Ag Diversification on the Airwaves - Diversification Broadcasts to Inform and Inspire

Ag Diversification on the Airwaves - Diversification Broadcasts to Inform and Inspire

Summary

In its first year, our project team developed and broadcast 30 minute-long radio features profiling innovative Minnesota farmers. Themes were selected by a collaborative process including all team members have included alternative crops, livestock, on-farm processing and value-added enterprises, conservation, and marketing. We estimate each show has reached more than 350,000 listeners. The shows are available on-line for those who don’t live in a broadcast area. Story transcripts and links to additional information for each of the story topics are also available on-line. The project team meets quarterly by conference call to discuss progress, develop story lineups, and identify ways to improve project scope and reach.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Short –term expected outcomes
S1. Increased experimentation and awareness of farmers and rural citizens about the range and viability of agricultural diversification options.
S2. Increased appreciation of the importance of sustainable agriculture and diversification to urban/consumer audiences.
S3. Increased knowledge about NCR-SARE and MDA producer grant programs, projects, and recipients.

Intermediate expected outcomes
I1. More farmers seek information about and experiment with diversification options.
I2. Closer working relationships among partners.
I3. New friendships, collegiality among farmer team members.

Long term expected outcomes
L1. Increased programs and resources committed to ag diversification.
L2. Wider array of agricultural enterprises on MN farms.
L3. More infrastructure for farming alternatives.
L4. More successful farms on landscape.
L5. Increased ag business opportunities in rural communities.

Accomplishments/Milestones

A functioning project team has met four times – once in person and three times by conference call – just about quarterly. We discuss the progress of the project (who is hearing coffee-shop buzz, etc.) and brainstorm and select story ideas for the next three months. Team members often (but not always) suggest subjects to profile and come to the call ready with contact information. Members seem invested in the project and rarely miss a call. In between calls, we discuss issues that arise via e-mail. One team member does not have e-mail so inadvertently gets left out sometimes.

Project team member Tom Rothman has taken these ideas and produced 30 minute-long programs, which have each aired a minimum of five times on all 33 Minnesota Farm Network member stations. At an estimated 350,000 listener impressions, our show has been heard about ten and a half million times.

In the meantime, a student worker has been updating resource pages for all the broadcast program topic areas and other crop, livestock, value-added and conservation-oriented topics at an MDA web page collection called “Minnesota Farm Opportunities.”

Here are the topics that have run since the beginning of the project to the end of 2006:

11/17/05 Heritage turkeys
11/23/05 Goats
12/12/05 Christmas Trees
1/16/06 Organic dairy farming
1/23/06 On-farm cheese processing
1/30/06 Barley for ethanol
2/13/06 Chippers—chocolate-covered potato chips
2/20/06 Flax
2/27/06 Living fences
3/13/07 Bedding Plants
3/27/06 CSA’s
4/10/06 Sheep
4/17/06 Strip tillage
4/24/06 Bees and honey
5/08/06 Direct marketing
5/15/06 Yak
5/22/06 Specialty hay
6/12/06 Pick you own berries
6/19/06 Grass fed beef
7/10/06 Cut flowers
7/17/06 Picking and selling rocks
7/24/06 Vodka from an ethanol plant
8/14/06 Aerial seeding rye
8/21/06 Deer and elk
9/11/06 Agri-tourism
9/18/06 Grapes for wine
11/13/06 Hunting preserves
11/27/06 Horse boarding
12/18/06 Ag Opps promo
12/25/06 Hydroponics

At the end of each broadcast, Minnesota Farm Network invites listeners to visit its web site, www.minnesotafarmnetwork.com for more information. That link takes listeners the MDA web site and an “Ag Opportunities on the Air” web page (www.mda.state.mn.us/mfo/radioopps.htm) that offers MP3 audio files of each broadcast, as well as links to the MFO web-based information/resources about each topic.

The main Ag Opportunities web page also offers a link to transcripts, which are created by Minnesota Farmers Union and housed on its web site. In addition, MFU devotes a half page to the project in each issue of monthly print publication, “Minnesota Agriculture,” where it runs a summary of the project and one broadcast transcript.

(note: web site snapshots and image of sample “Diversification” section in MFU’s “Minnesota Agriculture” do not reproduce in this electronic reporting system. Please visit www.mda.state.mn.us/mfo/radioopps.htm and www.minnesotafarmnetwork.com)

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

While activity has been easy to measure, we are having a difficult time assessing the impact of this project. We had hoped to see evidence of piggy backing – that is to say media outlets using the show for story ideas and following up with coverage about the topics. A story about CSAs in March 2006 might generate newspaper stories about the topic in April, for example. Our news clipping service is not providing any evidence that this is happening, however. We don’t know whether this lack of evidence is due to our clipping service missing the stories that would prove our hypothesis, whether writers are not hearing the stories, or whether writers are hearing but not inspired by the stories.

The MDA also changed clipping services in November 2005 from a service that reviews actual physical newspapers to one that reviews local and national news outlets that have web sites. Since many of the rural papers in Minnesota are tiny and print only, this change will make it even more difficult to monitor impact in 2006. Based on data provided by a clipping service, we do know that a news release containing general information about the show released in July 2006 reached more than 52,000 readers in Minnesota. The release was also picked up by other organizations, including: the National Association of State Organic Programs’ NASDA NEWS, an electronic newsletter that reaches leaders in all state departments of agriculture; the University of Minnesota’s Sustainable Agriculture Newsletter; Minnesota Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association Newsletter; Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota Newsletter; Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society, and www.allbusiness.com

Web counts provide another way to estimate the project’s impact. The Ag Opportunities on the Air page(s) housed at the MDA were looked at more than 1,787 times by 1,623 different individuals, who spent an average of 20 minutes on the site (compared to the average visit duration of 1.5 minutes for the MDA website as a whole). The MFU site housing transcripts of each show counted 1,181 total hits for the year. Although there are variations across months, no pattern is readily apparent.

[Excel table of web activity on MDA and MFU Ag Opps sites does not display in this electronic reporting format.]

Toward the end of the year, our project team discussed alternative methods of outreach and decided they wanted promotional magnets that could be distributed at agricultural events, recommended giving rebroadcasting permission to stations outside the MFN, and recommended offering the web audios and transcripts as resources to Ag in the Classroom project teachers. These became priorities for 2007.

Project team members have already begun to discuss ways to expand it into non-Minnesota Farm Network broadcast areas. Farmer Jane Jewett, for example, has approached her local public radio station and initiated discussions with them.

As noted above, efforts to measure the impact of this project have proved frustrating. The 30 farmer profiles have theoretically reached more than 300,000 listeners, although we do not know what they are doing with the information. In an effort to measure awareness about the program, the Minnesota Organic Conference and Sustainable Farming Association Conference included questions about it on their conference evaluation forms. Only 7 percent of Organic Conference respondents reported hearing it. Again, this information is only minimally helpful, because it begs even more, somewhat maddening, questions: Did the other 93% not hear it, hear but not remember it, or do they not listen to the mainstream farm network stations that broadcast the show?

We have also experienced some delays in posting shows to the web site and reconfiguring MFO resource pages because the Minnesota Department of Agriculture is undergoing a complete redesign of its entire Internet site, so technical staff have not been as available to us as we expected.

We are making good progress on outcomes S1 (increased awareness of diversification options) I2 (working relationships among partners) and I3 (team collegiality/relationships.) Other outcomes are proving difficult to measure and document.

Plans and priorities for 2007 –
* Increase visibility/outreach efforts (bookmarks, magnets, etc.)
* Seek sponsors to continue project beyond end of SARE funding.
* Encourage program rebroadcasting by other networks, agencies, etc.
* Publicize resource (broadcast and web) to agricultural agencies and groups (e.g., Agri-Marketing Magazine, Extension, FSA, etc., as well as through general meeting.)

Collaborators: