Organic Dairy Short Course for Ag Professionals

Organic Dairy Short Course for Ag Professionals

Summary

The contract for this project was finalized on April 10, 2007, and the project formally began as of that date. By the end of the first year, the administrative work of subcontracting was completed (and was no small feat!). The project steering team had met twice in-person to revisit and confirm training objectives, create a boilerplate agenda, design evaluation questions, and monitor progress. In between meetings, we used conference calls and e-mails to keep the project on track. Logistical planning, including venue and local partner selection, identification of speakers, advertising/outreach were well underway for seven sessions, all scheduled for the first quarter of 2008.

Objectives/Performance Targets

In 2007, we made progress on the following outputs and outcomes identified in our proposal:

Output #3

New peer relationships among attendees, among presenters, among planners and implementers of the training program and the agencies/institutions they represent.

The Wisconsin state-level planning team consisted of team leader Laura Paine (Wisconsin Dept of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection), Jody Padgham (Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Services), Pamela Ruegg (Univ. of Wisconsin Extension milk quality specialist), Guy Jordarski, DVM (veterinarian in private practice), Jim Goodman (organic dairy farmer). The Wisconsin team reported they were especially pleased with the positive reception they got from the University of Wisconsin Vet school, which offered to provide refreshments for an evening session focused on the interests of veterinary students. The subcontractor for the Minnesota workshops, Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota, convened separate local planning teams for each individual workshop

Output #4

Stronger relationships and more interaction between and among the SFA “alternative” MDI team and regional teams elsewhere in the state.

In Minnesota, the SFA started its planning process by making overtures to Minnesota Dairy Initiative (MDI) regional teams. Sixteen individuals affiliated with MDI offered to help plan the events and Central, NW, SW and SE regional teams came “on board.” Several MDI regions have taken less ownership of the project planning. Others are tremendously excited about it – really “hungry” for this training and welcomed it as a “huge bright spot.” Our dairy scientist steering team member observed that the regions that have been less enthusiastic already offer a lot of dairy programming and that the organic subject matter may be turning some of teams’ members off.

Minnesota team leader Mary Jo Forbord made some important observations about the positive impact that involvement in this PDP has had on the relationship between the SFA and other regional MDI teams. “I think it helped legitimize our approach that we we offered to be partners, we asked them to be partners to plan this event in their regions. Also, the caliber of people that we got to speak helped — they were very noteworthy people that the people on MDI teams could respect.” She also said that, on a practical basis, the regional teams appreciated the opportunity to offer organic programming without having to dip into their own limited funding pool and sacrifice other ongoing educational efforts.

Output #6

Stronger relationships among MN and WI team members.

The Wisconsin team leader, Laura Paine, traveled to Minnesota twice to meet with the larger planning group. Although our expectation that several members from the Wisconsin team would participate was not realized, Laura’s participation contributed to a feeling among the project team that this was, in fact, a two-state project. Project Coordinator Meg Moynihan, Wisconsin program leader Laura Paine, and Minnesota program leader Mary Jo Forbord (MN team leader) used e-mail to stay in touch with each other and share information about approaches and progress in both states.

Outcomes
Although key planning occurred and groundwork was laid for the short term and most intermediate outcomes this year, both of these outcome levels specify changes in participant/attendee awareness, knowledge, and action and won’t be realized until the training events are actually held in 2008.

There was clear progress on Intermediate outcome #4, however: increased interaction and collaboration among core and event team members occurs based on relationships built among project team members leads during this effort.

In addition to the strengthened relationship with the UW vet school, noted above, Minnesota reported that, ”In addition to the MDI teams, a surprising number of farm business management instructors, who are part of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system got helped with local planning of these events.” We assumed that acknowledging all the state and local-level sponsors on brochures and publicity materials was important to sharing credit and building inter-organizational trust.

Accomplishments/Milestones

In this first year, we finalized subcontracts between SARE and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA, the SARE PDP grant recipient), between the MDA and two sub-subcontractors [Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota (SFA) and Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP)], and between MDA and project steering team members (three farmers and one veterinarian). As in the past, the administrative requirements of completing these subcontracts took more time and effort than anticipated, particularly the contract between the two state agencies, each intent on doing things its own way.

Our team met twice in person this year and several times by conference call. In May, we kicked off the real work of the project with a face-to-face meeting of the steering team. All members got to know each other better, refreshed their understanding of project’s purpose, desired outcomes, strings, generated list of target short course audiences, designed a schedule of short courses, brainstormed a list of possible speakers, and developed the idea of creating an organic dairy farm “photo bank” that could be used by farmer presenters. Key decisions were made at this meeting, including:

* Workshops will be called: “Organic Dairy 101: a workshop for dairy support professionals”.

* Courses will be held between January and mid-April, 2008 (both WI and MN. One will be held on Jan. 17, the day before MN Organic Conference.

* Course dates will be finalized by July 30.

* Brochure will be done by late August – we’ll try to do one brochure both WI and MN can use – all dates, all info, acknowledge hot topics, mention CEUs, etc.

*Steering committee (or subgroups) will meet by phone as needed and face:face in September 2007. If subgroups want to meet, tell Meg and she’ll arrange a conference call line.

* Participants will pay $25-30 registration fee (Mary Jo and Laura to decide).

* Speaker conflict of interests – organizers will collect info about conflicts of interest and notify participants about them. Speakers not allowed to promote products/services.

