Increasing the Capacity of Agency Staff and Agricultural Professionals to Increase Farmer Adoption of Cover Crops in Wisconsin

Increasing the Capacity of Agency Staff and Agricultural Professionals to Increase Farmer Adoption of Cover Crops in Wisconsin

Summary

This project will increase the knowledge and capacity of agency staff and agricultural professionals including Technical Service Providers to help them increase farmer adoption of cover crops in the various regions of Wisconsin. Cover crops need to be demonstrated at a local level to encourage adoption since successful use is highly dependent on local soils and weather.  We will host a series of professional development outdoor learning events at cover crop demonstration sites around the state to teach best management practices.

Agency staff and professionals will use the information that they learn at these outdoor learning events with their farmer clientele to increase farmer’s successful use of cover crops. Our overall goal is to increase the farmer’s initial success with cover crops in hopes of long-term adoption.

Objectives/Performance Targets

The goal of this project is to increase the confidence and proficiency of agency personnel in delivering research-based recommendations to their clients with an ultimate goal of increasing long-term cover crop acreage in Wisconsin.

Targets:

Conduct eight learning events across Wisconsin in 2016-17.

400 agency staff (NRCS, County Land Conservation Department, Extension, Temporary Service Providers) will attend learning events and apply gained knowledge in work with clients.

Produce and distribute educational materials including launch and maintenance of the “Cover Crops in Wisconsin” website.

Accomplishments/Milestones

CCAG google forms response Cover crop meetings for agency staff

In 2015/16 we established eight demonstration sites with cooperating farmers for 2016 and 2017 learning events. Sites are located in NW, NC, NE, SW, SE and S. central Wisconsin representing a range of climate, soil types and cropping systems.

In 2016 we held four learning events located in S. central, NW and NE Wisconsin with a total of 157 participants. Rain limited participation at one of the events. A total of 103 participants (65.6%) returned evaluations (attached), highlights of which include:

On average, 88.4 rated knowledge gain at 3 to 4 on a scale of 1 (low) to 4 (high)

86.4% indicated content will improve discussions about cover crops with clients.

51.5% will incorporate information in cover crop programming.

84.5% will attend future learning events.

68.9% signed up for our cover crops email listserv.

In 2016 we launched the “Cover Crops in Wisconsin” website which is designed to be a central clearinghouse for cover crops in Wisconsin http://fyi.uwex.edu/covercrop/. We are tracking site visits, unfortunately that data is not available to the author at this time. All participants at our learning events learned of the website.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Not able to assess at this time. We will be conducting 6-month follow-up evaluations in March to determine how participants are using knowledge gained in their work with clients.

Collaborators: