Diversifying with Small Ruminants for Profitability

Diversifying with Small Ruminants for Profitability

Summary

PASA is coordinating field days, intensive learning programs, conference workshops and regional group meetings for small ruminant producers for the purpose of encouraging stewardship and farm profitability. It is our hope that current producers will see an improvement in management and profitability as a result of attending our programs, while others will gain the confidence to introduce small ruminants into existing operations.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Of 250 farmers participating in this project, 35 will attend at least half of the technical programs and 25 will use the trainings to successfully introduce small ruminants to diversify operations or implement a change to significantly improve profitability of existing operations.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Our goal for summer 2006 was to offer at least two small ruminant programs that would be attended by at least 100 farmers. In actuality, we offered FIVE field days and FOUR intensive learning programs. The field days, for which we do not limit participation, were attended by a total of 183 farmers and the intensive learning programs, which were limited to 25 or 35 participants each, all sold out for a total of 120 participants. We are extremely pleased with our first season of programming (over 300 small ruminant participants!) under this grant and are aware that without SARE funding we would not have had such a successful season. Here is a list of titles of events held this summer:
Sheep Dairying and Cheesemaking
Grazing School with Sarah Flack
Goat Dairying and Organic Vegetables
Reclaiming Fallow Land with Goats for Grazing
Naturally Raised Grass-fed Lamb and Processing
Hands On Small Ruminant Care (offered twice)
Small Ruminant Parasite Control and Nutrition Calculators
FAMACHA Certification

The farmers on our advisory committee, specifically Sandra Kay Miller and Connie Wenger, suggested that we hold off offering a pre-conference track on small ruminant production until our 2008 conference. This is only a minor change in the work plan, as we are simply postponing the one promised pre-conference track. Still, we are still going to meet our goal of offering at least two conference workshops specifically addressing small ruminant production and marketing issues and we can expect that at least 80 farmers will attend these sessions. Here is a list of the three small ruminant conference workshops scheduled for the February Farming for the Future conference:
Small Ruminant Pasture Management
Predator Control
Providing for the Ethnic Market

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

We conducted exit surveys at the field day and intensive learning programs and nearly every participant indicated that they intend to incorporate something they learned at our events to improve their production and marketing practices. However, a better gauge of the effectiveness of our program will be the end-of-the season survey, which we will use to assess exactly what practices or modifications have been adopted as a result of something participants learned at the small ruminant events.

Since SARE has provided salary money for a PASA staff member to focus on the small ruminant issue, we found that we were able to craft better press releases, contact press members directly, and generally promote the field days and intensive learning programs to a broader audience. The result has been that all of the field days were attended by non-PASA members and many were covered by members of the press.

PASA is also collecting a file of all material handed out at field days and intensive learning programs, which is made available to anyone upon request and will be submitted to SARE at the conclusion of this project.