Source: PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to
THE NORTHEAST REGIONAL CENTER FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT - 2014
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1003808
Grant No.
2014-51150-22094
Cumulative Award Amt.
$237,284.00
Proposal No.
2014-06676
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Aug 15, 2014
Project End Date
Aug 14, 2016
Grant Year
2014
Program Code
[UU.R]- Rural Development Centers
Project Director
Goetz, S. J.
Recipient Organization
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
408 Old Main
UNIVERSITY PARK,PA 16802-1505
Performing Department
Agricultural Economics, Sociol
Non Technical Summary
We will implement the programs and activities approved by the Center's Board of Directors at the Fall 2013 Board Meeting in Beltsville, MD, and build on the past programs and successes documented in the Annual Report 2013. The leadership of NERA and NEED continues to seek out the Center for its expertise in rural development and is asking us to contribute to new regional initiatives in the areas of climate change and local food systems. Responding to input from the Center's Technical Advisory Committee, we will continue our efforts of networking land grant university stakeholders and other agencies in the Northeast as well as nationally. The Center's three key subject matter areas align with the priorities of NERA and NEED as well as USDA/NIFA as follows: entrepreneurship and job creation, including workforce development; community, local and regional food systems, as related to childhood obesity, food safety, food access and capacity to feed the region and world; and land use and balanced use of natural resources, addressing trade-offs between alternative forms of energy use and development, invasive species, and other issues. The Center's continuing relevance, importance and impact are evident, inter alia, from the fact that the Director was invited to support a network development following the Joint Northeast-Canadian Workshop on Climate Change last fall and to help FCS Educators develop a local food systems-oriented grant proposal, among other activities. The social capital data set developed by the Center is used in an analysis that has served as the basis for Congressional Budget Committee testimony and attracted the attention of senior leadership within USDA. Webinars and workshops organized by the Center attract around 150 registrants per event. Finally, we are providing key support to national initiatives such as SET and CAPE.
Animal Health Component
85%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
15%
Applied
85%
Developmental
0%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1316050301010%
6056050301010%
6086050301060%
6086050308020%
Knowledge Area
605 - Natural Resource and Environmental Economics; 608 - Community Resource Planning and Development; 131 - Alternative Uses of Land;

Subject Of Investigation
6050 - Communities, areas, and regions;

Field Of Science
3010 - Economics; 3080 - Sociology;
Goals / Objectives
We will implement the programs and activities approved by the Center's Board of Directors at the Fall 2013 Board Meeting in Beltsville, MD, and build on the past programs and successes documented in the Annual Report 2013. The leadership of NERA and NEED continues to seek out the Center for its expertise in rural development and is asking us to contribute to new regional initiatives in the areas of climate change and local food systems. Responding to input from the Center's Technical Advisory Committee, we will continue our efforts of networking land grant university stakeholders and other agencies in the Northeast as well as nationally. The Center's three key subject matter areas align with the priorities of NERA and NEED as well as USDA/NIFA as follows: entrepreneurship and job creation, including workforce development; community, local and regional food systems, as related to childhood obesity, food safety, food access and capacity to feed the region and world; and land use and balanced use of natural resources, addressing trade-offs between alternative forms of energy use and development, invasive species, and other issues. The Center's continuing relevance, importance and impact are evident, inter alia, from the fact that the Director was invited to support a network development following the Joint Northeast-Canadian Workshop on Climate Change last fall and to help FCS Educators develop a local food systems-oriented grant proposal, among other activities. The social capital data set developed by the Center is used in an analysis that has served as the basis for Congressional Budget Committee testimony and attracted the attention of senior leadership within USDA. Webinars and workshops organized by the Center attract around 150 registrants per event. Finally, we are providing key support to national initiatives such as SET and CAPE.
Project Methods
The 2008 external review identified four distinct but complementary models that the Center could follow or apply as methods and procedures in the various issues areas. These continue to guide our work. Specifically, the Center:produces and disseminates research with no explicit Extension products,produces and disseminates research and produces Extension products,organizes initial and follow-up convenings that lead to Center commissioned and disseminated best practice Extension products, andsees the potential of developing Extension products from others' work, whether research or Extension, within the region or not, and commissions and disseminates Extension products. The following general procedures will be used. The Center will:(1) Conduct, promote and extend through outreach both think tank-level and peer-reviewed studies of agricultural development, entrepreneurship, land use and community vitality, including work that addresses farm industry clusters and local/regional food systems development. This effort has received a major boost now that the Policy Research Center (NARDeP) is functional, with two post-docs and faculty-consultant collaborators.(2) Organize and sponsor multi-disciplinary and multi-state educational efforts in the areas of community development impact assessment, entrepreneurship, balanced land use and vibrant and sustainable communities; as part of this, the Center will continue to expand its website as a tool for furthering the mission of the land grant system in the Northeast in community development. A transition to a new Content Management System will occur over this funding period; and(3) Continue to fulfill its other multiple networking responsibilities through strategic partnerships, conference calls, maintenance of listservs, conference participation, publications and by identifying leading edge programs that can be shared across the states (and nationally) via Webinars so as to reduce duplication of effort.

Progress 08/15/14 to 08/14/16

Outputs
Target Audience:Target Audience includes Deans and Directors of the land grant universities in the Northeast, professionals at USDA and within NIFA, faculty and educators across the regions, policymakers, planners, citizens and other audiences, depending on the topic. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Learning Community on Impact Indicators provided 19 individuals from around the country to engage in co-learning about documenting evidence of impacts. An output of this team, a 40-page booklet that describes how to collect impact data, was shared at the NACDEP meeting in Burlington, VT, and also through our newsletter, which goes to more than 1,000 people. The two small grants teams engaged in cross-state collaboration and co-learning, and also have made numerous presentations about their learnings at conferences and meetings, and through webinars which are archived on multiple websites. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We share resources generated by the Center through our website, our bi-monthly newsletter, and multiple presentations given by the Director and postdoctoral scholars. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We have made significant progress in achieving the goals of this project. In particular, the impact indicators work that is being led by Dr. George Morse on behalf of the NERCRD has resulted in two major posters presented during the poster session at the NACDEP annual meeting in Burlington. In addition, a 40-page report has been generated outlining why impact indicator reporting is essential to CRD sustainability and how it can be done using credible and practical tools. This report is summarized in a four-page brochure that was made available to the leadership of the NE land grant universities at their annual joint summer session in Pittsburgh, PA. The two small grants projects that we supported were highly successful, and each project will make a major presentation at a pre-conference workshop in Burlington at the NACDEP meeting. There is great interest among the land grant universities in using IMPLAN to document impacts of the universities, including the adverse implications of state-level funding cuts. We prepared documents to that effect in Pennsylvania, which were widely used in the public media.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Goetz, S.J. and M. Davlasheridze (2016, available online). "State Cooperative Extension Spending and Farmer Exits," Applied Econoimc Perspectives and POlicy. doi: 10.1093/aepp/ppw007.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Stephan J. Goetz The Roles of Agricultural Economists in Food System Research. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Available on CJO 2016 doi:10.1017/age.2016.8
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Li, M., S.J. Goetz, M. Partridge and D. Fleming (2016) Location Determinants of High Growth Firms, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Liang, J. and S.J. Goetz (2016) Self-Employment and Trade Shock Mitigation, Small Business Economics, 46: 45-56.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Goetz, S.J. Food Systems-Related Research at the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development: Applications to Maine. Presented to the Agricultural Council of Maine, February 24, 2015.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Goetz, S.J. and Y. Han. Evaluation of Rural Area Classifications Using Statistical Modeling. Presented at the Workshop on Rationalizing Rural Area Classifications, National Academies of Sciences and Economic Research Service, US Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC, May 9, 2015. (See below.)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Li, M., S.J. Goetz, and B. Weber. County-Level Determinants of Intergenerational Economic Mobility. Presented at the 2015 Federal Research Community Development Conference, Washington, DC, April 2-3, 2015.
  • Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: G. Morse, C. French, S. Chazdon. Impact Indicators Tips Booklet: Practical and credible methods for using the "but for" rule to document Extension Community Development Impacts. Published as part of the "Resources for Documenting Impacts" area of our website: http://aese.psu.edu/nercrd/impacts


Progress 08/15/14 to 08/14/15

Outputs
Target Audience:Target Audience includes Deans and Directors of the land grant universities in the Northeast, professionals at USDA and within NIFA, faculty and educators across the regions, policymakers, planners, citizens and other audiences, depending on the topic Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?A graduate assistantship was funded by this project. Several Extension staff are being trained via the small-grants program and Learning Circle described above. Hundreds of other faculty, researchers, Extension staff, and students received training and professional development via numerous presentations made at conferences and workshops. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Findings have been disseminated to the general public through book chapters, and to academics via the journal articles and presentations at scholarly conferences, and to a diverse stakeholder base via our bi-monthly newsletter and through our website. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to provide support to the two grants projects we are supporting, and help the groups to write up their results with the goal of improved project impact reporting. Results will be distributed to CRED educators in the Northeast and beyond via webinars, website and newsletter, and to communities that participated in learning activities. We will also continue with the learning circles that are seeking to incorporate more impact reporting about CRED efforts within the Northeast and nationally. A series of Zoom-based conference calls has already been planned for the upcoming year.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In the last year, the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development made considerable progress in bringing together Extension educators in the region, and beyond, around topics that are important for them. Most notably, we have funded two special grants projects, in addition to making progress on the CRED Impact Indicators work. Descriptions of the two projects that were selected to receive our special grants funding follow: 1) The West Virginia University (WVU) Extension Service views the Community First Impressions Program as an important tool in the community development process. Their team, which includes several partner institutions, received funding to expand this programming into other states. With a formal start date of July 1, 2015, the group already has held four webinars. The first provided an introduction to the First Impressions program; the second and third focused on expanding the program to tourism assessment and to unique geographies and populations; the fourth described previous evaluation attempts and how the program can be evaluated across states going forward. The webinars brought together state and county faculty from four Northeast states (CT, NH, VT, WV) and four Northcentral states (MI, MN, OH, WI), plus several community representatives from the Northeast who were interested in the program. The team also met in Brattleboro, VT in September to walk through a complete implementation of the First Impressions program. They engaged a community stakeholder team, conducted both the community and tourism assessments, and wrapped up by summarizing their findings for the stakeholder group. The community will receive a formal report in the coming weeks. Team members also have made or are planning presentations at the Southern New England American Planning Association annual conference and at the National Extension Tourism conference in Galveston, TX. 2) Communities often need economic data for decision-making. Communities looking to attract or retain a business may want information on how that business affects their local economy. Communities facing the sudden loss of a key employer may find information on the ripple effects of the loss helpful in decision making and in seeking additional assistance. Seven Northeast Extension/research faculty from five NE states asked to learn about University of Minnesota Extension's two successful programs to address these needs: A Futures Workshop facilitates in-depth exploring into how industries in a given economy interact and the implications for other industries and households An Emergency Economic Impact Analysis, which explores how a sudden economic change -- like a business closing or a natural disaster -- will affect an economy and its industries and households. The grant started on July 1, 2015 and continues for one year. After several conference calls, the team will have its first in-person meeting in Minnesota in October, during which the Minnesota team members will provide training to Northeast team members, and together they will participate in a Futures Workshop in McLeod County, MN. The Center's efforts to evaluate the community, regional, and economic development (CRED) programs in the region continued this year, with the formation of a Learning Circle for the Northeast CRED Impact Indicators. Under the leadership of Special Projects Advisor George Morse, the group is exploring the practical ways in which they can collect credible data to evaluate the impact of regional CRED programs, and will share what they learn with regional and national colleagues. Building on the work of the Center's 2013-2014 Evaluation Fellow Heidi Mouillesseaux-Kunzman, the Learning Circle members selected five indicators to focus on during their initial pilot program, which will examine a small number of CRED programs in two to six Northeast states. Number of businesses created/expanded/retained Number of jobs created Number of jobs expanded/retained Number of participants who reported new leadership roles or activities in their communities and organizations Dollar value of grants or resources generated, saved, or leveraged by organizations or communities The group includes colleagues in other regions who have experience collecting data and reporting on the impacts of CRED programs. Acting as Master Learners in the Learning Circle, these individuals function as members of the team and also answer questions, provide feedback, and review drafts of the team's documents. A limited number of leaders from the Western region also have been invited to participate in our learning circle as guests.

Publications

  • Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: http://nercrd.psu.edu