WiserEarth Area of Focus Suggestions
Improving WiserEarth Areas of Focus
List suggestions for new areas of focus or for changes to the current areas of focus
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Apr 21, 2008
Updated: Nov 20, 2009
Membership: Open
Semi-Private
Topic: AOF Stewards for new AOFS
Posts (1 - 3 of 3)
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I would be willing to help steward a new Area of Focus: Biodynamic Agriculture and Horticulture. I'm sure I could find someone else on the Biodynamic Agriculture Group to assist.
In justification for this new AOF, I would start with the fact that Permaculture has rated AOF status. The Biodynamic movement is the oldest sustained formal model of biologically-intensive ecological agriculture. It is practiced around the world. It has played a role in the initiation of WWOOF programs, pioneered the CSA concept, and established one of the first food quality certification programs (Demeter). There are regional, national, and international organizations. It is well-established in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, and is now making headway in the United States and in India, as well as the rest of the world.
This solar-farming model answers Michael Pollan's call for a "sun-food agenda." It represents the sort of non-industrial paradigm shift called for by the recent International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (www.agassessment.org).
I would be glad to further my case for making "Biodynamic Agriculture and Horticulture" a new AOF under the Agriculture and Farming Main Focus Area. I hope this is the proper forum in which to suggest a new AOF. |
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Dear Barry,
Glad you found this thread and thank you for the suggestion. This thread was started many months ago on a time when the discussion on improving the taxonomy itself has not taken place. We're in the process of evaluating the usability and effectiveness of the AoF taxonomy where the main theme is simplification. Here's where the discussion is happening (also in the comment section at the bottom): Simplify AoF Categories
Complementary to that is the idea of converting current AoF into keywords, which would allow for more flexible tagging by the community without a central place to decide which topic should be new AoF. This is an ongoing discussion and we haven't quite concluded yet on what is best for the AoF taxonomy going forward.
In the mean time, you can start adding entities related to Biodynamic Agriculture. Entities here can be organizations, solutions, resources, events, jobs, etc. and use "biodynamic agriculture" as the primary keyword on those entities. If you have time, it would be great if you can start a wikipage and aggregate those entities along with a more elaborate explanation about Biodynamic Agriculture. In essence, that's what stewarding an AoF means, populating WiserEarth with AoF-related content, and organizing them in a meaningful and useful manner on a wikipage (which is what AoF portals are).
Another thing I'd like to mention is about the WiserEarth Editors group. That's where AoF stewards (or what's now called AoF Editors), and editors with other roles gather to collaborate in improving, growing and enriching WiserEarth (click here for more info regarding WiserEarth Editors).
Other than all this, I would agree that biodynamic agriculture is a good candidate for a new AoF.
~Bowo |
Ideally, this steward is someone with some level of expertise with the topic. Perhaps this steward can be someone who initially suggested the new area of focus...
This would be a fair system. New portals are created, and in return, content is populated by committed users.