*Photo bank is important. Need to develop a “shot list” of important visual aspects of generic organic dairy farms. Laura, Mary Jo, Dennis will work on. Bob, Joe, and Elaine will advise. Also need to id farmer speakers early and start getting photos of their own farms. Use shot list for this as well.

* Provide invitations to organic dairy farmers and get them to invite “their” own professionals, or people they wish would take the course.

* We should provide CEU credits to Extension, NRCS, Vets, and crop advisors.

* Each session will offer a resource table but no display space.

* Food donations are ok, as long as the opportunity to provide food is offered broadly (i.e., certain companies don’t get preference/special treatment).

* Explore the idea of a take-away CD with presentations, photos on it.

* Don’t have course on a Monday or a Friday!

* SFA and DATCP will work together to develop resource take home cards.

We identified target audiences as:

Vets
Vet students
Ag writers
Lenders
Extension
Nutritionists
Crop consultants – coops
Dairy inspectors
Dairy plant field reps
Farm management instructors
FSA/RMA/NRCS
Feed dealers
EQA technicians
Educational leaders (i.e., University administrators)
DHIA technicians and field reps
AI industry

And at the May meeting, we also laid out the following “boilerplate” course agenda:

I. Overview – emphasize systems nature of organic. “Organic is a system, not a type of milk.” – Dennis J.
1.Snapshot – #s organic farms, dairy farms, etc.
2.Economics, market, market outlook
3.Transferability – conventional operations can incorporate and benefit from some of the methods/approaches organic dairies use.
4.Acknowledge “hot topics”

II. Farmer insights/experiences – *work w/speakers to get good slides of their farms
1.History of their farm
2.Reasons they converted
3.Day-do-day management (season-by-season) ***slides***
4.Challenges
5.During conversion
6.Now
7.Numbers – either their own or from the 22 organic dairies in FINBIN www.finbin.umn.edu
8.Q&A

III. Components of an Organic Dairy Farm
(afternoon will be a combination of large group presentation and small group discussions – to be decided depending on who speakers are and on wishes of organizing host teams.)
1.Animal (health and nutrition
2.Crops/soils (weeds, fertility, etc.)
3.Recordkeeping and accountability (certification)

IV. Wrap up – tie up day and send off w/ positive message

The Wisconsin planning group subsequently met and decided to narrow the focus of its workshops to animal health. Since another group in WI had already done a series of organic dairy workshops, the WI group thought it advisable to concentrate on vets, vet students, nutritionists etc. In addition, WI will add a location – an evening session at the UW vet school – increasing the number of times the course would be offered from two to three and expanding the audience to young animal health professionals.

The steering team met in person a second time in September. Laura Paine again traveled from Wisconsin to attend and represent the Wisconsin subteam. At this meeting, we reviewed planning progress so far, viewed the photo bank, and generated some advice for ourselves:

* Be careful to keep sessions educational – prevent commercial speakers from “pushing” products in which they may have an interest. Have speakers fill out a disclosure form.

* When considering workshops, vets/nutritionists consider: A) what should I know, professionally speaking and B) Will this course/knowledge translate into business opportunity for me.

* There is a chicken/egg situation with how much organic dairy farmers use professional services. Many don’t use them because there has historically been no one to go to. If services were available, more organic dairy farmers might use them. This may be worth pointing out to in promotional materials and workshops.

* Some farms are “Organic by Neglect.” Others are “Organic by Design.” We want to promote “Organic by Design.”

* After winnowing the photos, removing duplicates, etc,. perhaps we should set up slide show to project all the photos on the wall during the day or at breaks, mealtimes.

*Maybe we should offer a DVD containing complete photo gallery and presentations.

*Do evaluations at end of day and some time after the course. Use pencil/paper at end of day and internet survey (Survey Monkey).

By the end of the year, outreach materials (mainly e-mail announcements and media releases, see Appendix 1) about the course and dates had been distributed to:

Semex
Select Sires
Genex
ARPAS – American Registry of Professional Animal Scientists
Central Livestock Assn.
Dairy Plant Field Reps
Farm Management Instructors
Farm Service Agency
100+ General Ag and Rural papers across MN
Hoard’s Dairyman
Board of Animal Health’s Animal Bytes electronic newsletter
231 Minnesota dairy veterinarians
NRCS
Upper Midwest Dairy Industry Assn. Board
Advisors of 2 UMN Student Veterinary Clubs
Resource Conservation and Development Districts
SARE North Central Region Prof. Dev. Coordinators.

By the close of 2007, the Minnesota team had also begun to solicit CEU credits for Veterinarians, Extension, Sanitarians, and professional Animal scientists (American Registry of Professional Animal Scientists).

The Minnesota and Wisconsin teams elected to do separate brochures that listed each others’ dates and web sites and mentioning this was a two-state project that overlaps (Appendix 2). Wisconsin had finished its brochure. Minnesota had finished a general “umbrella” brochure to use for early publicity and planned to do separate, specialized brochures for each location containing details about each location’s speakers and local partners.

NOTE: For a full color report that includes graphics, call 651-201-6012 or contact the NCR-SARE office at ncrsare@umn.edu

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Impacts and contributions/outcomes will be measured next year after the training programs are delivered. To date, all team members are contributing and the project is on track.

Collaborators: