14 pages., via online journal, With shifting demographics of agricultural professionals, online educational resources present opportunities for Extension and other natural resources faculty and personnel to use various tools for supporting agricultural producers in the 21st century using more modern technology. Traditionally, Agriculture and Natural Resource (ANR) Extension programming has used a variety of hands-on methods for teaching new, more sustainable farming practices, such as on-farm field days, workshops, farm visits, and demonstrations. While these traditional teaching methods are preferred among farmers, online support tools play a critical role in the overall decision-making process for farmers who are considering making changes to their current farming practices. Online educational resources, with mobile-friendly versions, can be used to assist Extension and Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) agents meet the needs of their clients using more modern forms of technology, whether from the office or on-farm. This study employed two focus group discussions with Extension and NRCS agents and university faculty members to evaluate the usability of a cover crop website that could be used as a support tool for a variety of agricultural professionals. Four themes emerged from this study with reference to a simple, clean appearance; efficient browsing; process-thinking design; and mobile- friendly. This research will be used to inform the continued development of website tools to benefit farmers, producers, agents, and other stakeholders.
7 pages, Via online journal., As agricultural communications has grown and evolved since its origins more than 100 years ago, the future directions of the discipline related to teaching, research, and as a professional organization are discussed with a challenge to the members of the profession to be engaged in future discussions and decisions.
Taylor, Carl (author), Symon, Elizabeth B. (author), Dabbs, Amy (author), Way, Alexander (author), Thompson, Olivia M. (author), and Center for Livable Communities
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2017-04
Published:
United States: American Society for Horticultural Science
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 16 Document Number: D10447
7 pages., Via online journal., South Carolina public schools consistently rank low in academic performance. In addition, 39% of elementary, 40% of middle, and 30% of high school students within the state are classified as overweight or obese. School garden-based learning (GBL) is a low-cost and high-impact initiative that addresses both poor academic performance and childhood obesity. This study examined how school-based gardens, as part of a pilot farm-to-school (FtS) initiative, are administered and used within academic and cafeteria meal programs. An online survey was developed and sent to 102 educators who previously completed an online training course entitled School Gardening for South Carolina Educators during the 2012–15 academic school years. Data were collected from 37 educators (36% response rate). Survey results indicate that the majority of these educators, although they completed the training course, were unaware that their garden was a component of an FtS program. Moreover, gardens were not integrated with school-wide programs, especially in the cafeteria: most gardens did not contribute food to the cafeteria and meals offered most often did not align with plants learned about in the gardens. Successes of the pilot program were that the majority of educators started and maintained their garden for over 1 year and they were able to use their gardens during the day for academic instruction in multiple disciplines, including math, science, and nutrition.
18 pages, This study examines the application of a self-reliance framework for practitioners and evaluators to better understand the capacities and intrinsic factors impacting smallholder coffee farmers’ commercialization behaviors. We surveyed 40 smallholder coffee producers in Peru using a quantitative instrument. Data were analyzed to determine if statistical relationships exist between farmers’ self-reliance (measured via knowledge and skills, attitudes, and aspirations) and their commercialization behaviors. Findings indicate the self-reliance framework effectively illustrates relationships between farmers’ aspirations, knowledge and skills and their commercialization behaviors, while future, additional studies are needed to better measure and understand the role of commercialization-related attitudes. Practitioners can leverage the study’s findings by using a self-reliance framework to infer farmers’ likeliness to pursue sustainable commercialization practices and align their trainings and design interventions based on evaluation findings. The conceptual self-reliance framework is the first of its kind applied for smallholder coffee commercialization. The findings demonstrate that self-reliance concepts employed recently in other contexts may potentially be used similarly by extension and development facilitators.
20 pages., via online journal., For over 70 years the use of opinion leaders in a two-step communication process has been employed and validated. However, despite the accepted importance of communicating with opinion leaders as a means to cascade information to opinion leaders’ networks of influence there have been few empirical studies specifically examining agricultural and natural resource opinion leader communication channel preferences, particularly from an audience segmentation perspective. The results reported in the study capitalize on previous research data examined from a unique perspective. Specifically, communication channel preferences were analyzed according to opinion leader self-reported demographic categories serving as audience segments. Associations between sex, age, level of employment, level of education and geographical region and communication channel preference were analyzed. The results of the study are descriptive and foundational in nature. Overall, the results indicate a dedicated web page or blog is the most preferred communication channel across all audience segments and conference calls are the least preferred communication channel across the majority of audience segments. The Facebook group communication channel had the most variability between audience segments and the LinkedIn group communicational channel had the largest observed effect sizes among audience segments.
Campbell, Julie H. (author), Henderson, Jason J. (author), Wallace, Victoria H. (author), and University of Georgia
University of Connecticut
Department of Extension, University of Connecticut
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2018-08
Published:
United States: American Society for Horticultural Science
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 11 Document Number: D10327
7 pages., Via online journal., This study examined how different presentation formats affected knowledge gain among school grounds managers. Results indicate large-group participants (presentation to ≈50 participants at a turfgrass field day) had greater knowledge retention than small-group participants (presentation to 6–10 participants at an interactive workshop). Small-group attendees had more flexibility to discuss issues that affected them directly and may have focused on those issues instead of the targeted information. Large-group meetings were more ridged in format and attendees were less able to deviate from the main subject matter being presented. However, the value of the small-group meeting should not be discounted, especially when athletic field grounds managers and staff require information specific to their situation. When disseminating more general information, the large-group meeting format is a better means of delivery.
