Moving the NC Local Food System Toward Sustainablility: A Comprehensive Graduate course in Local Food Systems for Cooperative Extension Agents, Specialists, and other Educators

Moving the NC Local Food System Toward Sustainablility: A Comprehensive Graduate course in Local Food Systems for Cooperative Extension Agents, Specialists, and other Educators

Summary

This two year project is focused on designing, implementing, and evaluating a graduate course for Extension educators on local food systems. The overall goal of this course is to increase the capacity of Extension educators to work with and educate growers, buyers, and community members in the development of high performing local food systems.

In year one of the project, we collaboratively designed and planned the course based on a facilitated, trans-disciplinary participatory process that engaged more than 40 local food system stakeholders from NC, VA, and SC. The course structure consists of six (6) two-day sessions, with each session focused on an overarching theme important to local food systems development. The course is utilizing interdisciplinary and systems approaches to local food education, including dialogue about environmental, societal, and economic impacts. Invited lecturers and panelists, site tours, readings and homework assignments, small group activities, and in-class and on-line discussions are incorporated to reinforce each session topic. The course runs from February through July 2015.

During year two of the grant, the course will be completed at the end of July and evaluation will be completed and summarized. Recorded lectures and panel presentations will be captioned and organized into modules available for viewing through the Extension Local Foods web portal.  

Objectives/Performance Targets

(1) Objective 1: Extension educators can knowledgeably explain the benefits and challenges of localized food systems to a variety of audiences, including farmers.

• The inclusion of Extension agents and community stakeholders, including growers, in both the graduate course Session Planning and Advisory Committees and as trainers in the sessions ensures that agents will be exposed to the concerns, needs, and assets as perceived by stakeholders. More than 40 stakeholders working in the field of local food systems (including grant cooperators, Cooperative Extension (agents and specialists), farmers, NGO service-providers and consultants, food hub service-providers, and others) contributed resource ideas, input on content design, and offered suggestions for potential speakers, panelists and moderators.
• Extension educators (agents and specialists) are included in the course design on panels and as facilitators and speakers.
• Based on input of the Session Planning and Advisory Committees, we have incorporated into the design of the course the research-base for local food systems and lecturers, panelists, and discussion leaders working in the field who can explain how to interpret the research base, which is highly nuanced, and put it into practice.
• Learning outcomes will be determined through current evaluation efforts. Outcomes evaluations will document Extension educators and other participants’ knowledge improvement, skill development, and levels of aspirations related to local food system programming.

(2) Objective 2: Extension educators can identify the structure and components of food systems and lead a collaborative process of aligning these with agricultural and general community strengths for local food system expansion.  

• Lectures, participatory problem-solving activities, and panels are being used to educate participants in the process of aligning identified community values and assets with local food system components. Sessions are also conveying methods for training community members to design food system initiatives. Course sessions will include guidance on how to design metrics-focused programming that develops food system leaders in the community.
• Outcomes will be determined through current evaluation efforts. Outcomes evaluations will document Extension educators and other participants’ knowledge improvement, skill development, and levels of aspirations related to local food system programming.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Course Planning

The Project Coordinator was hired in spring 2014. A project website (http://go.ncsu.edu/localfoodgradcourse) and promotional flyer were developed to begin soliciting Extension educator interest in the course.

Cooperators and other collaborators were gathered together for a 2-day facilitated meeting in May 2014. The Project Coordinator and other professionals facilitated a consensus-based process to determine and finalize themes for each of the six course sessions. Decisions on themes were informed by topics identified in the grant proposal from a 2012 Extension Local Foods Training and Resource Needs Survey, a 2014 survey of agents interested in taking the course, and the professional opinions and experiences of the cooperators/collaborators who work in the field of local food systems. Themes of the sessions are:

• Introducing Local: Where We have been and where we are going
• The Bottom Line: Economic opportunities & challenges of local food systems
• Value Chain: Farm to fork, part 1
• Food as a Common Denominator: Bringing everyone to the table
• Value Chain: Farm to fork – part 2
• Understanding & Influencing Regulatory Policy & Frameworks / Local Leaders: Framing local policy

Between August and October 2014, the Project Coordinator facilitated one face-to-face and one on-line, consensus-based, instructional design-focused meeting to provide detailed input on the design and content of each the sessions (6 face-to-face and 6 online meetings total). More than 40 stakeholders working in the field of local food systems in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia were engaged in these conversations, and contributed resource ideas, input on content design, and offered suggestions for potential speakers, panelists, moderators, and site tours.

Based on the input of the cooperators and collaborators, the project team drafted a syllabus for the course and detailed agendas for each course session. These documents are being moderately adapted as the course moves through implementation. Final syllabus and session agendas will be provided as attachments in the Final Report.

The website was expanded to include new information on session themes, course locations, dates and course numbers as the course design progressed.

The NC State University team received final approvals to offer the course through the Departments of Horticultural Science and Youth, Family, and Community Science as a special topics course – HS 590 / FYD 590. The project team worked with our cooperators with Virginia Cooperative Extension, South Carolina Cooperative Extension, and North Carolina A&T State University. Each institution set up a parallel course: NC A&T State University – AGED 611, Clemson University – APEC 8990, Virginia Polytechnic Institute – CSES 5984.

