested to know more on the training aspects in respect of organic farming , especially Vermicomposting like rural farming technology . Availability of such other organic farming input materials is also a matter of great concern .Even if in house self generated input materials are available to them , the process of getting "Third Party certification' becomes a matter of complication for a ordinary farmer who rarely moves out to a city/town in search of such agency fearing the cost involved. hence this new initiative of CGIAR will be of great use. But again who will steer this thro' till it reaches grass root level farmers? Pl. if anyone is aware of an organisation Who will be able to sponsor an elearning course on organic farming to such unemployed interested rural youths who, once trained in basic ICT, will be able to join this course so that they become the focal points of dissemination of knowlege to their own elder generation of illiterate farming community which is still active in their small landholdings in most of the developing countries. If some organisation is ready to come forward , pl. contact .. as it would be possible to achieve the initiatives of CGIAR thro' this effort. Contact also MIRC(Microinsurance Research Centre), London;[/quote] EMail id: [email protected]