Improving Digital Skills of Agricultural Educators and Advisors

Commodities

Practices

• Animal Production: feed formulation, feed management, feed rations, grazing management, manure management, stocking rate
• Crop Production: crop improvement and selection, forest/woodlot management, nutrient management, tissue analysis
• Education and Training: decision support system, demonstration, display, extension, mentoring, networking, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research, technical assistance, workshop, youth education
• Energy: energy use
• Farm Business Management: agricultural finance, budgets/cost and returns, business planning, financial management, labor/employment, marketing management, risk management, whole farm planning
• Pest Management: economic threshold, field monitoring/scouting, weather monitoring
• Soil Management: soil analysis, soil quality/health
• Sustainable Communities: analysis of personal/family life, food access and security, food loss and waste recovery/reduction, sustainability measures, values-based supply chains

Our project goal is to empower Extension professionals and advisors to build the digital capacity of agricultural stakeholders by enhancing their skills and confidence in data management, literacy, and recordkeeping. This serves as a vital "on ramp" to digital technologies for agriculture.

Critical areas for regenerative agriculture success rely on measuring trends in reduced inputs, lowering sediment tons in water ways and other conservation areas that need tracked. Project outputs include a curriculum on data and digital tools, a repository of online video tutorials for self-guided learning, and related resources to track the above metrics. These outputs will be distributed through the Data Foundations Academy, Purdue Extension sessions, and field days.

Curriculum is designed to use multiple learning approaches and resources covering numerous topics to maximize attendee participation. This hands-on, active learning is geared toward data collection, analysis, visualization, and the basics and applications of databases. Ensuring a core understanding of spreadsheets, databases, and AI capabilities is a primary goal.

Data Foundations Academy program outline

The hands-on Data Foundations Academy aims to up-skill attendees into local trainers. Facilitators will demonstrate digital skills as participants follow along and work in pairs, applying tools to real food, agriculture, and natural resources challenges using real datasets. With an estimated 40 advisees per trained Educator, we project impacting at least 1,160 farm operators (29 trainers x 40 advisees each).

We expect 100% of the educators will gain knowledge and provide training of what they have learned. Participants will receive specific outputs, including data/template files (PDFs, CSV, xlsx), video resources, and annotated Power Point presentations.

Complementing the Academy, we will offer shorter, introductory training and recruitment (for the more extensive Academy) sessions at all Extension Program Area conferences (e.g., ANR, 4-H, HHS). Through these events, we expect to train 150 educators, ready to deliver data collection and analysis skills across program areas.

The team will also present these topics at 10 farmer-focused field days and meetings, targeting a reach of over 800 professionals from Extension, Farm Bureau and others. Following successful delivery, parts of the content will be adapted to be virtual and on-demand through Purdue Online or another host site for future training sessions and content refreshing.

While discipline knowledge (e.g., agronomy, economics, animal science) is strong, significant digital knowledge gaps persist, especially related to risk management. These presentations will enable collaborative and complementary content delivery within Extension and with external partners (federal/state agencies and non-profit organizations).