The course went through a final promotion phase. Twelve NC Cooperative Extension educators registered for the course for graduate credit through NC State University (six via HS590 and six via FYD590), 1 graduate student in the Ag and Extension Education program at NC A&T State University registered for the course through NC A&T SU, and three (3) NC Cooperative Extension educators have registered for the course for professional development credit. Though Virginia and South Carolina Extension Specialists engaged in the design, development, and promotion planning for the course, and are participating in the course as speakers and moderators, agents in the two states were not able to commit to taking the course within the timeframe of registration, basing concerns on extended time away from work and budgetary challenges.

Course lectures and panel presentations are being recorded using MediaSite and Blackboard Collaborate technologies. These presentations will be posted to the NC Cooperative Extension Local Food web portal, and therefore will be available for access by, and education of, the general public, including Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina Extension educators who were unable to commit to the full class. To further incorporate the VA and SC Extension educators into the course through non-credit professional development opportunities, a decision was made in March 2015 to make some of the webinars between course sessions (currently serving as homework for course participants) available to all Extension educators in all three states. In Year 2 of the grant, we will continue discussions with VA and SC to determine best means for distribution of the course materials in future courses or professional development training.

An online, Moodle server-based site was developed for the course where students can access homework assignments, quizzes, course logistics information, and engage in forum discussions with course instructors and speakers on topics preceding course sessions.

Course Evaluation Plan

An evaluation plan has been developed by the project evaluator of record, Rebecca Dunning. A pre-course, mid-course, and post-course on-line questionnaire will be used to evaluate the outcomes of the course. Additionally, at the end of each two-day session students will complete a short set of questions to evaluate that session’s content. The evaluation questionnaires are designed to gain student feedback so that the remainder of the course, and future local food system courses, are as valuable as they can be to the participants. Students will also be contacted to participate in a qualitative, semi-structured interview to allow them to share any additional feedback at the mid-point and conclusion of the course and 6-months after the course concludes for any additional feedback they wish to share.

Course Implementation

The course began February 24th, 2015 and will include a total of six (6), two-day sessions that will run once a month through July 2015. Planned site tours include an incubator farm, meat processing facility, grocery store that has recently remodeled and rebranded to focus on local food sales, farmstead goat dairy with retail store, meat-producing farms selling locally, farm to table restaurant (Chef and the Farmer), youth development center with local foods focus, food hub, food bank, value-added kitchen, and urban farm and urban food corridor.   

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Most impacts and contributions/outcomes are to be determined through current evaluation efforts and reported at the end of Year 2 of the grant.

Outcomes to date:

• Trans-disciplinary Syllabus for a graduate course on Local Food Systems developed
• Detailed session agendas for six sessions, themes identified above, for a Local Food Systems graduate course developed
• Educational tools supporting a graduate Local Food Systems course developed. To date:
• Grading Rubrics
• Project Assignments
• Small Group Activity, Local Food – Perceptions and Misconceptions, Dara Bloom
• Small Group Activity, Growing a Healthy Economy with Local Foods, Becky Bowen
• Small Group Activity, Introduction to Basic Legal Structures, Becky Bowen
• Evaluation plan and evaluation data collection instruments created.
• Institutional Review Board (IRB) clearance received on evaluation plan and tools so that findings can be shared as a research outcome.
• Pre-course survey and two post-session surveys implemented.
• Local Food Systems lectures recorded. To date:

• Thinking about Global & Local Food Systems, John O’Sullivan,  NC A&T State University (retired)
• Local Food Systems: Key Concepts, Impacts, Issues, J. Dara Bloom, NC State University
• Local Food Systems Project Planning using Logic Models, Johnnie Westbrook, NC A&T State University
• Community  of Innovation: Cabarrus County strengthening our local food system through community action and investment, Aaron Newton, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association
• Business Legal Structures for Local Food Value Chain Businesses, Becky Bowen, NC State University
• Making the Case for Economics and Triple Bottom Line of Local Food Systems Roundtable. Dave Lamie, Clemson University; Eric Bendfeldt, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Eric Henry, T.S. Designs; Kathryn Boys, NC State University; Becky Bowen, NC State University.
• Growing a Healthy Economy with Local Foods –  6 Steps to Success Toolkit. Becky Bowen, NC State University.
• Traditional and Alternative Financing Methods. Caroline Hampton, Octopus Gardens Farm; Jay Cook, Carolina Farm Credit; Rick Larson, Natural Capital Investment Fund; Tami Schwerin, Abundance Foundation, representing Slow Money NC.
• Marketing, Markets, and Regional Branding. Noah Ranells, NC A&T State University.  
• Successful Strategic Marketing Tactics. Anthony Dyson, Blueberry Hill Farm; Trish Tripp, CEFS NC Growing Together Project; Brenda Garner, Sandy Creek Farm; Amy-Lynn Albertson, Davidson County Cooperative Extension.
• Website created, for sharing recorded lectures and panel presentations: http://go.ncsu.edu/localfoodlectures

Participation in education programs to date:

• Face to Face Course Sessions (includes multiple lectures, group activities, panel discussions and site tours – details for entire course will be broken out in Final Project Report)

• 16 participants trained on Local Food Systems theme ‘Introducing Local: Where we have been and where we are going’
• 16 participants trained on Local Food Systems theme ‘Introducing Local: Where we have been and where we are going’

• Webinars

• 27 participants trained on Business Legal Structures for Local Food Value Chain Businesses (18 attended live webinar/ 9 watched recorded webinar)

• Out of Class Site Tour

• 12 participants attended site tour of niche meat processing facility in eastern North Carolina.

Collaborators: