Establishing a Demonstration - Electronic Media Training Center for Farmer-Educators in Pasture-Based Livestock Production

Establishing a Demonstration - Electronic Media Training Center for Farmer-Educators in Pasture-Based Livestock Production

Summary

The project was designed to provide training to farmer-educators in Pennsylvania and Maryland in current concepts in grazing and pasture management. A major objective was to use novel information delivery that could be successfully applied to farmer audiences. The species included beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep, horses, and goats. Three three-day workshops provided training in 50 specific subjects or procedures using a wide variety of information delivery methods. These methods included teleconferencing, lectures, active demonstration, computer-enhanced delivery, and decision cases. The workshops were evaluated very highly by the participants, and specific delivery methods were identified to test with farmer audiences.

Objectives/Performance Targets

To effectively train farmer-educators in pasture-based livestock production by coupling electronic media with demonstration and interactive application.

To provide timely, localized, quality training for farmers that will significantly impact the level of expertise in pasture-based livestock production in the agricultural community locally and regionally

Accomplishments/Milestones

Three workshops were held to provide intensive training to farmer-educators. The workshops offered material in farm planning and assessment and agronomic factors of grazing and pasture management

The farm planning and assessment material included estate planning, direct marketing of pasture-based products, farm financial analysis, fly and past control, setting personal and business goals, community relationships for agriculture and non-ag residents, non-farmer perspectives on agriculture and the environment, nutrient management assessment, farm site assessment, budgeting grazing enterprises, accessing markets for livestock, riparian and water resources, effective use of the World Wide Web, phosphorus cycling and assessment, phosphorus management with livestock, nitrogen cycling, soil testing and interpretation, using digital photography and videography, and water sources for pastured livestock.

The agronomic factors of grazing and pasture management training covered fencing and fence construction, laneways, water delivery systems, forage variety determination, physiology of plant growth, sward assessment methods, seeding drill calibration, seeding depth and spacing, fertility management, weed control, legume seeding, and three farmer presentations on forage variety decisions.

The livestock grazing systems subjects included internal parasite control, poisonous plants, fly control on livestock, metabolic diseases of grazing livestock, dairy grazing economic profiles, beef grazing economic profiles, meeting nutrient needs of grazing dairy cattle, grazing management for forage intake of dairy cattle, condition scoring dairy cows, determination of paddock size for dairy cows, pasture budgeting, estimation of beef cow nutritional requirements, estimation of forage dry matter available in the pasture, handling excess forage production in pastures, breeding programs for pastured cattle, grazing behavior and plant selectivity, supplementation of grazing cattle, horse fencing, condition scoring for horses, and grazing management for goats.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Overall evaluations for the farm management and assessment workshops were 9.0 of a possible 10. One hundred percent of participants found the information to be very useful in presentation to farmer audiences. For the grazing management and grazing systems material, 80% of the participants rated the level of instruction for a farmer audience as fairly to very high, and 80% of the participants found the workshop to be very helpful to extremely helpful as an extension educator.

The training has been provided to the farmer-educators in the project, and the next step is to provide the educational opportunities to farmers. Specific information delivery methods have been tried and evaluated, and the educators have determined those most appropriate for farmers. This will include a combination of teleconferencing and computer-enhanced information delivery at a high level of expertise with experiential demonstrations and participatory projects on site. Participants have committed to providing one or more educational opportunities in grazing and pasture management using the methods found in the workshops to a farmer audience, performing a uniform and a complete evaluation of the training, and reporting the results to the entire group. Secondly, most of the training sessions were captured on digital photographs, were audiotaped, or both. This material will be assembled into a curriculum for teaching grazing and pasture management programs to farmers.

Collaborators: