Recipient Organization
ARKANSAS AGRIC EXTENSION SERVICE
(N/A)
LITTLE ROCK,AR 72203
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The Southern Risk Management Education Center (referred as SRMEC or Center) at the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture leverages expertise from the Center's faculty/staff and diverse advisory council to help farmers and ranchers make informed risk management decisions. SRMEC intentionally builds relationships across the region with public and private agricultural stakeholders to enhance our program impacts. The Center's mission is to empower the strengths and skills of Southern region producers involved in the management of agricultural production, marketing, financial, legal, and human resource risks. SRMEC strives to improve producers' abilities to manage risks and increase farm profitability by delivering programs designed to change risk management knowledge and behavior. Our main goal is to deliver resources through capacity building activities and management of the competitive grants program that enable farmers and ranchers to make informed decisions and to empower producers to manage the diverse risks facing their operations.SRMEC's primary purpose is to continue the successful management of the Extension Risk Management Education (ERME) competitive grants program and outreach activities. The Center continues collaboration with the Southern Extension Economics Committee--collaboration of region's land-grant extension economist--to develop risk management resources and outreach. A primary focus of SRMEC has been and will continue to be establishing and maintaining meaningful relationships with key agricultural stakeholders across the region. These strategic and intentinal efforts include public and private organizations serving agriclture, farm and farm organizations, and connections with socially disadvantaged and historically underserved (SDFR) entities/clientele. Lastly, SRMEC plans to continue collaborating with ERME partners--other three regional centers and the Digital Center--to continue to expand and improve the use and understanding of the ERME programs.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
The Southern Risk Management Education Center (SRMEC) leverages expertise from the Center's faculty/staff and diverse advisory council to help farmers and ranchers make informed risk management decisions. SRMEC intentionally builds relationships across the region with public and private agricultural stakeholders. The Center's mission is to empower the strengths and skills of Southern region producers involved in the management of agricultural production, marketing, financial, legal, and human resource risks.Objective 1: Manage SRMEC Competitive Grants Program: SRMEC's primary purpose is to continue the successful management of the Extension Risk Management Education (ERME) competitive grants program and outreach activities. For over a decade, SRMEC has collaborated on the development and release of a call for proposals that invest in education outreach that generates farmer and rancher results that empower producers to manage risks. The Center uses guidance from two evaluation panels representing eleven states, and on-going stakeholder feedback to keep its pulse on the rapidly changing risk management landscape faced by the region's producers. SRMEC conducts individual consultations and annual trainings--one-on-one, face-to-face and online--for potential applicants, project directors and advisory council members to enhance program operations, transparency, and performance. To enhance quality of outreach capacity, the Center conducts a series of trainings for each funding announcement. Areas highlighted include project delivery, evaluation, and promotion activities. The ERME's Results Verification System (RVS) is highlighted along with discussions of evaluation expectations and RVS tutorials. During our project director training--also addressed in applicant trainings--is the need to understand and transparently evaluate what "participants" accomplish. Capturing producer actions and impacts is the foundation of our results-based program.Objective 2. Collaborate with Southern Extension Economists on Outreach and Resource Development: SRMEC continues collaboration with the Southern Extension Economics Committee--collaboration of region's land-grant extension economist--to develop risk management resources and outreach. The on-going collaboration seeks to maintain engagement on the latest market outlook, policy analysis, decision aids and resources to aid farmers and ranchers with evaluating their risk environment. SRMEC plans to continue to serve as a host/sponsor for the Southern Outlook Conference held annually in Atlanta, Georgia. The annual event is the premiere outreach conference for the Southern region. It is attended by land-grant Extension economists, university faculty, agricultural stakeholders, county agents, and industry professionals. The committee engagements serve as a direct connection to the region's colleges and universities that have agricultural and outreach programs. To strengthen those engagements and linkages to research/teaching faculty, SRMEC annually highlights its Projects of Excellence during Southern Agricultural Economics Association (SAEA) Annual meeting. This is accomplished by successfully organizing a symposium for presentation annually. The symposium seeks to promote the Center, the ERME program, and Extension scholarship to the students and faculty in attendance as well as provide a regional networking opportunity for Extension professionals.Objective 3. Risk Management Capacity Development with community organizations and industry: SRMEC seeks to enhance the risk management understanding and strategies of growers across the entire production landscape. As outlined in the 2018 Farm Bill language, SRMEC seeks to serve the diverse, established, and emerging producer populations that includes special emphasis producers. These efforts include