The Ag Engineering Podcast: Tools, Tips and Techniques for Improving Sustainability on Your Farm

Produce growers are always on the move, always tending to the needs of the farm. Finding time for education often gets pushed off as a low priority and not actively pursued. Yet, education is an important factor in the success of farm businesses. One of the most effective forms of learning is from peers, but taking time away from the farm to talk with others is challenging. 

In a recent survey by the project team of 57 produce growers about post-harvest resources, 90% of growers assigned a high level of importance and 58% of the responses indicated poor availability of the information. The top five sources where growers indicated receiving information from was reported as: 1. Other Farmers (82%) 2.Conferences (68%), 3.Extension (65%)  4. Web Research (60%) 5. Grower Meetings (51%). This indicates that peer to peer learning and online resources are extremely important for this audience and that information provided from extension is trusted and valued. Respondents also noted that they prefer information from podcasts equally as much as from facebook. (Callahan and Chamberlin 2019) 

Many produce growers in the Northeast are experimenting with new practices or equipment that have impacts to the industry. The motivations for this constant experimentation and innovation include improving soil or water quality, increasing labor efficiency, increasing product quality, improving yield, and supporting overall farm profitability. The availability of information on a new practice or tool can be difficult to find, but is needed before the adoption of a new practice takes place. Driving the implementation of new environmental practices is one aspect of sustainability, but business and lifestyles need to be sustainable as well in order for farms to succeed (Heleba, 2018). If the quality of life is too poor or the business isn’t profitable the farm will not be sustained. Anecdotally, we have also found that growers find value in the affirmation provided by seeing someone else do the same practice on YouTube or hearing them describe it on a Podcast. Learning through experimentation in isolation is certainly feasible, but having one’s learning and adoption of practice affirmed by far-flung peers enables growers to proceed with confidence in one practice and focus on other issues.

This project is an opportunity to capture the audio recording of one farmer sharing their experiences, thoughts, and findings with others in a convenient and effective format.  By recording interviews with farmers, it will enable a wide range of listeners in Vermont, the Northeast, and beyond, to hear trusted, honest reviews and to hear the nuances of equipment or practices that they wouldn’t be able to receive otherwise. 

When asking farmers about their interest in this type of learning they were excited! Some of these interactions were recorded and assembled into a sample episode of what the podcast might sound like. It can be heard here: go.uvm.edu/ep0

This project is motivated by four separate observations: (1) Podcasts are gaining popularity, (2) podcasts can serve as a convenient educational channel for adult learners via mobile devices, (3) learning can be enhanced by synchronous physical activity, and (4) farmers like to learn from peers.  

1. Podcast Popularity - Podcasts as a form of user-driven social media are gaining popularity. Integrated into people's lives, they have been adsorbed as an effective form of learning about new topics or expanding their knowledge of current interests. It has been shown that adult learners now use the internet to receive information at “twitch speed” and “they prefer on-demand access to media.” (Duffy 2016). The popularity of podcasts has increased, especially among farmers who are doing physical activities while they listen. Previous SARE funded projects that involved podcasts have focused on soil health specifically in a highly scripted, low episode volume approach (Lounsbury 2017) or were focused on creating searchable and discoverable transcripts of existing episodes (Blanchard 2019).
2. Convenient Audio Education - Education in the form of audio is convenient for farmers. Podcasts are entertaining and engaging for adult learners, including farmers and farmer educators. Podcast listeners choose what topics they listen to which is an important motivational element of effective adult learning (Bell and McAllister 2013). In survey results reported 10 years ago over 76% of students had ipods or other portable MP3 players (Luna and Cullen 2011). Meanwhile, cell phone ownership among US adults grew from 77% January 2008 to 95% in January 2018 with smartphone ownership growing from 39% in January 2012 to 77% January 2018. (Pew Research Center 2019). Our own experience working with farmers in the northeast suggests there is a high level of use of smartphones for recordkeeping, communication and learning among farmers and this aligns with research in other areas where smartphone use was as high as 89% among farmers (Dehnen-Schmutz 2016). Students surveyed have identified many benefits of podcasting including: flexibility and portable convenience, ability to catch up on content, reduction in anxiety being removed from the classroom setting, increased student engagement, improved teaching and learning, and enhanced learning experiences. Adult learning theory has also been connected to podcasting. Using podcasts for education causes the listener to “Draw upon past life and work experience, which enables reasoning and reflective thinking during the learning process; Exhibit a high need to find relevance and applicability of learning; Possess healthy skepticism related to well-established attitudes, beliefs, and values; and Require readiness, stimulation, and motivation to learn” (Luna and Cullen, 2011). Podcasts are delivered via a “push”; they are automatically downloaded by subscribed users. These resources are then at their fingertips when they are out and about. This push of information, inherent flexibility in access, and mobility of learning allows for “just in time learning” (Evans 2008). This form of education is particularly convenient for farmers whose hands are often busy but their ears and brain are open for ideas. 
3. Physical Activity - Podcasts are a form of education that supports physical activity during the learning period. Recent research supports secondary fidgeting as an educational enhancement. Rotz and Wright (2005) summarize decades of research connecting physical movement and fidgeting to multifocal brain activity, cognitive arousal, and increase in naturally occurring, attention supporting brain chemicals such as dopamine and norepinephrine. Karlesky and Isbister (2013) have taken this one step further and have actually designed “fidget widgets” to enhance learning. They developed “a playful technology to purposefully engage users’ interrelated bodily motions, affective states, and cognitive functions to selectively enhance creativity, focus, etc. integral to modern productivity.” Farmers have plenty of opportunities to “fidget” while listening in the form of seeding, weeding, harvesting, etc. This form of multitasking is great for the brain during these mundane and tedious tasks of production. 
4. Peer Learning - Peer educators have been documented as an important and effective component of Extension agricultural education programs (Grudens-Schuck et al 2003). A key component of this project is to use farmers as subject matter experts. Although agricultural podcasts exist, the number is limited and they use a different method. The two most popular agricultural podcasts, Farmer to Farmer Podcast (Blanchard) and Farm Small Farm Smart Podcast (Footer), are both long-form hour-plus long podcasts covering everything about an individual farm in a case study format. These cover the farm’s crops, practices, markets, struggles, successes, etc. The podcasts planned as part of our project will have a topic-centered approach, be built around a shorter format, and allow specific topics to be more easily shared and discovered among peers.

Bell, S., & McAllister, J. (2013). A Guide for Educators: Sustainable Agriculture through Sustainable Learning--Improving educational outcomes with best practices for adult learning. USDA NE SARE. Retrieved from 

http://www.nesare.org/Media/Public-Files/Northeast-SARE-Files/Grantee-Produced-Products/Adult-learning-guide

Blanchard , Chris. “Farmer to Farmer Podcast.” Farmer to Farmer Podcast, 2018, www.farmertofarmerpodcast.com/.

Blanchard, Chris. ONC17-024 - The Best of ‘Farmer to Farmer’ Podcast: Revisiting and Expanding Solutions for Market Farm Start-up, Scale-up, CSA Modeling, and Employee Management. 5/31/2019

https://projects.sare.org/sare_project/onc17-024/

Callahan C. & Chamberlin A. Staying Ahead in the Packshed: Postharvest Topics, Sources of Information, and Ideas from Growers. Survey Results. March 14, 2019. http://blog.uvm.edu/cwcallah/2019/03/14/staying-ahead-in-the-packshed-postharvest-topics-sources-of-information-and-ideas-from-growers/#more-1703

Dehnen-Schmutz, K., Foster, G. L., Owen, L., & Persello, S. (2016). Exploring the role of smartphone technology for citizen science in agriculture. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 36(2), 25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-016-0359-9

Duffy, P. (2016). Engaging the YouTube Google-Eyed Generation: Strategies for Using Web 2.0 in Teaching and Learning. Electronic Journal of E-Learning, 6(2), 119–Learning, 2008, Vol.6(2), 119–130.

Evans, C. (2008). The effectiveness of m-learning in the form of podcast revision lectures in higher education. Computers & Education, 50(2), 491–498. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2007.09.016

Footer, Diego. “Farm Small Farm Smart.” Paperpot Co., 2019, paperpot.co/podcast/.

Grudens-Schuck, N., Cramer, J., Exner, D., & Shour, M. (2003). The New Adult Education: Bringing Peer Educators Up to Speed. Journal of Extension, 41(4). Retrieved from https://www.joe.org/joe/2003august/a2.php 

Heleba D. Social Sustainability on the Farm: Focus on Resilience. SARE Grant Project Overview. https://projects.sare.org/sare_project/nevt14-001/. Accessed April 9, 2019.

Karlesky, M., & Isbister, K. (2013). Fidget Widgets: Secondary Playful Interactions in Support of Primary Serious Tasks. In CHI ’13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1149–1154). New York, NY, USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2468356.2468561

Lounsbury, N. ONE15-251 - Priming for production: A podcast on soil health 9/30/2017

https://projects.sare.org/sare_project/one15-251/

Luna, G., & Cullen, D. (2011). Podcasting as Complement to Graduate Teaching: Does it Accommodate Adult Learning Theories? International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Volume 23(Number 1), 40–47.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ938577.pdf

Pew Research Center. Mobile Fact Sheet. February 2018.  https://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/ 

Rotz, R., & Wright, S. (2005). Fidget to Focus. Outwit Boredom: Sensory Strategies for Living with ADD (11/20/2009). New York: iUniverse.