VOA标准英语2010年-Website of the Week – Eco-Farm.org

The Ecological¹ Farming Association is a non-profit group whose focus is on small-scale sustainable agriculture. Its website — Eco-Farm.org — helps promote agricultural education and networking.

Spokeswoman Marcy Coburn says there are three blogs on the website. "We have a genetic² engineering blog, which is the Genetic Engineering News Service that then goes out in e-mail, but also gets converted into a blog.  That's posting information that people put out about that subject.  And then we have a farmer blog where we have some guest farmers, who actually write for the farmer blog what they are growing this season or issues that they are having with water or climate change or anything like that."

 

Before a session called "Planting the Future: New Leaders in Activism for Food and Farm Justice" at the Ecological Farming Association annual meeting in January, the speaker encouraged everyone to take a stretch break. Lectures and powerpoints from the conference are posted at Ecofarm.org.

The third and newest blog is called Eco-Farm NextGen. It features 'mentor³ farmers' who dispense⁴ advice to, and answer questions from, those new in the field. Coburn says there was a real need for that. "We get a lot of e-mail communication from people all over the world who are asking questions that we don't necessarily have researchers or staff on hand who can answer those questions. But we definitely have that kind of expertise⁵ in our extended cyber-network. So creating a forum⁶ for that kind of interaction is really exciting."

In addition to the blogs, news and resource links on the site, Coburn says visitors have access to the full array of speakers and workshops from Eco-Farm's recent annual meeting in California, which included talks and workshops on advances in agricultural techniques, marketing⁷ strategies and research.

"That's some amazing content, really high profile people, and it's really inspiring stuff," Coburn says. "We encourage any kind of dialogue to happen as a result of listening to those. If people have questions or are inspired again, they can write into blogs and ask questions.  We also link to PowerPoint presentations of some of the hot topic discussions that happen at the conference as well."

Eco-Farm.org is also taking advantage of new social media, and is linking to Facebook and Twitter.

 

1 ecological   

adj.生态的，生态学的

参考例句：

• The region has been declared an ecological disaster zone.这个地区已经宣布为生态灾难区。
• Each animal has its ecological niche.每种动物都有自己的生态位.

2 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

3 mentor   

n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导

参考例句：

• He fed on the great ideas of his mentor.他以他导师的伟大思想为支撑。
• He had mentored scores of younger doctors.他指导过许多更年轻的医生。

4 dispense   

vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施

参考例句：

• Let us dispense the food.咱们来分发这食物。
• The charity has been given a large sum of money to dispense as it sees fit.这个慈善机构获得一大笔钱，可自行适当分配。

5 expertise   

n.专门知识(或技能等)，专长

参考例句：

• We were amazed at his expertise on the ski slopes.他斜坡滑雪的技能使我们赞叹不已。
• You really have the technical expertise in a new breakthrough.让你真正在专业技术上有一个全新的突破。

6 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

7 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。