Developing and Disseminating Legal Issues Curricula to Educators Who Assist Sustainable Farmers

Developing and Disseminating Legal Issues Curricula to Educators Who Assist Sustainable Farmers

Summary

Year One of this project was to research, create, and deliver legal issues curricula to agricultural educators and service providers in Illinois. The core target audience of this project were the organizers, presenters, and facilitators of farmer training programs aimed at sustainable farmers. With our consultant at Farm Commons, attorney Rachel Armstrong, we successfully held training workshops at four locations in Illinois (Springfield, Champaign, Carbondale and Grayslake) in September 2014.

Our other main deliverable for the first year of the grant period was a complete Legal Issues curriculum guide for our audience, which was distributed to all participants at the workshops, and then placed on The Land Connection’s website with additional video resources in October 2014.

In Year Two, we will conduct surveys of farmer training program facilitators and find out how they integrated the materials into their programming, as well as update the materials to better meet the needs of educators, as shown by the surveys. This is where we will assess if we have achieved our expected knowledge and action outcomes.

Objectives/Performance Targets

The main objectives of the project, their performance targets, and what happened in Year One include the following:

– 90% of the 120 (minimum) educators and service providers who attend the workshops will increase their knowledge of legal issues affecting sustainable farmers, and will be more motivated to seek opportunities to help farmers to proactively address legal issues

We had 64 participants across four workshop locations. While this was lower than our target of 120 attendees , we did extensive outreach and had many people from outside Illinois contact us asking if these resources would be available online. We also had a significant number of farmers ask if they could attend, showing that this sort of training is in high demand. Of the participants who completed our post-workshop survey, 94% agreed or strongly agreed that they learned things about farm law that they did not know. 67% agreed or strongly agreed that they would use the materials with their farmer-constituents, and the rest replied neutrally.

– At least 2500 unique visitors will access the online materials and resources in the first 6-9 months

As of February 2015, 1055 unique visitors have used the online resources on our website in the five months they have been available. We are confident we will meet or exceed the target goal of 2500 visitors.

– At least 12 educators will integrate the legal curriculum or reference materials in their professional activities with colleagues and clients in training peers, advising clients, delivering presentations or when authoring articles, fact sheets and web pages.

From our immediate post-workshop survey, 20% will advise farmer-clients from a legal perspective, 27% intend to include materials in an existing farmer training program, 27% intend to offer a stand-alone farm law class and 33% intend to use it in a not-yet extant farmer training program. We were excited to hear that a group of workshop attendees from our Springfield workshop held their own webinar viewing session and used the materials available from Farm Commons.

The main activities that led to these outcomes were:

– Research, survey, and interview educators to understand the current knowledge and practices regarding legal issues

– Use the information gleaned to develop a substantive and relevant legal issues curricula for educators

Our consultant Rachel Armstrong was primarily responsible for this part of the project as she was the person responsible for developing the curriculum. However, we did collect some data from all registrants, learning that 48% were attending to “Expand knowledge of farming and local food system issues as a whole” and 36% hoped to “Expand knowledge of farm law to advise farmers on legal issues (as an attorney or as a non-attorney)”. Only 18% were there to “Learn farm law curricula for inclusion in an established farmer training program” and 26% were attending to “Learn farm law curricula for inclusion in potential or future farmer training program”. 46% attended to “Expand knowledge of farm law for personal interest”. Registrants could select as many choices as they wanted.

In Year Two of the project we will be assessing how these materials were used post-workshop by the participants.  ATTACH ALL OF THE MODULES HERE

– Deliver the curricula to agricultural professionals so that they gain knowledge in both the content and how to deliver it. Professional development will be delivered through at least four full-day workshops, and via online materials.

Our consultant Rachel Armstrong was responsible for this part of the project as she was the one responsible for delivering the curriculum during the workshops. Each of the four workshop days ran from 8am to 4pm, with lunch provided. The days all included a farmer panel. Some feedback from participants included:

“I got to ask someone with knowledge on the subject questions about grey areas of the law, interpretations of the law and aspects that were unclear to me without having to pay an attorney. The discussions about liability and contract law were very educational. Overall I learned a lot and enjoyed it!”

“I really enjoyed the panel discussion with the farmers, and having farmers as part of the group. It helped a lot with my understanding of the issues and materials, since I am not a farmer. Even though I’m a lawyer, I found some of the issues difficult to grasp until I heard a farmer give an example.”

