2014 Annual Report for ENE13-127
Breaking Barriers: Building Capacity to Provide Tractor Education
Summary
To succeed, farmers must understand the equipment needs of their enterprise, how these needs may change as the business grows, and how to meet these needs safely and efficiently. Unskilled equipment operation can put farmers at serious physical and financial risk. Lack of knowledge about farm equipment can limit farm scale and productivity, and therefore the farm’s ability to provide a sustainable family income.
Yet, new farmers increasingly come from non-farm backgrounds and have limited experience with machinery. Equipment, for example, was the second-most common challenge (after time management) identified by 140 Northeast beginning farmers who answered an open-ended question in a 2010 survey. In a fall 2012 survey, over 90% of 53 beginning farmer respondents indicated that inadequate tractor education was a barrier to the development of their current or planned farm businesses. Over 60% indicated they would need substantial training in tractor use and safety to feel competent, and over 80% indicated they would need substantial training in tractor maintenance and mechanization strategies to feel competent. In many places, access to tractor education is limited. In Vermont, tractor education programs are primarily geared to youth seeking farm employment; the old model of Extension agents sharing the latest tractor and mechanization information on farms has practically disappeared.
This capacity-building project will develop a new, collaborative model for providing tractor education. It will train and support 40 agricultural service providers— including representatives from Extension, agricultural nonprofit organizations and educational institutions, state and federal agricultural agencies, vocational/technical education center staff and experienced farmers—to work across organizations to deliver education that helps farmers gain practical skills, realistically assess and communicate their equipment needs, and make informed decisions, all of which will improve farmers’ efficiency, safety and satisfaction with their businesses. Through online learning hands-on training, and follow-up support, participants will gain skills, knowledge and understanding, enabling them to offer comprehensive farm mechanization training for farmers. After completing training, participants will gain experience as paid trainers themselves through two farmer trainings organized by project staff. Participants will receive ongoing support to work one-on-one with farmers on mechanization strategies, and to organize future trainings.
Objectives/Performance Targets
20 agricultural service providers work in teams to deliver tractor safety, use, maintenance and farm mechanization education to 108 farmers and farm workers; 12 service providers work individually with 40 farmers on farm mechanization plans; 2 collaborating organizations incorporate the tractor education curriculum into their ongoing adult education program.
Accomplishments/Milestones
Milestone 1: 160 agricultural service providers and 380 farmers learn about the tractor education program and receive an online survey about their learning needs and current level of knowledge. Accomplishments: Using list-servs, e-newsletters, direct email, and hand-outs at events and conferences, we distributed registration and program information to an estimated 500 agricultural service providers, ag educators and farmer educators in Vermont and the 12 Northeast states.
Milestone 2: Fifty service providers and 90 farmers respond to the survey; eight service providers and 12 farmers participate in in-depth interviews. Accomplishments: 64 agricultural educators and service providers responded to promotion by applying to participate in the program. In-depth interviews were conducted with 9 agricultural service providers/educators and 11 farmers.
Milestone 3: 36 agricultural service providers (who include 6 farmer educators) submit applications to participate in the program. Accomplishments: We selected 43 individuals as program participants. Additionally, two applicants will participate in the project as co-trainers. Everyone who was not accepted into the program has been invited to make use of the online resources on the Ground Work website. The group includes individuals from MA (3), ME (2); NH (3), NY (11), PA (1), RI (1), and VT (22). Participants’ primary affiliation/occupation: Extension/Land Grant University personnel (9), farmers (4), managers of commercial and educational farms (5), nonprofit organization personnel (12), instructors from high school technical education centers (4), and instructors from college educational farms (3).
Milestone 4 & 6: 30 agricultural service providers demonstrate increased knowledge of a) approaches to adult farmer education, b)working with diverse audiences, c) strategies for implementing hands on learning; d) mechanization strategies and their relationship to other farm business planning decisions, and e) insurance, liability and logistical concerns associated with equipment workshops after completing online training modules on those subjects. Accomplishments: In 2014, Ground Work offered five webinars as follows:
- Orientation Introduction to Teaching Adults about Tractors and Mechanization (January 2014)
- Linking Mechanization to Farm Business Planning (February 2014)?with John Hendrickson,?Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems University of Wisconsin.
- Farm Mechanization for Increased Efficiency (March 2014)?with Richard Wiswall?farmer Cate Farm, and author of the Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook
- Buying a Tractor: A Guide to Buying a New or Used Tractor?with Shane LaBrake?agricultural consultant, trainer and teacher
- Managing Equipment Workshops: Safety, Liability, Insurance, and Beyond?, with Andy Pressman, farmer and ag educator, and?Stephen Hadcock, Cornell Cooperative Extension.
Additionally, we made available a recording of How to Develop and Deliver Education that Helps Farmers Solve Problems and Adopt New Practices? with Seth Wilner?, University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension.
To accommodate participants’ schedules (especially technical education center and other teachers who often had day-time commitments), all webinars were recorded and available for follow-up viewing. Live participation in the webinars varied from all 43 participants to 25. Response rates to follow-up, evaluation surveys from the webinars was varied widely depending on the webinar. If we were to conduct a similar project in the future, we would look for incentives to getting consistent feedback from participants. Nonethless, the responses to all webinars showed increased skills and knowledge related to planning and implementing tractor workshops and mechanization education for adult beginning farmers. Several participants indicated that a key change was increasing their confidence in being able to safely and effectively deliver education on these topics. We modified format and content of webinars based on feedback from those who did fill out the evaluations, and the modifications were noted and appreciated in subsequent evaluations.
Milestone 5: 24 agricultural service providers complete in-person training and demonstrate proficiency in teaching tractor safety, use and maintenance to new farmers and farm workers. Accomplishments. All 31 participants completed evaluation surveys. Participants had a broad range of prior experience delivering tractor skills workshops, including people who routinely teach youth and/or college students (3) to those with no experience delivering this content (6). All participants said the day increased their ability to train and evaluate a new tractor operator. All 31 participants indicated that they gained skills related setting up and running hands on tractor skill exercises, and teaching safe tractor PTO and equipment operation. Additionally, 30 of the participants improved skills related to teaching spotting and hitching, basic maintenance of tractors, implementing adult learning principles in education, selecting instructors and selecting equipment and facilities to use as training facilities.
Milestone 7:30 agricultural service providers access the project’s online resource library, downloading: workshop planning materials and checklists; presentation outlines, slides, graphics and video links; farmer-oriented hand-outs; and evaluation and target verification surveys. (Aug 2014-June 2015). Accomplishments. During this project year we built out the resource hub, adding a variety of print and webinar materials. We will be continuing to add materials in 2015. Due to a technical issue accessing data on the UVM web server in late December, current analytics regarding use of the resource hub were not available. We will provide a summary report on use of the resource hub in our final report.
Milestone 8: 20 service providers request and receive support services from the project team as they plan and deliver tractor education workshops and follow-up individual assistance to farmer workshop participants. Accomplishments: Two Ground Work participants have either already delivered tractor education using resources from this project. These workshops reached a total of 31 aspiring and beginning farmers. Evaluation data from those events indicates the workshops were very well received. “The workshop provided a solid overview about the way 2-cycle and 4-cycle engines work. Many of the young farmers in our network don’t come from farm families or agricultural colleges, and mechanics and engine repair are frequent gaps in their knowledge. Many of the attendees to the workshop—who use machines with small engines on their farms or the farms they work on—didn’t know about combustion engines, how to keep them in working order, and what can go wrong with them. Participants said in their evaluations that the class helped to demystify these machines, and were very appreciative particularly of the hands-on portion of the workshop. Many expressed that they were eager to get back to their work benches and barns to give their machines some work over the winter, and also that they would take better care of them in the coming growing season with hopes of extending the lives of their machines.” We are working with six other Ground Work participants on similar farmer workshops for the spring and early summer of 2015. In early January, we will be in contact with the entire cohort to help facilitate additional workshops and webinars.
- PTO Station
- Hitching and Driving Station
- Hands On Session Evaluation Instrument
- ENE13-127 Beneficiary Form
- PTO Station 2
- Pre-Operation Station
- Sample Webinar Evaluation Survey
- Center of Gravity Demo
Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes
Collaborators:
Community and Agriculture Program Coordinator
University of Vermont Extension
617 Comstock Rd.
Berlin, VT 05602
Office Phone: 8022232389
Website: http://www.uvm.edu/newfarmer
Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering Agricultural Safety and Health
The Pennsylvania State University
221 Agricultural Engineering
University Park, PA 16802
Office Phone: 8148657157
Website: http://extension.psu.edu/business/ag-safety
Extension Specialist: Maple and Farm Safety
University of Vermont Extension
29 Sunset Dr., Suite 2
Morrisville, VT 05661
Office Phone: 8028884972
Extension Community Development Specialist
University of Vermont Extension
617 Comstock Rd.
Berlin, VT 05602
Office Phone: 8022232389