Progress 09/01/11 to 08/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Weekly meetings were held among the PIs and other contributors to plan the conference and evaluations. The event "Dryland Organic Agriculture in the PNW: Meeting Opportunities and Challenges," a special symposium of the 2011 Tilth Producers of Washington Conference, was held in Yakima, WA on Friday, November 11, 2011. The conference included a session on markets and marketing for organic dryland products, agronomy for dryland systems, and producer examples of individualized organic dryland production systems. Attendees were surveyed both on the day of the symposium and 6 months later to assess changes in knowledge, contacts, and likelihood to use new knowledge. In addition to information exchange, the symposium included matchmaking sessions for producers and purchasers of organic dryland grains. The conference presentations were streamed live online via eOrganic and posted for later viewing. The different sessions have had 13-168 views. The target audience for later viewing includes producers and students in the Pacific Northwest dryland region and other dryland regions. PARTICIPANTS: The PI Lynne Carpenter-Boggs led organization and delivery of the symposium and evaluations. Bertie Weddell helped organize the conference in particular speaker travel, and conducted the follow-up survey. Julia Piaskowski helped organize the conference in particular the match-making sessions for producers and purchasers. Piaskowski, Weddell, and Carpenter-Boggs all contributed to data analysis and manuscript writing. The Tilth Producers of Washington organization, in particular Nancy Allen, was a critical partner in symposium delivery. Venue management and advertising were primarily done by this partner. Speakers included Bob Quinn, David Stelzer, Maurice Robinette, Eric Zakarison, Eric Nelson, Stacie Davies, Luke Zigovitz, Lou Anderson, Kate Painter, Misha Manichuri, Kristy Ott, and Rich Koenig. Session moderators included Kate Painter, Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, and David Huggins. TARGET AUDIENCES: The target audience included producers, students, purchasers, and ag professionals in the dryland Pacific Northwest and/or organic markets. Eighty-four participants other than the symposium organizers attended the symposium. (Approximately 40 registered students were unable to attend because of weather.) Most survey respondents were producers or students. The majority of attendees were from Washington, although Idaho, Oregon, and Montana were also represented. Respondents ranged in age from 21 to 64. Most had at least a four-year college degree (75% of respondents to the day-of-symposium survey; 95% of respondents to the follow-up survey). Producers who responded to the surveys had a wide range of experiences in farming: between 1 to 60 years of farming practice and from 0.1 to 10,000 acres under cultivation. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Most symposium attendees who responded to surveys indicated a significant level of learning from each symposium session. On the day of the symposium, 18 (75%) of 24 respondents estimated that their learning had increased at least one point (on a 0-4 scale) in the marketing session. For instance, a one-point increase in learning could represent improvement from "slight" to "moderate" knowledge, or improvement from a "good" to a "high" level of knowledge. Similarly, 17 (71%) of 24 respondents assessed their learning to have increased at least one point in the dryland organic agronomy session. In both sessions, the proportions of respondents reporting slight or no knowledge decreased and the proportions of respondents with moderate, good, or high knowledge levels increased. On the day-of- survey, 19 (86%) of 22 respondents indicated that they made new connections at the symposium; 19 (95%) of 20 respondents answered affirmatively to a similar question on the follow-up survey. The number of connections made ranged from one to more than 10. Most new connections were either among producers or between producers and students, university or government personnel, or industry representatives. In the follow-up survey, 14 (67%) of 21 respondents had used some of their new connections, and 19 (95%) of 20 respondents planned to use their new connections in the future. On both surveys, a majority of respondents indicated that they intended to use the information and connections they made at the symposium. Fifty and 64% of respondents to the follow-up survey reported using information they had learned on business strategies or dryland organic farming methods, respectively.
Publications
- Piaskowski, Julia, Bertie Weddell, and Lynne Carpenter-Boggs. 2013. Evaluating a Symposium on Dryland Organic Agriculture in the Pacific Northwest. Journal of Extension. (in review)
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