 Hi, I'm Claire Keen, the Extension Specialist and Cropping Systems here at the Williston Research Extension Center, located in Williston, North Dakota. And thank you for taking the time today to watch the Carrington Organic Field Day. I'm very happy to be here. Steve invited me to talk about oats. So that's what this presentation is about. And not the crop. When I say oats, I'm referring to OATS, which is the Organic Agronomy Training Service. And this is a group I've been involved with since it started back in 2018. And so what is oats? Oats again, it's the Organic Agronomy Training Service, and it's a collaborative nonprofit group made up of members with extension industry and also some agricultural nonprofits. And we're focused on building the skill and knowledge base of agricultural technical service providers. So folks like extension agents, certified crop advisors, private agronomists, government agency staff like NRCS and SCD, folks that advise farmers in increasing their knowledge on organic agriculture, the requirements to transition and get certified, and also best management practices for managing organic crops. And what we are responding to is the need for these trained organic service providers. Because currently, many farmers do rely on folks like certified crop advisors, seeds bin, chemical dealers, co-op personnel, for recommendations on input crop rotations. And they really indicated that without that same level of service available, they'd be very hesitant to try organic agriculture because we really don't have, number one, many acres of organic managed ag in the United States. And there really isn't a strong advisory network for farmers seeking to transition to organic like there is in the conventional space. And recognizing that OATS has set out to train the extension agents, the agronomists, the certified crop advisors in the basics of organic agriculture so that they can be a resource for their clients who are interested in transitioning. This need has really grown because the demand for organic food in the United States has also grown. Over the past 20 years, there's been a very steady increase in consumers spending on and demand for organic products. But the number of certified organic acres in the United States really has not kept pace. We're still only at about one, maybe getting close to 2% of organic acres in the US, whereas we're now consuming 5% to 5.5% of our food as organic. And so unfortunately, a lot of that shortfall in organic grains in particular has been made up through imports. And just recently, there's been a really big outcry for the need to increase domestic organic grain production. Not only to meet this organic demand within the US for US consumers, but also to give farmers the opportunity to take advantage of the price premiums that exist for organic grain crops. So again, OATS is trying to train the advisor network in the organic certification, regulation, production aspects so that then they can be a resource for farmers looking to transition their operations and become certified organic farmers. 2019 was the pilot year for OATS. We actually hosted the very first OATS training here in North Dakota. It happened in Bismarck in March of 2019 and was a two-day intensive workshop with a variety of speakers that included extension, scientists, researchers, farmers, and some industry reps, and also some small group work and a lot of discussion to help folks start transition their thinking to the organic mindset of thinking about cooperations and multi-year scales since inputs typically aren't as readily available or can't really be used in the same way as in conventional agriculture. And the training went really well. We had about 35 participants and then other groups held those trainings in other parts of the country later in the year. So there was one in Wisconsin and also in Indiana. And in 2020, we did have plans to expand OATS, offer trainings again in those states and then also another one in perhaps Montana and maybe Pennsylvania to expand our reach to Rocky Mountain in the Mid-Atlantic. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has put those plans very much on hold. And so right now the OATS National Steering Committee is discussing potentially putting together podcasts that would be available for folks to listen to both to talk about the reasons of why to transition to organic consumer benefits, but also to generate interest in future OATS programming. And so looking ahead to 2021, we are also in the beginning stages of putting together a curriculum that would be hybrid online and in-person. So doing a lot of that, say the PowerPoint part, a lot of that in-classroom type of work would be a flipped classroom model where you'd go online, watch modules, have a small group online discussion, and then the opportunity to be in-person once or twice as a follow-up later in the year. So again, that's still very tentative and we don't have a solid plan for that, but we're trying to be responsive to the COVID-19 situation and have both material available for folks to learn from, but also in-person opportunities since we find those really valuable. And so I'll wrap it up. And if you do have any questions about OATS or organic certification, you're welcome to contact me. Again, my name's Claire Keen and my email is C-L-A-I-R-dot-K-E-E-N-E at N-D-S-U-dot-E-D-U. And then for more information about OATS and to look for those forthcoming podcasts, please visit the OATS website, which is at organicagronomy.com. So thank you very much and I hope you enjoy the presentation.