ASPARAGUSNET: EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION ABOUT ASPARAGUS USING A WEBSITE AND A MAILING LIST

The 10^th International Asparagus Symposium (IAS2001), held in Japan, had a spillover effect because networking produced cooperative relationships not only among asparagus researchers, but also among asparagus farmers and traders. We established a website and a mailing list in order to develop and make use of these relationships. AsparagusNet (English: http://aspara.ac.affrc.go.jp/EINDEX.htm, Japanese: http://aspara.ac.affrc.go.jp/JINDEX.htm) appeared in August 2002, and its home page has gathered 20,000 hits in the 2 years and 2 months since its debut. The total number of visitors to the site was 42,070 at that time. The total number of visitors to our part of the site was 28,110. The average number of visits per day was 52, and the average visit lasted approximately 8 min. The most popular pages were those with descriptions of three cultivation methods for amateurs, farmers, and for cultivation in a cool climate, respectively. The next most popular pages were those with statistics about market transaction volumes, imports, and consumption, following reports on asparagus research meetings held twice a year. The organizations that accessed our sites most frequently were search engines and Internet service providers, followed by universities, national institutes, and local public agencies. The international mailing list was established in October 2001, and the Japanese mailing list was established in August 2002. At present, 90 and 30 members, respectively, have registered to the lists.