SARE Research and Education Program Impacts and Diffusion

View the project final report

Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: on-farm/ranch research, research

The purpose of this evaluation is to determine the quantifiable impacts of
S-SARE R&E grants and the reach or diffusion of the grantees’ efforts to farmers,
ranchers, and other pertinent user groups, particularly in the general locale
of the funded project.

The primary research objectives are to:
1. Determine if the scientific community accepted the research (refereed publications).
(Impacts)
2. Determine what impact adopting the change may have had on some facet of
farming/ranching operations (e.g., profitability, increase or decrease in labor
or management, fertilizer costs, yields per acre, soil/air/water quality
changes). (Impact)
3. Determine how many other farmers or ranchers attended field days or had
personal visits with the researchers/educators. (Reach)
4. Estimate how many of those visiting farmers or ranchers also tested or
adopted a practice or technology. (Reach)
5. Determine if changes in the grant-making, contracting or reporting process,
or requirements are necessary to make the program more user-friendly,
based on the comments of grantees. (Customer Service)

The Center for Evaluative Studies in Michigan State University’s Department of
Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies (MSU CARRS)
responded to the 2006 Targeted Request for Proposals (RFP) From the Southern
SARE Region. A grant recipient survey instrument developed for Western
Region SARE was used for data collection. Only small and regionally-specific
changes were made to the prototype survey.

A survey was administered to all 1994 to 2004 Southern Region SARE R&E
grant recipients in winter and spring 2007. Principal investigators were contacted
through a series of postal and electronic mailings. In each mailing the
survey webpage link and unique access code were provided. In the electronic
mailings, respondents could link directly to the survey from within the emailed
message. Follow-up reminder mailings were used to increase overall response
rate.

During the 18 weeks of data collection, non-responders received a paper
version of the survey in their reminder mailing. The sequence of mailings was
initiated on February 9, 2007, and contacts continued through June 19, 2007.
The overall response rate was 60.75% by principal investigator (n=107) and
59.66% by project (n=119).
Data from on-line surveys was electronically entered in the survey database
established in Vovici. Data from paper surveys was entered manually by one
of the project team members. Data were downloaded into SPSS from Vovici.
Data were randomly checked for accuracy using frequency analysis. Data were
analyzed using SPSS. Threshold for reporting has been 5 respondents. Hence,
there is n/a when a question had four or less respondents.

Descriptive statistics including frequency counts, percentage, range, mean and
standard deviation were used to describe the findings. One-way analysis of
variance and t-tests were used, as appropriate, to determine differences in
mean scores by respondent groups.

(Editor’s note: A very detailed final report complete with tables and figures that cannot fit into this reporting template is available from the Southern Region SARE office by calling (770) 412-4787.)

The purpose of this evaluation is to determine the quantifiable impacts of SSARE
R&E grants and the reach or diffusion of the grantees’ efforts to farmers,
ranchers, and other pertinent user groups, particularly in the general locale of
the funded project. The primary research objectives are to:
1. Determine if the scientific community accepted the research (refereed publications).
2. Determine what impact adopting the change may have had on some facet of
farming/ranching operations (e.g., profitability, increase or decrease in labor
or management, fertilizer costs, yields per acre, soil/air/water quality
changes). (Impact)
3. Determine how many other farmers or ranchers attended field days or had
personal visits with the researchers/educators. (Reach)
4. Estimate how many of those visiting farmers or ranchers also tested or
adopted a practice or technology. (Reach)
5. Determine if changes in the grant-making, contracting or reporting process,
or requirements are necessary to make the program more user-friendly,
based on the comments of grantees. (Customer Service)