Mission
The Agronomy Research & Information Center (RIC) is an outreach service, which provides research-based, up-to-date, comprehensive, and reliable information on California agronomic crops to the general public, industry, and governmental and private agencies. The agronomic crops comprise major food, fiber, and forage crops grown on six million acres in California. These include alfalfa, winter cereals (barley, oats, wheat), corn, cotton, dry edible legumes, rice, safflower, sugarbeet, sunflower, and specialty crops (kenaf, lupin, and sesame).

Organization
The Center is housed in the Department of Plant Sciences.
The staff consists of:
  Director: Dan Putnam, Associate Agronomist
  Coordinator: Janice Corner, Program Representative
  Advisory committee: statewide extension specialists, farm advisors, industry representatives

Methods
The AgRIC will provide its information primarily through a web site. This site will function as an entry point for individuals who wish to obtain more information on field crops. The web site will contain:

• Information about the center
• News briefs, including grant program announcements
• University of California, Cooperative Extension (CE), workgroup, and individual researcher publications, reports, and leaflets
• Contacts for further information: CE specialists, farm advisors, faculty
• Calendar of events for workshops, training meetings, and field days
• Links to other web sites of interest

The AgRIC will co-host the Agronomy Continuing Conference. It will also help affiliated organizations such as workgroups establish and maintain web pages. It will work with the Plant Sciences RICs to achieve its mission.