Enhancing Educator Knowledge of Sheep and Goat Production

Enhancing Educator Knowledge of Sheep and Goat Production

Summary

Farmers, researchers, and educators met in August, 2002 to begin work on the Small Ruminant Sustainability Checksheet, a document to be used by educators and farmers to help farmers evaluate and improve the sustainability of their sheep and goat enterprises within their whole farm plan. Arkansas CES agents were surveyed to determine the information and training needs in Arkansas. A listserv for communication among cooperators and participants in the Southern region is being established. In the coming year, revisions and testing of the Checksheet and training workshops for educators in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky and North Carolina will take place.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Producers and educators will cooperatively design a sheep and goat checksheet, and use it as a tool in assessing the sustainability of a sheep or goat farm or enterprise.

Through workshops, demonstrations, and farm visits, educators’ knowledge increases and they improve their ability to work with small ruminants.

Through the establishment of a listserv, educators and producers in the Southern region are actively engaged in communication about research needs, educational opportunities, and practical methods of overcoming challenges of small ruminant production.

Accomplishments/Milestones

The major objective of the project was begun in August of 2002, when a group of educators and farmers met at Doeling Dairy in Fayetteville to brainstorm a complete list of items relating to sustainability of a sheep or goat farm. The two-day meeting provided an opportunity for the 20 persons present to communicate freely about issues facing small ruminant producers, and to discuss their ideas about the proposed checksheet. A partial outline of the document was proposed, and participants agreed to help with revisions once the draft was completed. A second meeting will be held at that time.

In the months since that meeting, coordinator Linda Coffey has been writing the draft. It has been sent to some of the cooperators for their input and their help in smoothing out problems. One concern is that the current document is too lengthy; another is that it needs to provide more links to resources within the document.

The writing has taken far longer than expected, and so the project is much behind schedule. This summer, we hope to hire an intern and have a group working session to work out the problems in the checksheet. With more focused and concentrated time on the project in the summer and fall of 2003, we plan to be ready for workshops in the spring of 2004.

The listserv, named “cud”, is being set up and has currently about 50 participants.

We surveyed Arkansas Cooperative Extension Agents to assess the current state of their training and to determine the needs of the agents. Dr. Jodie Pennington, cooperator on this project and AR State Extension Specialist, assisted by sending the survey out on the agents listserv and forwarding responses to Linda Coffey. There were 43 responses; 25 of those stated that they had had no prior training with sheep or goats. Only 3 of the 43 have not been asked for information about sheep or goats. Of the 43, most felt that further training in sheep and goat production practices would be useful to them, with only 4 saying that they are already comfortable helping producers with sheep and goats. Also, only 1 respondent said they would not find a manual for sheep and goat production to be a useful reference. However, 11 of the 43 stated that they would not be interested in attending training sessions for sheep or goat production or to learn to use the checksheet. As for joining the “cud” listserv, half of the agents asked to be included, while some declined because they have too much e-mail already.

The bulk of the work remains to be done. The checksheet draft must be completed, revised, tested on farms in AR, GA, NC and KY. The checksheet will be revised again following testing, using suggestions from participating farmers. Finally, workshops will be designed and carried out in AR, GA, NC and KY. Final evaluation and assessments will need to be completed as well.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

By mapping the counties and responses, we now have information about which regions of the state contain most of the agents who are interested in training. This will help as we plan workshops. Also, the agents were asked to identify the topics they would most like to see covered in a workshop; their responses will help us to design workshops that will address the critical areas. For example, nutrition, management of internal parasites, marketing, predator control, selection of breeding stock, maintaining health and listing resources for additional information were the topics mentioned most frequently. When asked to rank the topics in order of importance, the biggest item was found to be marketing, followed by selection of breeding stock, management of internal parasites, and nutrition. The responses to this survey give us clear direction and will help insure that we meet the trainer’s needs with our manual and workshops.

At the completion of this project, agents in the Southern region should be better equipped to help producers with sheep or goat production questions. As producers and educators become more confident and knowledgeable, if markets continue to be strong, small ruminant production should expand and allow more farmers to diversify their farms and add a profitable enterprise to their farms. This will increase income, utilize vegetation more effectively, improve cash flow and use labor resources that were previously untapped (such as children or older adults).

Collaborators: