Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
Practices
- Crop Production: cover crops
Proposal abstract:
PROJECT SUMMARY Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) and the American Society of Agronomy (ASA) would like to apply for funding to train Certified Crop Advisers (CCAs) and others including Certified Professional Agronomists (CPAg), Certified Professional Soil Scientists (GPSS), Ag Retail personnel, Cooperative Extension and others about cover crops. Our number one outcome will be to increase cover crop knowledge among 2500 CCA, CPAgs and GPSS; 1000 members of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America who include extension, university researchers and government officials and 500 innovative farmers. This group has the potential to affect 25-50 farmers each. Our activities will include a series of six webinars with three of them live-streamed to in-person workshops held in three different regions of the Cornbelt; materials for future trainings on cover crops that are regionally specific; creation of a Cover Crop Curriculum Advisory Committee to guide this process; and creation of a culture of cover crops among ASA offerings. The entire webinar series will be archived for future use and the in-person meetings will provide the opportunity for regionally specific facilitated discussions. Delivery of all activities will include farmers, university researchers and CCAs who all are cover crop experts. PROJECT DESCRIPTION Practical Farmers of Iowa and the American Society of Agronomy will train 2500 Certified Crop Advisers and 1500 ag professionals about cover crops for the Midwest to reach 200,000 farmer clientele. Six webinars, three of which will be live-streamed to in-person workshops, will be held in three different regions of the Cornbelt plus materials for future trainings will be developed. A Cover Crop Advisory Committee including farmers, university researchers and CCAs will provide guidance.
Project objectives from proposal:
OUTPUTS
Outputs of this project will include: six archived regionally specific webinars available for future use; a set of powerpoints available for future trainings; creation of a Cover Crop Curriculum Advisory Committee representing a diverse group of cover crop experts from across different regions of the Cornbelt; an increased awareness by CCAs and others about ASA's interest in providing cover crop information; and a new partnership between ASA and PFI.
OUTCOMES
Our goal is that 2500 CCA, CPAgs and CPSS; 1000 members of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America whom include extension, university researchers and government officials and 500 innovative farmers watch and are trained by these outputs over the two year grant period. We will count the number of live webinar views, archived webinar views and attendees during the in person workshops. We will measure participants' change in knowledge and confidence in giving cover crop recommendations prior to participating in the trainings through a short survey. We anticipate participates will report they improved their knowledge and confidence in providing cover crop information above a 4.5/5 on a Likert Scale survey. In the long-term we will not be able to measure the number of farmer clientele CCAs influenced with their improved cover crop knowledge but we anticipate there will be an impact. Each CCA has 25 farmer clients with whom they do most of their business. They also have 50 to 75 prospective customers with whom they look for new business. Therefore each CCA has the potential to influence nearly 100 farmers. As cited from the National Conference their need for accurate cover crop information is critical for farmers to successfully add cover crops to their farms.
EVALUATION
Our activities will be evaluated by quantitative methods. For each webinar we will count the number of live views, archived views and attendees during the in-person workshops. We will measure participants' change in knowledge and confidence in giving cover crop recommendations prior to participating in the trainings through a short survey. We anticipate participates will report they improved their knowledge and confidence in providing cover crop information above a 4.5/5 on a Likert Scale survey. Near the end of the project we will ask participants how many farmers they have given cover crop recommendations to and how many new acres have resulted.