The Audience

• Regional audience preferences for where to get information and which source is reliable.
• Adoption training methods known to be successful with the target audience.
• Approach and materials for training new farmers based on input from farmers.
• Producer assessment of project BMP recommendations prior to implementing outreach program.

Consider target audience issues such as time, skill, and direct experience with saving money over time.

Acknowledge a farmer characteristic to be “averse to additional risk “. That is, a new practice or technology must not add to current risks, or it must reduce risks to productivity incurred through other practices in order to be viewed favorably.

Assure that intervention programs are relevant to perceived needs of farmers, relevant to cultural milieu of subgroups, and relevant to specific environmental needs:

• Cultural and farm-structure differences must be considered when intervention strategies are developed to bring about behavioral changes among specific groups.
• Potential Mennonite adaptors have to be convinced that adoption of conservation tillage will be profitable and not threaten the values of the collective group.

Pay attention to unique factors of cultural groups, but programs that focus on efficiency and productivity in decision-making are likely to succeed, whatever the social characteristics of the farm group.

Create information, communication and education design to address research-based information about farmer characteristics, such as:

• Priorities: profitability of agriculture; quality of drinking water; agriculture health and safety; and controlling soil erosion.
• Lack of concern about threats to groundwater quality on their own property, but concerned about the problem elsewhere [relates to research findings about farmer minimization of the threat of risk when the source is familiar, voluntary, controllable].

Message content

Make sure that participants know about the initiative and know how to participate.

Address farmer perception of risk:

• Acknowledge a farmer characteristic to be “averse to additional risk “. That is, a new practice or technology must not add to current risks, or it must reduce risks to productivity incurred through other practices in order to be viewed favorably.
• Acknowledge emotional and political context of a risk message. Statements about potential agricultural chemical risks can fuel public fears. Farmers may not respond to risk messages because they view their own use of chemicals as “voluntary, familiar and controllable” whereas nonfarm consumers would view it as partially familiar, involuntary and uncontrollable.

Provide information that is high quality, explains risks; and is:

• Easy to understand.
• From a trusted source.
• Scientifically valid.
• Balanced, (gives both sides on an issue).
• Up-to-date.
• Directly applicable.
• Consistent with beliefs.

Address economic benefits:

• Focus outreach programs on the potential of the farm practice to increase yield or otherwise improve economic benefit.
• Show that profits will increase as a result of adoption of the practice.

Include environmental stewardship information shown to be significant in predicting farmer adoption of new practices:

• Locally specific information about watershed risks. Farmers assess agricultural chemical risks in the context of localized situations.
• Substantive local data to support claims that specific BMPs are environmentally effective and economically advantageous as compared to in-place practices.
• Information about soil and water conservation benefits to be derived from adoption of precision farming techniques.

In communication and outreach about groundwater, address:

• The quality of the drinking water supplies.
• Concerns about risks of handling and applying chemicals.
• Recognition of farm economics.
• Evidence that contamination will affect profits.
• Present programs or information about health and environmental risks as part of other outreach efforts rather than on their own.

When persuading farmers to reduce chemical use:

• Show that farm chemicals are contaminating groundwater on theindividual’s farm.
• Link to quality of drinking water on the individual’s farm.
• Provide alternative methods with a demonstrated outcome that has no adverse affect on profits and no more than a modest decline in yield.

Focus training for new farmers on problem-solving and production agriculture skill development.

Message delivery vehicle

Use farmer-preferred sources of information and strategies for outreach about making decisions.

Sources of information that most influenced farmer views about problems associated with groundwater and agricultural chemical use were: farm magazines and newspapers; general newspapers and news on radio and television; educational/research agency reports; personal observation.

Rely on farmer personal experience as more influential than education or research reports.

Use the internet for training new farmers in preference to other distance education techniques.

When providing information related to sustainable farming, use conventional sources of information to convey new ideas rather than start a new newsletter or organization or other new source of information.

Provide information through field days, pamphlets, farm journals, media and books. These can contribute to:

• More positive attitudes towards various aspects of management.
• Greater levels of knowledge about the concepts and the practical application of those concepts.
• Intention to carry out concepts.
• Adoption of a wider range of BMPs.

Outreach strategy

• Actions that improve water quality also increase profitability.
• The producers’ own water quality is at stake.
• The on-farm cost of water quality impairments are shown to be sufficiently large.
• Education is accompanied by training for management skills of immediate need to the producer.

Provide information to farmers in three stages:

• Information to stimulate farmer interest.
• Personal contact with farmer to provide new farming practices that are viewed as solutions to their problems.
• Work collaboratively and cooperatively with the farmer in the adoption of new practices.

Focus on a geographic area:

• Define the geographical area where environmental intervention is crucial.
• Focus outreach initiatives on a geographic area with a targeted audience.

Involve target audience in:

• Choosing and testing preferred technical approaches to solving a problem.
• Developing content and process for outreach activities.
• Participatory approaches to help identify target audience education needs and motivate participation.

