Agricultural Conservation Leasing Guide Education Series

Recruitment efforts included the following: 

Presentations in 2018:

Maryland Land Conservation Conference, May 17 (audience was landowners and agricultural "ag" service professionals),

Maryland Association of County Agricultural Agents, June 21(audience was University of Maryland Extension Agents)

Maryland Association of Soil Conservation District, July 30 (audience was farmers and service professionals),

Lower Shore Land Trust Landowners Workshop, September 5 (audience was landowners),

State Ag Commission, September 12 (audience was farmers and ag service professionals),

Healthy Soils Consortium, October 3 (audience was farmers and ag service professionals),

Eastern Shore Land Conservancy Landowners Workshop, November 2 (audience was landowners),

Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference, November 8 (audience was farmers and ag service professionals)

Chesapeake Bay Commission Working Group, November 15 (audience was ag service professionals),

Central Maryland Agronomy Day, December 12 (audience was farmers), Maryland Nutrient Management Conference, December 12 (audience was farmers). 

Interns, during the summer of 2018, created promotional materials and initiated communications with land trust organizations in an effort to enlist them to inform their stakeholders about the event. 

The event was publicized in two different press releases and has received press coverage in the Delmarva Farmer. 

In addition to using the Agriculture Law Education Initiative and Hughes Center's website, newsletters and email lists for promotion, we also requested and received assistance from the following organizations.  All of the following organizations have either included the workshops in their newsletters and/or emailed the workshop information to their members/stakeholders: University of Maryland Extension, Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts, Maryland Farm Bureau, Maryland Environmental Trust, Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission, Future Harvest-CASA, and the Maryland Natural Resources Conservation Service.  

We have also utilized social media (twitter and facebook to recruit for the workshops) and continue to do so. Here is a copy of the flyer we have been using for promotion: ACL Workshops Flyer

See recruitment effort details outlined above. 

We had 10 agricultural service providers attend the informational webinar. I attribute this low registration number to the fact that Maryland had a late harvest and many people associated with agriculture were very busy late into the year. Also, given the number of presentations and amount of  information that had been disseminated on the project by November 10, many folks were already registered for the workshops and simply didn't need additional information. Given the lack of interest for this event we decided not to ask those who participated to commit to project goals and instead moved the evaluation questions and request for commitment to the workshop registrations as detailed below. That being said, all of the presentations for recruitment included a request for ag service providers to identify and invite interested farmers and landowners. 

The first workshop was held in Salisbury, Maryland on December 10, 2018. There were 15 total attendees consisting of 10 agricultural service providers, 3 farmers, and 2 agricultural landowners. 

The second workshop was held in Easton, Maryland on January 8, 2019. There were 26 total attendees consisting of 18 agricultural service providers, 6 farmers, and 2 agricultural landowners.

The third workshop was held in Waldorf, Maryland on January 17, 2019. There were 31 total attendees consisting of 17 agricultural service providers, 7 farmers, and 7 agricultural landowners. 

The fourth workshop was held in Frederick, Maryland on January 23, 2019. There were 26 total attendees consisting of 13 agricultural service providers, 11 farmers, and 2 agricultural landowners. 

The fifth workshop was held in Cockeysville, Maryland on January 28, 2019. There were 28 total attendees consisting of 20 agricultural service providers, 4 farmers, and 4 agricultural landowners. 