“I thought the material was covered in a timely and engaging manner and the presenter was extremely knowledgeable. Also, from a teaching perspective, the presenter used a variety of activities that kept the class lively while also using excellent methods for gathering class feedback to insure that everyone was learning and staying focused. This was a very long class, and I feel there are very few people who are able to keep the attention of the room for as long as our presenter did. She was excellent. “

– Evaluate the legal issues curricula and delivery

We sent an initial post-workshop survey in mid-September to all participants and received positive feedback. However, this part of the project is still underway. Our project timeline calls for surveying all attendees six months after the workshop, in March 2015, to find out if they did use the materials in their farmer training programs as they said they would. Our benchmark of reaching 2500 unique viewers of the materials within 6-9 months is within reach at 1055 visitors in five months. A problem that we are working on overcoming is collecting contact information for those accessing the online materials – we currently have a voluntary pop-up form to collect data about visitors, but it is being ignored. We are making adjustments and will have a survey asking for opinions about the materials in the popup instead.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Our accomplishments in Year One included:

Pre-workshop research into what needed to be included in the curriculum, conducted by consultant Rachel Armstrong.

Developed six farm law curriculum modules: Organizing a Farm Business, Land Matters: Zoning and Leasing, Workers and Employees, On-Farm Events, Sales and Taxes, and Food Safety. Each module has a lesson plan, worksheets, powerpoint slides and an accompanying Farm Commons webinar, all created by our consultant, Rachel Armstrong. The Land Connection staff, with assistance from our web consultant, Surface 51, put them on our website and created a popup form to collect visitor information in October 2014.

Conducted four workshops across Illinois: Springfield, Champaign, Carbondale and Grayslake. Each attendee received a USB stick with all the materials, as well as a binder with all modules. Workshops were held the first half of September 2014.

Sent post-workshop survey in mid-September 2014.

Arranged with survey consultant Ann Williams to do a followup survey, to be designed and sent in March 2015.

While not one of the main outcomes of our proposal, the Legal Issues workshop that we held in Carbondale was an accomplishment for us because we struggled with attendance for another event in southern Illinois earlier in 2014.  Because that area is much less populous than other parts of the state, we put a lot of effort into conducting outreach to a wide variety of potential participants. It was still our smallest workshop, but we had lawyers, law students, extension educators, and a local food grocery buyer. Because the group was smaller, we were able to have a good conversation over lunch.

We also were happy to see that a group of participants from our Springfield workshop took materials from Farm Commons and held a workshop for farmer-educators in December 2014. The organizer of the event said: “(I) wanted to provide this training and with The Farm Commons webinars series I could do so without a lot of effort on my end; besides hosting and marketing”.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Our work in Year Two will be to assess if we have met our knowledge and action outcomes. We are preparing to work with our survey consultant, Ann Williams, to create a comprehensive survey for all attendees to learn how they used the materials provided in the workshops and online, and if they have been able to assist sustainable farmers with their legal needs.

Knowledge Outcomes (short-term)

– The agricultural educators and professionals engaged by this proposal will be more aware of the legal issues of importance to sustainable farmers, as measured by pre- and post-workshop surveys

– Ag educators and professionals will be able to spot when a farm business is encountering a legal issue

– Educators will know the basics of the legal issues most applicable to sustainable farmers

– Educators will know how to deliver legal issues presentations and how to facilitate legal education exercises

– Educators will know where to find additional information on sustainable farm legal issues

– The educators level of knowledge of legal issues of concern to sustainable farmers will increase, asmeasured by pre- and post-workshop surveys

Action Outcomes (short term)

– The educators and professionals who attend the workshops will be more motivated to seek opportunities to help farmers to proactively address legal issues, as measured by pre- and post-workshop surveys

• At least 12 educators will integrate the legal curriculum or reference materials in their professional activities with colleagues and clients in training peers, advising clients, delivering presentations or when authoring articles, fact sheets and web pages.

• At least 12 educators will use the curriculum or reference materials when providing assistance to 5 or more of their sustainable farmer clients

• Of the 2500 people accessing the online legal issues materials, as measured by unique online hits, at least 100 will use the materials to assist 5 or more of their clients

Collaborators: