Abstract
In 1998 the Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service, Agricultural Economic Development Program had received considerable input from the county's agricultural industries indicating that a better method was needed to help them identify and comply with federal, state and local regulations. The difficulty for individual agricultural firms was compounded by the time commitment needed to identify appropriate, and sometimes overlapping or contradictory regulations, the huge volume of regulation text when all levels of government were considered, the technical or legalistic jargon of the text, and the fear of being targeted by regulatory agencies if direct communication was initiated. The broadening use of the Internet provided an obvious vehicle to meet many of the needs. A search engine-based web site www.agregs.com was funded by the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners to: Assist agricultural interests in complying with regulatory requirements; simplify the process of complying with regulations; provide a confidential "one source" site where federal, state and Palm Beach County applicable regulations could be identified and reviewed; more easily identify overlapping regulations; and, provide a vehicle for better interagency cooperation among regulatory entities. State and Federal components of the web site make those components applicable all over the state and country, respectively. The AgRegs model also has the potential for adaptability to other counties by linking to those local regulatory agency sites.
