Project Overview
Information Products
Commodities
Practices
- Education and Training: decision support system, farmer to farmer, mentoring, networking, polarity management, conflict resolution, shifting mindset, problem-solving, self-reflection, adaptive thinking, experimentation
- Farm Business Management: business planning, farm succession, risk management, whole farm planning
- Sustainable Communities: analysis of personal/family life, community development, leadership development, quality of life, social psychological indicators
Proposal abstract:
Through a lens of soil health, Skills and Tools for Complex Adaptive Thinking to Equip Leaders in Change Initiatives will expand agricultural professionals’ skillsets in being trusted coaches and resources for farmers and ranchers. These skills are invaluable in the analysis and discernment of scientific information, practices and cultural knowledge—as well as supporting producers’ innate wisdom and ingenuity—to weave through complex issues and conversations, partner with producers in context-based solutions and reveal creative paths forward in polarizing situations. Mark Shrock, a Kansas-based no-till farmer since 1998, describes his journey to creating a soil-centric farm as “more of a thought process in problem-solving than knowing the right answer right now....thinking about biological systems and plants, sun, water and nutrition”1. Often, the best-intentioned farmer or rancher adopts new technology or quick fixes that carry hidden consequences to the farm system, diminishing profitability, soil, plant or animal health and/or social well-being.
Based on the premise that a producer’s mindset, mental models and assumptions can limit or expand their full potential and success, this project offers agricultural educators new tools and coaching frameworks to learn, self-reflect, see “wholes”, avoid unintended degenerative consequences and embrace adaptive-thinking and experimentation. This program fills a critical void in professional development for ag providers and will ultimately lead to positive change through increasing resilience, profitability and well-being in the face of rising input costs, drought, severe weather, declining soil health and mental wellness concerns.
Integrity Soils and the project team will adapt business and ecological frameworks from organizational learning, biomimicry and polarity mapping—along with new discoveries in cognitive and neuroscience on the biology of learning—to design and deliver in-person and online training curricula for at least 160 agricultural professionals throughout the West.
Project objectives from proposal:
For this proposal, objectives and short term learning outcomes are the same. Please reference the attached Logic Model for additional detail.
|
Logic Model reference # |
Objectives |
Indicator |
Target Number |
How Measured |
|
4.1 |
Increase ag providers skills, tools, frameworks and practice to shift mindset/mental models and embrace adaptive thinking and experimentation |
# of ag providers with increased skills, tools, frameworks and practice to shift mindset and embrace adaptive thinking and experimentation |
160 |
End of course survey |
|
4.2 |
Increase ag providers knowledge of and practice with polarity management, organizational learning and biomimicry principles and frameworks |
# of ag providers with increased knowledge of and practice with polarity management, organizational learning and biomimicry principles and frameworks |
160 |
End of course survey |
|
4.3 |
Increase ag providers skills, tools, frameworks and practice with self-assessment of change programs |
# of ag providers that increase skills, tools, frameworks and practice with self-assessment of change programs |
160 |
End of course survey |
|
4.4 |
Increase ag provider understanding of cognitive psychology and neuroscience as they relate to decision-making and pathways to learning in agricultural contexts |
# of ag provider participants that increase understanding of cognitive science as it relates to decision-making and pathways to learning |
160 |
End of course survey |
|
4.5 |
Increase ag providers skills, tools and practice with frameworks that build trust with farmers and ranchers |
# of ag providers that increase skills, tools and frameworks to build trust with farmers and ranchers |
160 |
End of course survey |
|
4.6 |
Deepen ag providers’ conflict resolution skills |
# of ag provider that increase conflict resolution skills |
160 |
End of course survey |