Recipient Organization
AMERICAN FARMLAND TRUST, INC
1150 CONNECTICUT AVE STE 600
WASHINGTON,DC 20036
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Through a three-year project, Advancing Water Resilient Strategies - Supporting Adoption of Climate-Smart Farming Practices by Small and Mid-Scale Underserved Producers on the West Coast, American Farmland Trust (AFT), in collaboration with Northwest Climate Hub, California Climate Hub, Oregon State University, the Dry Farming Institute, and Oregon Climate and Agriculture Network, will work to build stronger regional networks of agricultural organizations and peer-to-peer producer communities of practice working within and across Washington, Oregon, and California to advance landscape level agricultural and food system resilience to drought and climate instability. A Water Resilience Coordinator will be hired to facilitate relationships between partners and promote integrated research, education, and outreach involving water resilience and climate smart farming practices. Virtual training sessions will be provided for agricultural professionals in WA, OR, and CA that focus on on-farm solutions for water resilience. These sessions will be tailored to the needs of attendees using data collected from pre- and post-surveys. In addition to agricultural professionals, farmers will also have the opportunity to learn by being exposed to regionally appropriate examples of water resilient strategies through 12 hands-on demonstration projects. Peer-to-peer learning circles will be conducted to increase knowledge, access to resources, and the confidence of beginning, small-scale, underserved women producers in the region. The outcomes and lessons learned from the various training, demonstrations, and learning circles will be highlighted using storytelling, case studies, and mapping to broadcast this information to a wider audience.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
As drought and climate change intensify conflicts over water along the West Coast, collaboration on climate smart agricultural solutions across state boundaries has been limited. The partners on the proposed project have heard clearly (via surveys, listening sessions, and one-on-one interviews), that landscape-scale implementation of water resilient strategies on working lands will require integrated regional partnerships. These partnerships will help small and mid-scale (USDA, 2021) underserved producers, communities, and agricultural professionals connect across state boundaries, access resources, and learn from one another.The goal of this project, a collaboration between the American Farmland Trust, Northwest Climate Hub, California Climate Hub, Oregon State University, the Dry Farming Institute, and Oregon Climate and Agriculture Network, is to build stronger regional networks of agricultural organizations and peer-to-peer producer communities of practice working within and across Washington, Oregon, and California to advance landscape level agricultural and food system resilience to drought and climate instability. The project supports this overarching goal by orienting around five central and overlapping objectives:Objective I: Better integrate research, education, and outreach conducted around water resilience/climate smart farming practices in California, Oregon, and Washington through a newly formed Water Resilience Coordinator position.Objective II: Build the capacity of 150+ agricultural professionals from CA, OR, and WA to support growers in transitioning to water resilient strategies through participation in regional training and a newly formed online community of practice.Objective III: Highlight regionally appropriate examples of water resilient strategies and provide an opportunity for experiential learning for 300+ farmers through participation in 12 hands-on demonstration projects and local case studies in CA, OR, and WA.Objective IV: Increase knowledge, access to resources, and confidence related to climate change and water-resilience building practices for 360+ beginning, small scale, and women producers.Objective V: Amplify the project's impact and engage a broader audience of stakeholders through storytelling, case studies, and producer highlights.
Project Methods
EffortsThis project will employ a number of proven methods including hands-on on-farm demonstrations, peer-to-peer workshops for producers, and communities of practice for agricultural professionals and producers.The principal techniques used to reach historically underserved producers will be centered around peer-to-peer Learning Circles (LC). The success of the LC approach is tied to its reliance on non-hierarchical learning spaces that center the experiences of the farmers/ranchers, landowners, and technical service providers who attend and organize them, which is a preferred mode of learning among many women and others who are marginalized in mainstream agricultural contexts. LCs emphasize hands-on and visual learning, provide networking opportunities with other women landowners/producers, and offer "real time" information critical to the participants' needs. Typically, a LC will have four main components: a set of lengthy introductions, a technical resource lead providing in-depth information on a specific topic (e.g., soil health, climate change, lease negotiations, etc.), a field tour or demonstration, and an evaluation and reflection period. Tours and demonstrations of farms are included for the purposes of grounding practices and approaches, and building community, among participants.Training for agricultural service providers will build on lessons learned from OrCAN's virtual climate resilience training efforts that started in 2021 and continue in 2022. OrCAN's training program brings together staff from a variety of institutions that support farmers, including: USDA, state agencies, soil and water conservation districts, Extension, university, and nonprofits focused on climate resilience on farms and ranches. Technical assistance staff come together with the intent of creating a community of practice dedicated to supporting, improving, and better understanding farming and ranching for climate resilience in Oregon. The planning team for this program includes a representative from each audience we want to reach, which has led to increased understanding of cultural norms and differences among institutions. The diverse planning team has also led to more robust and inclusive outreach systems that bring in a substantial number of attendees; in 2021 OrCAN had 275 registrants. To reach a broader audience, the training was offered virtually and incorporated techniques to create an interactive and engaging training, from balancing panel discussions with presentations to creating facilitated breakout room discussions and live polling.Experiential, hands-on demo projects will be led by DFI in collaboration with local partners and will showcase real-world examples of how producers and land managers are adapting to climate change with water resilient strategies. Demo Partners will feature place-based approaches and implementation of water resilient practices including but not limited to: conservation cover no till, cover crop, reduced till, soil moisture monitoring, irrigation efficiency, mulching, upland habitat management, indigenous agricultural knowledge, building soil health, and drought tolerant varieties. Demonstration sites will be multi-functional and support all five project objectives by providing venues for learning circles, case studies for Climate Hub resources and climate resilience training for ag professionals, as well as experiential learning opportunities. Many of the Demonstration Partners will be teaching farms and/or actively engaging with their communities, which will expand the reach of this project and amplify our impact.EvaluationAll of the activities of this project have extensive evaluation components that allow partners to measure activity efficacy and participant learning and give immediate feedback that will inform future programming within this project. Specific evaluation components include:Evaluation for Learning CirclesWe will collect two forms of evaluation data as part of this project; first, Learning Circle participants and Learning Circle resource provider participants will provide feedback via exit surveys, giving us a quantitative assessment of impacts, particularly changes in knowledge, confidence, and intentions to take action as a result of participating in our programming. Secondly, we will conduct follow-up interviews with select participants to more purposefully track progress on our program objectives.Evaluation for Technical Service Provider TrainingOrCAN will conduct evaluation through post-event surveys and follow-up interviews. Technical service provider participants will provide feedback via exit surveys giving us a quantitative assessment of impacts, particularly changes in knowledge, confidence, and intentions to take action as a result of participating in our programming. Interviews with the planning team will help us better understand how we can modify the training methods to better serve the needs of our varied audience. The interviews will capture the participants' experiences with the training as well as understanding any critical gaps we need to address in the future.Evaluations for Demonstration SitesThe Dry Farming Institute and Oregon State University Extension will conduct evaluation through two methods: host interviews and day-of participant surveys. Interviews with demonstration hosts (10-15 hosts) will measure the host's perception of the pros and cons of hosting a demonstration site, allowing each demonstration site to provide valuable feedback for future demonstration events. These interviews will be conducted by phone or in person and will be recorded for accuracy. Interviews will capture the hosts' experiences with the demonstration as well as understanding any new insights gained from assessing soil water holding capacity through soil core evaluations; soil moisture dynamics through use of moisture sensors; etc. Surveys of field day participants will take place as post-event surveys, distributed and collected on-site before participants leave. Surveys will measure changed perceptions, gains in knowledge about water resilient strategies, and participant knowledge of available programmatic resources.Overall Project EvaluationIn year three of the project, we will collect primary data in the form of qualitative interviews with a subset of both resource providers and participants, which will allow AFT to do a deeper dive and improve our understanding of program impacts, particularly actions taken as a result of participating in Learning Circles. Annually, the project PIs will look at the full breadth of evaluation and will make adjustments to learning circles, on-farm demonstrations, technical assistance training, and other project components, based on feedback from participants and partners.Data AnalysisData collection will occur on-farm at demonstration sites, on-farm in the form of program evaluation, and through post-event interviews of demonstration hosts, learning circle attendees, and service providers. Additionally, secondary data will be collected through local and national databases. Expected data types collected for the demonstration farm component include:Primary DataPre- and post-surveys of learning circle participants;Evaluations collected from demonstration site participants;Data collected at demonstration sites, including soil core analysis, soil fertility testing, soil moisture sensor data, reported yields, and qualitative assessments from farmers.Secondary DataWeather station data from local stations;Demographic data (census);Relevant geographic data for mapping purposes.Qualitative and post-program evaluation data will be analyzed by program staff, several of whom have extensive experience in monitoring and evaluation of projects. As needed, data will be obtained externally (e.g. soil testing services, and publicly available weather stations).