Dr. Mark Varner

Professor
Extension Dairy Scientist

Phone: 301-405-1374
Email: markv@umd.edu

Extension Interests:

I provide leadership to non-formal educational programs concerning dairy cattle reproduction. The primary audience is dairy producers, but this audience is reached through educational programs targeted towards public and private-sector farm advisors, such as Maryland Cooperative Extension County Extension Educators (agents), veterinarians, allied industry personnel, consultants and dairy writers/editors. 'Virtual communities' have been established using cutting-edge Internet-based communication technologies. Separate communities were established for dairy professionals (producers, advisors and journalists) and students; and for cattle veterinarians via cooperation with the American Association of Bovine Practitioners. The University of Maryland provides the software/hardware/training for groups and individuals to maintain the virtual communities of AABP-L and Dairy-L.

My focus is to train and work with the volunteers who do the day-to-day maintenance of the community backbone and to provide content-specific messages regarding dairy cattle management, as appropriate. The messages distributed in these groups amount to two or three fact-sheets each week. The first of the communities was established in 1989, and they served as the pioneering efforts of the concept in agriculture and Cooperative Extension. They continue to be the most successful in agriculture. Based on the success of these communities, I have participated in a national eXtension effort (www.extension.org) to develop a 'community of practice' for dairy extension professionals. We obtained a grant to fund this work, which is currently underway.

Additionally, I fill a role in developing and conducting a more comprehensive in-service training program for Extension Educators.

Awards and Honors:
- Certificate of Honor for fostering development of distance education program in Russia, from Minister of Agriculture, Russian Ministry of Agriculture, Moscow, September 2001.         
- Honorary Membership, American Association of Bovine Practitioners, Annual Meeting, Memphis, TN, September 1999.
- Selected one of "Twenty Five Most Influential" people in agriculture by Farmer's
Digest Magazine, November 1998.
- Alfa Laval Agri Dairy Extension Award from the American Dairy Science Association, July 1998.
- University of Maryland at College Park Alumni Association - College of Agriculture and National Resources Chapter award for Excellence in Extension, March 1996.
- Elected President of Northeast Branch of American Dairy Science Association, 1991.
- Gamma Sigma Delta (Honorary Fraternity of Agriculture) Certificate of Merit for
Excellence in Extension, 1985.
- Maryland Extension Professional Partner Award, 1992.