intentionally aligning with clients/stakeholders--educators, community-based organizations, USDA agency representatives, crop insurance companies, and agricultural organizations--to build relationships and knowledge to expand risk management outreach and technical assistance. SRMEC seeks to intentionally engage special emphasis producer audiences through direct engagements and collaborations. Targeted producers include small, socially disadvantaged and historically underserved, veteran, beginning, specialty crop, direct/niche marketers, and value-added agricultural businesses. The Center will intentionally seek to leverage on-going relationships with land-grant faculty, National Crop Insurance Services (NCIS), and RMA and other state/federal partners.Objective 4. Collaborate with 1890 Land-Grant Institutions and Outreach to Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers.: A primary focus of SRMEC has been and will continue to be establishing and maintaining meaningful connections with socially disadvantaged and historically underserved (SDFR) clientele. Fourteen--three out of four--of the 1890 land-grant institutions reside in the Southern region. SRMEC seeks to secure funds to directly engage 1890 Institutions and special emphasis producer segments. Targeted engagements include conference sponsorship of the Professional Agriculture Workers Conference--the region's premiere agricultural outreach conference targeting socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers and hosted by Tuskegee University; engagement with the National Black Growers Council--organization comprised of multigenerational black row crop farmers; and collaborations with Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Policy Research Center at Alcorn State University. Goal is to expand SDFR exposure to SRMEC resources as well as build relationships and grantsmanship capacity that will ultimately result in expanded risk management education activities targeting this special emphasis audiences.Objective 5. Collaborate with the regional risk management centers to provide a vibrant national ERME program and national conference: SRMEC plans to continue collaborating with ERME partners--other three regional centers and the Digital Center--to continue to expand and improve the use and understanding of ERME programs. In addition to monthly conference planning and leadership calls, SRMEC is excited to continue enhancing recent program innovations--selecting regional project winners at regional and national conference; implementing retrospective evaluation framework across program; and using infographic material and social media to communicate our program and impacts. SRMEC provides ongong contributions and leadership to the ERME Program. Activities includes public posting of project final reports, collaborating to host a national conference annually and contributing resources to the program's national portal, http://extensionrme.org.
Project Methods
SRMEC's primary purpose is to continue the successful management of the Extension Risk Management Education (ERME) competitive grants programs--risk management education and producers underserved by crop insurance--and outreach activities. The targeted SRMEC engagements seek to build capacity for farmers and ranchers to better understand risk issues/crop insurance products and to effectively use risk management resources. Each funded project includes a detailed plan of work addressing program promotion, project delivery steps including implementation and reporting metrics, and evaluation reporting to capture change in knowledge, behavior and business strategies. Each project will report programmatic outcomes and impacts along with using evaluation frameworks to document changes in knowledge of project participants, plans/actions developed, and plans/processes implemented. Additionally, project leadership will report steps to capture intermediate steps producers may "develop" to enhance risk management activities. Lastly, participants will capture any implementation steps that producers take to change their business structure and/or strategies. Therefore, producer actions are measured across an engagement spectrum of understand to develop to implement. Producer actions are measured at the individual producer action level which allows a single producer to report multiple action levels across our five core program focus areas: production, marketing, financial, legal and human.Our processes will capture both direct and indirect measurements. Direct measures demonstrate participant learning. Learning is observable in the form of actual products (presentations, portfolios, test results, etc.). Indirect measures imply that learning takes place by asking participants' perceptions or attitudes about their learning. Multiple methods of measurement will be used to capture outcome data. Methods include:observation (business and/or marketing planpeer assessment of product or skillself-assessment of product or skillphotos, screen capture, video (before/after)questionnaire/surveyinterview (individual and/or group)submitted/approved documentsTestimonialTestLogs, recordsOther measures identified by project directorsCurrently, SRMEC awards 18-month educational projects. Projects will measure what took place as a result of participating in a funded educational activity across three different times of measurement:before participant learning sessionsduring participant learning sessionsafter participant learning sessionsOutcomes will capture the actual number of participants who accomplished an outcome, the method used to measure the date and the time of data collection. Our evaluation processes continue to push the envelope incorporating Theory of Change philosophy into our evaluation expectations and processes. SRMEC continues to participate in evaluation processes and discussions about the rationale and/or pre-conditions that projects can seek to capture to allow evaluations to capture longer term impacts and success stories more effectively.