According to the results of the survey distributed at the conclusion of the workshops, 3% of attendees rated the workshop as good, 42% of attendees rated the workshop as very good and 53% rated the workshop as excellent. As a result of the workshop, 97% of attendees indicated their knowledge of agricultural leasing principles had either increased or greatly increased, 69% reported their knowledge of the agricultural sector's role in the Chesapeake Bay clean-up had either increased or greatly increased, 86% reported their knowledge of the challenges to installing conservation practices on leased farmland had either increased or greatly increased, 94% said their knowledge of how to communicate conservation goals and priorities had either increased or greatly increased, and 97% felt their knowledge of how to incorporate conservation into leases had either increased or greatly increased. When asked via the survey what actions the attendees planned to take based on what they had learned at the workshop 90 attendees indicated future actions, such as "begin to discuss conservation and goals for the land with the landowner", "discuss with landowners and farmers in day to day work", "take leasing knowledge and resources to farmers and landowners so they can incorporate more conservation practices", and "implement more conservation practices and more specifics in our leases".  Attendees were also asked to indicate what types of ongoing technical support would be helpful. The majority indicated additional written materials would be helpful, followed by in-person support and webinars.  

All of the agricultural service providers, farmers and landowners who attended the workshops received teaching resources including a copy of the Agricultural Conservation Leasing Guide, Agricultural Leasing in Maryland, Conservation Choices for Maryland Farmers, and copies of the following presentations: Agricultural Leasing Principles, Chesapeake Bay TMDL Progress and the Need for Increased On-Farm Conservation, Challenges to Installing Conservation Practices, Communicating Conservation Goals & Priorities, Incorporating Conservation Into Leases, Work Session on Incorporating Conservation into Leases, and Next Steps in Agricultural Conservation Leasing Education.

All of the agricultural service providers who attended the workshops (78) were contacted via email and by phone and interviewed about their progress and questioned about forms of technical support. 20 agricultural service providers have reported using what they learned at the workshop to educate 62 farmers and 103 landowners. 27 farmers have communicated with a landowner about the topic. 42 landowners have communicated about the topic and 27 farmers have made efforts to use conservation practices on leased acres.

Agricultural service providers requested technical support in the form of additional copies of the Agricultural Conservation Leasing Guide, information on how to structure cost-share for conservation practices, and one-page informational fact sheets about the project. In response, the project team creating a webpage to house resources, including a link to the Agricultural Conservation Leasing Guide, and three customized one-page informational fact sheets (For the Farmer: Using a Lease Protects Farmers and Supports Conservation, For the Landowner: How to Use a Farm Lease to Support Conservation Practices, and Financial Incentives of Ag Conservation Leasing).  Also available on this page is a presentation educators can use to provide agricultural conservation leasing education and a copy of a webinar conducted by the project team (described below).

The agricultural service providers have received support and technical assistance from the project team in the form of questions asked and answered via phone, email and in person. 

A webinar on "Structuring Cost-Share for Conservation on Leased Land" was held on June 5, 2019 for agricultural service providers. 26 service providers attended the webinar and it has since been downloaded an additional 26 times. The webinar was meant to refresh the service providers’ recollection of the information learned at the workshop, remind them of the project goals and inform them of the answer to the most frequently asked question the project team had received which was how to effectively structure cost-share for conservation practices on leased land.  The webinar was interactive and allowed for peer-to-peer learning. An update webinar on the project was held on November 12, 2020. Fourteen participants of the workshop tuned into the webinar and it has been watched 30 times since the recording was made available online. The webinar was structured to allow peer-to-peer learning. At the 40.05 mark in the update webinar you can hear a farm landowner discuss that her "goal as a landowner is to maintain farmland as farmland which in today's world is getting more difficult" and attending one of the project workshop's helped her to be able to form two leases with her farmers which she feels has strengthened her operation. 

Upon being interviewed one year following the workshops, 22 agricultural service providers reported educating 96 farmers and 72 farm landowners. 22 of the farmers reported communicating with a landowner about the project. 28 landowners reported communicating with a farmer about the project and 29 farmers reported making efforts to use conservation practices on leased acres. 

At the final verification assessment, 6 service providers reported educating 9 farmers and 9 landowners. Of those educational contacts, 1 farmer and 1 landowner made efforts to communicate with the other party to the lease and 2 farmers reporting making efforts to use conservation practices on leased acres. One of the service providers, who works for a local land trust also reported sending educational information about the project via newsletters to 92 people electronically and 690 in print.