Support stakeholder engagement more fully by anticipating a political dimension in addition to a focus on subject matter. [This emphasizes Cervero and Wilson’s (1994) democratic approach to program planning whereby adult educators talk openly about social and political aspirations of interested parties in addition to content matter objectives.]

Work with consultants:

• Recognize and support education providers already in place who provide information consistent with the program goal.
• Train the technical professionals who support the target audience as well as specifically training the target audience about the new practice.
• Provide the farmer with the opportunity for continuous dialog with consultant. This outreach process has been shown to result in multiple on-farm management refinements with practices continuing even when dialog with consultants is no longer available as part of a project.

Emphasize one-on-one contact.

• Correlates with farmer willingness to change practices, but adoption of a new technology requires more than a personal conversation and data about the specific situation.
• Couple with small group and demonstration events.
• Work with farmers individually to determine participation level.

Facilitate farmer-led program design and implementation that leads to:

• Farmer developed reasons for taking charge of environmental protection.
• Peer development of solutions.
• Peer assessment of potential hazards of current practices.
• Farmers rather than technical experts complete environmental assessment and Action Plan.
• Farm plan and data evaluation via peer review.

Design outreach to address farmer preferred learning style:

• Emphasize experiential learning and farmer knowledge.
• Provide farmers with opportunities to solve a problem in addition to providing other standard hands-on outreach techniques such as opportunities for talking with specialists, field days, demonstrations, etc.
• When training new farmers, focus on problem-solving and production agriculture skill development.

Use financial incentives, where possible, to facilitate behavior change:

• Provide information, encouragement and cash incentives to participate in or practice a new technology, but keep in mind that incentives have a weak influence on adoption.
• Couple general outreach, information, and communication techniques with financial incentives.

Recognize the role of economic factors in behavior change:

• Carefully design a demonstration project to meet farmer economic and other regionally specific needs.
• Since producer income is an important predictor of BMP use, sequence audience involvement by income level. Consider a focus on low income audiences.

Recognize the limits of regulation in producing behavior change:

• Regulation leads to adoption of specific regulated behaviors only. (e.g. the target audience performed required nitrogen test but did not apply resulting information when making decisions about nitrogen application)

Link education to production decisions to reflect the fact that operators prefer to make production decisions based on their own farm records and advice from on-farm employees.

• Work with operators to review farm records in order to consider potential impacts of proposed changes.
• Increase knowledge of on-farm advisors.
• Collaborate with many groups/organizations to convey important information.

Use farm assessments:

• To identify pollution risks when the use of an assessment tool is likely to lead to cost-effective, voluntary actions to reduce those risks.
• To increase the likelihood of management changes for topics addressed in the assessment work one-on-one with the farmer completing the assessment.

Encourage farmers to complete their own on-farm risk assessments rather than performing the assessment for them

Focus programs designed to facilitate adoption of precision farming techniques on farmers who:

• Are relatively economically secure .
• Place importance on use of conservation information when making farm-level decisions.
• Perceive that their children will be operating their farms in the future.

For sustainable agriculture education, target families with one or more of these characteristics:

• Kin-mentor relationship that supports practice of sustainable agriculture.
• An environmental or health problem which triggers interest or motivation.
• Systematic on-farm experimentation.
• Value for prudence with resources.

Allow enough time for wide spread adoption of the demonstrated BMPs. A nine to ten year time frame may be necessary to move from initial implementation of BMP demonstration projects to adoption.

Public participation

Supporting and motivating professionals

Evaluation

The Individual

• Can be adapted to individual differences in learning strategies and approaches.
• Relates to personal interests and provides for personal choice and control.
• Encourages the learner to set meaningful learning goals and to take personal responsibility for their own learning.

Enables the learner to link new knowledge to their existing knowledge in meaningful ways.

Builds thinking and reasoning skills that learners can use to construct and apply their knowledge.

Presents a new behavior or skill by:

• demonstrating its similarity to a current behavior or skill.
• relating the new behavior to current social practices.
• demonstrating ease of adoption in terms of time, effort and money.

Provides opportunities for extended effort and practice.

Promotes active engagement and real world problem solving.

Encourages the learner to set meaningful learning goals and to take personal responsibility for their own learning.

Provides a nurturing context for learning, with attention to: cultural or group background and influences, the physical environmental, and the use of tools or practices appropriate to learner skills and abilities.

The Class or Group

Content and delivery is determined in cooperation with the target audience and stakeholders.

Is designed to focus on a targeted audience and is built on an understanding of audience skills and interests.

Is relevant to and accessible by people with diverse backgrounds and influences.

Presents accurate and balanced information, incorporating many different perspectives.

Incorporates methods for assessing the value of the experience, especially as it relates to desired outcomes.

Uses creative approaches.

Values life long learning.

Web-Based Learning

The Community

Takes into consideration the community as a whole, including: socio-political, economic, historical, and cultural influences.

Is flexible in response to both process and conditions.

Builds on locally existing skills and resources.

Generates and makes use of data about the local condition.

Provides training to increase skills needed to accomplish goals identified by the group.

Takes place close to the location where people practice a behavior of concern.

Reaches people in multiple ways.

Uses creative approaches.

Values life long learning.

Beyond the Community