Building the Capacity of ANNIES Educators to Help Women Farmers and Ranchers Improve Agricultural Sustainability

View the project final report

• 2012 annual report
• 2013 annual report
• 2014 annual report

Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: extension, focus group, networking, workshop
• Farm Business Management: whole farm planning, new enterprise development, budgets/cost and returns, cooperatives, marketing management, agricultural finance, risk management, value added
• Sustainable Communities: social capital, social networks

2015 Video Report:  https://vimeo.com/144112132.

The USDA reports 31% of all farmers/ranchers are women; yet these women are an underserved audience. According to a Journal of Extension article, one best practice for professional development is to bring educators together around a program of mutual benefit Annie’s Project is a well-established program for farm/ranch women. With this in mind, three regional and two national Annie’s Project educator conferences were held during the four years of the project from 2012 to 2015.

The overall goal was to prepare educators to teach business management skills to farm/ranch women. The primary objectives were to:

1. meet educator needs for networking, programming and expertise,
2. present curricula and methodologies,
3. demonstrate and provide on-going support, and
4. encourage delivery of programs for farm/ranch women.

There was a total of 167 people attending the professional development conferences, or 125 unique participants, since some people attended more than once. Participants came from 26 different states. In summary, 70 unique participants were extension educators from the NC SARE states, 21 were extension educators from other states, 24 were USDA, industry and not-for-profit representatives, and 10 were farm and ranch women.

The Annie’s Project leadership team and guest speakers led tours, presentations, video storytelling, panels and group discussions. The Research Institute for Studies in Education designed and conducted an independent evaluation. In 2014 and 2015, a survey was developed using Qualtrics (TM) online software. Educators were emailed the survey two months after the conferences.

There were 54 attendees in 2014, and 57 in 2015, coming from 26 states. Participants returned 32 completed surveys in 2014, and 25 in 2015. Responses indicated 98% rated the overall quality of the professional development as above average or excellent. Respondents planned to offer 124 Annie’s Project and similar courses plus 75 other programs for farm/ranch women within 18 months.

The survey results provide evidence that the Annie’s Project regional and national professional development conferences were effective in preparing educators to teach farm/ranch women skills for managing their businesses.

The goals developed for the proposed three-year project were to reach 100 people with three professional development programs. We were able to extend the project grant to four years and conduct five professional development programs.

Training was held in Nebraska (2012) and Indiana (2013) as anticipated. However, it did not work out to hold a training in Minnesota (2014) as anticipated because of a change in partner circumstances and an expressed desire to attend conferences in Iowa. Additional conferences were held in South Dakota (2013) and Iowa (2014, 2015.)

There was a total of 167 people attending the professional development conferences, or 125 unique participants, since some people attended more than once. Participants came from 26 different states. In summary, 70 unique participants were extension educators from the NC SARE states, 21 were extension educators from other states, 24 were USDA, industry and not-for-profit representatives, and 10 were farm and ranch women.

Train-the-trainer materials were developed and refined for the project and posted online at www.anniesproject.org. However, to better manage the program, most online training materials are only available for educators completing a training for by special request.

This project utilized about $67,000 (89%) of the requested $75,000 in NC SARE funds. Of this about $31,000 (46%) was utilized for conference travel reimbursements for educators in the NC SARE states. About $8,000 (12%) of project funds went to our partner, the Annie’s Project – Education for Farm Women non-profit organization for training content and delivery. Dividing the utilized funds by the total number of participants (167) provides a cost of about $400 per participant on average. The average is useful for comparison, but please keep in mind NC SARE funds were leveraged with other travel funds for those outside of the NC SARE region plus other sponsorship from partnering organizations.