Non Technical Summary
USDA's Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) is an important component of USDA's efforts to train the future producers of America's food supply. The BFRDP program typically funds 40 to 70 projects annually. These projects reach very diverse audiences and represent many innovative approaches to helping beginning farmers. Historically, funded projects met annually to share ideas, approaches, and resources to help the program achieve better outcomes. Project directors have not met in-person for the past three years. This proposed conference will bring project directors together to provide training, share resources, and facilitate collaboration to help projects achieve meaningful results for the beginning farmers and ranchers they serve.The Center for Farm Financial Management (CFFM) at the University of Minnesota proposes to host an in-person conference for BFRDP project directors from projects funded in 2021, 2022, and 2023. The conference will help project directors more successfully implement their projects and be better equipped to deliver training that enables BFRDP project participants to successfully launch their farm and ranch businesses. The conference will emphasis helping project directors focus on meaningful participant outcomes and equipping projects to better conduct evaluations that allow them to measure and report project outcomes.Several reasons justify the need for this conference, including the importance of bringing together projects to share resources and insights, to enhance their understanding of outcome-based programming, the importance for project evaluation training, and the need to better enable communicating the successes and value of the BFRDP program to external stakeholders.

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
601	6030	3030	100%

Knowledge Area
601 - Economics of Agricultural Production and Farm Management;

Subject Of Investigation
6030 - The farm as an enterprise;

Field Of Science
3030 - Information and communication;

Goals / Objectives
The purpose of the conference is to convene Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) project directors from projects funded in 2021, 2022, and 2023 to help these project directors more successfully implement their projects and be better equipped to deliver training that enables BFRDP project participants to successfully launch their farm and ranch businesses. The conference will facilitate the sharing of resources and approaches among funded projects. In particular, the conference will emphasize helping project directors focus on meaningful participant outcomes and equipping projects to better conduct evaluations that allow them to measure and report project outcomes.

Project Methods
CFFM is proposing to host this conference to help funded BFRDP projects improve their programming in order to help beginning farmers and ranchers more successfully launch and sustain their farm and ranch businesses. The conference will facilitate:a. Sharing resources and approachesPrior to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, BFRDP funded projects would meet annually to facilitate sharing of ideas and programming resources and approaches. This enabled the program to achieve better outcomes. Project directors have not met in-person for the past three years meaning the program has been hindered from sharing ideas and knowledge among the various projects. This in-person conference is important to bring back the collaborative benefits which add substantial value to the program and the outcomes it provides to beginning farmers and ranchers. This conference will provide multiple opportunities for programming and other resources to be shared among the attendees via presentations from project directors, project posters, and several organized networking sessions.b. Collaboration and networkingIndividual projects benefit from learning about what other projects are doing to help beginning farmers and ranchers. The opportunity to learn from other funded projects has suffered for the past few years due to meeting restrictions. This conference will facilitate sharing of approaches and resources among projects by conducting breakout sessions to give projects the opportunity to describe their projects and discuss with others, by hosting a poster session, and by creating and facilitating networking opportunities.c. Focusing on outcomesThe conference will provide training on measuring and documenting outcomes as project directors deliver their projects. The BFRDP program tries to help projects focus on outcomes that are clear and measurable. However, this is an area where significant improvement could be made. A lack of clear and measurable outcomes limits the impact and success of any project and the overarching program. Without detailed outcomes in mind, designing effective programming is quite difficult, similar to aiming with no target. Ineffective programming design or approach then hinders the ability of the project to empower participants to successfully launch, grow, or improve their farm and ranch businesses. This conference will place a large emphasis on outcomes by having a general session on designing and measuring outcomes, along with sessions on reporting using both the Results Verification System and REEport.d. Improving evaluationEvaluation is essential to measure and document outcomes and to understand the effectiveness of BFRDP programming. To accurately measure the successes of their projects, the conference will conduct evaluation training that focuses on measuring participant outcomes. CFFM has an evaluation specialist on staff and contracts with evaluation specialists from the University of Wisconsin. Using these resources, evaluation training will be a key component of the conference agenda. This content will provide attendees with evaluation skills and resources they can bring back to their individual projects, ultimately helping them document outcomes and deliver more effective training.e. Communicating resultsAnother major reason for this conference is the impact it will have on communicating the success and importance of the BFRDP program. Effective project evaluation and measurement of outcomes provide the means to effectively communicate the program's impact to stakeholders. Improving the ability to effectively communicate BFRDP program outcomes increases the likelihood of program continuation and opens the door for greater program support by external stakeholders. The focus this conference will have on outcomes will enable BFRDP to tell this story more powerfully.