Online Agroforestry Course for Professionals

View the project final report

Commodities

Practices

• Crop Production: agroforestry, alley cropping, silvopasture, windbreaks
• Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, riparian buffers

Increasingly, agroforestry is recognized as a key to climate resiliency, healthy ecosystems, and thriving farms in the Midwest. The intentional integration of tree, crop, and livestock provides habitat, conserves water and soil resources, diversifies farm income, and sequesters carbon. Despite increasing interest in adopting agroforestry, studies have shown that though 90% of respondents were interested in agroforestry, most lacked adequate information about implementation, management, and marketing to adopt it (Strong and Jacobson, 2005). Farmers interested in agroforestry adoption face a knowledge bottleneck in the Midwest: their existing support networks don’t include knowledge or for support for agroforestry. 

By developing an online agroforestry education course for professionals, the Savanna Institute will address this barrier to adoption. Our course will focus on agency and nonprofit personnel, educators, independent consultants and technical service providers, and provide a flexible set of online modules that can be taken for CEUs. The course will include an online resource library of educational materials, practicums, case-studies, and multimedia material that participants can draw upon to design or enhance their own training programs or agency educational materials. It will also produce case-study videos and facilitate an online community of practice for professionals. 

The course will increase the total number of agricultural professionals with knowledge of agroforestry, provide accessible educational materials for trainers to employ in their own work, and, ultimately, make agroforestry education more accessible for farmers and landowners interested in adopting it on their land.

ONLINE AGROFORESTRY COURSE CURRICULUM FOR PROFESSIONALS

• Agroforestry Course Curriculum for Professionals: five tracks of four modules each providing an adaptable format for professional participation.
  • Target audience: agency and nonprofit personnel, educators, independent consultants and technical service providers, farmers
• Educational materials on topics like: farm business planning for agroforestry, alley cropping, conservation and agroforestry, and agroforestry supply chains.
  • Products will be a mix of pdfs and multimedia material
  • To facilitate participant adoption educational material for their own training programs, course curricula will include easily downloadable content compiled in a resource library and suggested workshop outlines and practicums.

CASE-STUDY AGROFORESTRY VIDEOS

• 10 30-minutes videos created
  • Videos feature 10 farmer collaborators who have adopted commercially viable agroforestry on their farms.
  • Some video segments are integrated into course curriculum
• Videos offer updated models for experiential learning when in-person visits may not be possible. 
  • When adapting course content for use in their own trainings, trainers can use the videos as accessible examples of agroforestry in action when in-person examples are not available for their region.
• Education for wider, nonprofessional audiences. 
  • When posted online videos reached an audience of 96,229 views by the end of 2023.

ONLINE AGROFORESTRY COURSE 

• Target: total program participants: 500 = 150 in Year 1 and 350 in Year 2. Of whom:
  • • 400 complete at least 1 track (or 4 modules)
    • 100 will complete more than 2 tracks (8 modules)
    • 100 participants will begin but not complete a full track (4 modules).
    • Of those, 50 participants will complete at least 2 modules, but not a full track.
  • Due to the delayed launch of these videos, we did not train 500 participants during the grant term, which means that during the term of the grant we were not able to assess the waterfall of course completions fully.

ONLINE RESOURCE LIBRARY

• Created an online resource library of educational material and resources to support agroforestry adoption. Due to copyright concerns, SI-created resources are available for free through our website while other resources are available for educational purposes and can be accessed through the SI Technical Service Program Ask and Agroforester service

• • Online library of scientific articles 
  • Downloadable so trainers can adopt content in their own work.
• Target outcomes: 200 participants incorporate agroforestry-related content in existing programs within five years.
  • 20 new agroforestry-focused programs will be designed and delivered 
    • To date we have leveraged these resources to work with trainers and NGOs in Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, and Washington State to help launch train-the-trainer programs.
    • These resources also trained a cohort of 30 TSPs in the summer of 2023, supporting the establishment of agroforestry training programs at national, state, and local institutions in MN, IL, MO, MI, SC, and national NRCS.
  • 50 participants will create new educational materials for their agencies or nonprofits.
    • As mentioned above, this is in process, but with trainers now embedded at NGOs and institutions across the Midwest, we anticipate that these resources are being created.

CONTINUING EDUCATION UNITS

• Participants will earn 1 credit for each module they complete.
  • • Target outcome: 400 participants will earn at least 4 credits
    • 100 participants will earn at least 8 CEUs within five years
      • Only 1 course has so far secured CEUs through SAF. This is due to program capacity constraints. We are slowly resolving this, but are unable to meet this program goal within the grant period.
• Participant surveys and assessments to improve course and evaluate progress through modules
  • Target: 450 surveys will be completed
    • Participants in cohort trainings, field days, and workshops all complete evaluations for the project. 

PROFESSIONAL AGROFORESTRY COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

• Partnerships with agencies, nonprofits, educational institutions, professional associations, agricultural businesses and existing communities of practice (e.g. IL IDEA farm network, MN Silvopasture Learning Network, Practical Farmers of Iowa, Wallace Centers Regenerative Agriculture Innovation Network, WI Grazing Networks), as well as expanded opportunities for trainers to connect with each other across the region.
  • Target: 4 new partnerships focused on agroforestry education for professionals
    • More than 4 partnerships were established, including an important partnership for training with MN SFA and TNC, U of I Extension, Wisconsin Land + Water, and WTCAC.
• Community of practice developed through periodic emails, shared resource library, online discussions, and networking opportunities
  • Target: 500 participants in community of practice emails, of whom:
  • 400 will access the shared resource library at least once to download relevant material
  • 200 will participate in at least 1 online discussion 
  • 100 will qualify for online directory reflecting substantial professional education in agroforestry.
    • During the course of this grant we launched the Agroforestry Coalition, a network of over 200 farmers, businesses and NGOs dedicated to scaling up agroforestry in the US. Although only 200 members are officially represented, participation rates for the Coalition's 8 Working Group (e.g. Community of Practice) call reflect a much engagement rate. The Coalition is organized into working groups, several of which focus on training: a TSP Training and Certification group, Demonstration Farm Group, and a Markets Working Group. With the formation of the Coalition, the role of the Association For Temperate Agroforestry (AFTA) and the Coalition have clarified, with the result that AFTA will now be the official home for professional agroforestry, and will build the capacity to host an online directory of trained professionals. In the meantime, the Center of Agroforestry at Missouri is building this resource through other means and we are focusing on ensuring coordination and data sharing to support their directory project.