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Changing Public Behavior > Audiences > Farmers

108 Total Findings

A decision-making process that accepts the assumption that the people most involved with a particular issue are the ones best equipped to make decision is likely to lead to constructive solutions to land use concerns.

A decision-making process that is constructed based on local perceptions for how to make decisions can lead to grower acceptance of specific land use actions.

A participatory workshop using pollution modeling, satellite images, maps, and discussion, enables farmers to identify pollution prevention efforts that are considered to be within their own control.  Farmers may not be willing to adopt measures that lead to lost income, even when they consider the measure to be effective.

Address economic benefits:

Address economic benefits: Show that profits will increase as a result of adoption of the practice

Address farmer perception of risk. Acknowledge emotional and political context of a risk message. Statements about potential agricultural chemical risks can fuel public fears. Farmers may not respond to risk messages because they view their own use of chemicals as "voluntary, familiar and controllable" whereas nonfarm consumers would view it as partially familiar, involuntary and uncontrollable.

Address farmers' perceptions of risk. Acknowledge the tendency for farmers to be "adverse to additional risk ". That is, a new practice or technology must not add to current risks, or it must reduce risks to productivity incurred through other practices in order to be viewed favorably

Allow enough time for wide spread adoption of the demonstrated BMPs. A nine to ten year time frame may be necessary to move from initial implementation of BMP demonstration projects to adoption.

As watershed organizations develop, facilitate a form of governance that is democratic and able to generate outcomes considered legitimate by all affected parties:

Assure that intervention programs are relevant to perceived needs of farmers, relevant to cultural milieu of subgroups, and relevant to specific environmental needs:

Assure that intervention programs are relevant to the cultural milieu of the subgroup, such as ethnic or culturally-related farm-structure differences.

Base your program design on specifically identified needs.

Check with stakeholders concerning which approach to environmental assessment on the ranch they perceive as most effective.

Collect and assess data about the following, prior to developing the outreach program:

Collect and assess data about the following, prior to developing the outreach program:

Collect and assess data about the following, prior to developing the outreach program:

Collect and assess data about the following, prior to developing the outreach program:

Conduct voluntary and confidential assessments on individual farms, in cooperation with groundwater technicians. Develop an “Improvement Action Plan” for individual farms.

Consider target audience issues such as time, skill, and direct experience with saving money over time

Couple general outreach, information, and communication techniques with financial incentives

Create information, communication and education design to address research-based information about farmer characteristics, such as:

Design outreach to address farmer preferred learning style:

Design outreach to address farmer preferred learning style: Provide farmers with opportunities to solve a problem in addition to providing other standard hands-on outreach techniques such as opportunities for talking with specialists, field days, demonstrations, etc.

Design outreach to address farmer preferred learning style

Document information and outreach work to help improve ability to assess the relationship between outreach and outcomes and to exchange materials and knowledge with others. Evaluate progress toward clearly defined objectives.

Emphasize one-on-one contact.

Emphasize one-on-one contact. Couple with small group and demonstration events - Provide on-farm visits, small group demonstrations, and workshops emphasizing local, direct farmer contact.

Emphasize one-on-one contact. This strategy correlates with farmer willingness to change practices, but adoption of a new technology requires more than a personal conversation and data about the specific situation

Engage audience in planning.

Facilitate farmer-led program design and implementation that leads to:

Facilitate farmers developing their own water quality management plans. Emphasize, peer information exchange in farm quality planning.

Facilitate school-based watershed education programs through interactive resources and communication among groups using an interactive website

Focus on a geographic area:

Focus on a geographic area:

Focus on a geographic area:

Focus outreach initiatives on a geographic area with a targeted audience

Focus outreach to farmers on farm efficiency and productivity, whatever the social characteristics of the farm group. But pay attention to unique factors of cultural groups, as well.

Focus programs designed to facilitate adoption of precision farming techniques on farmers who:

Focus training for new farmers on problem-solving and production agriculture skill development

For sustainable agriculture education, target families with one or more of these characteristics:

Give the audience an opportunity to provide input into the process to better assure that they will allow local leaders to make decisions for them.

Identify key target audiences and acknowledge individual grower characteristics, perceptions of problems, current use of practices, and preferences for educational formats.

In communication and outreach about groundwater, address:

In communication and outreach about groundwater, address: evidence that contamination will affect profits

In communication and outreach about groundwater, address:

In communication and outreach about groundwater, present programs or information about health and environmental risks as part of other outreach efforts rather than on their own

In landowner or renter situations:

Include environmental stewardship information shown to be significant in predicting farmer adoption of new practices:

Include environmental stewardship information shown to be significant in predicting farmer adoption of new practices: Substantive local data to support claims that specific BMPs are environmentally effective and economically advantageous as compared to in-place practices

Include environmental stewardship information shown to be significant in predicting farmer adoption of new practices: o Locally specific information about watershed risks. Farmers assess agricultural chemical risks in the context of localized situations

Include information that shows how the message affects landowners personally and what specific actions landowners can take to improve the situation.

Inform the target audience about the availability of a Web site that provides information they need.

Involve target audience in choosing and testing preferred technical approaches to solving a problem

Involve target audience in:

Involve target audience in:

Involve target audience in:

Keep the message simple.

Keep the purpose of an event or message similar to the local situation (e.g., documents and videotapes are most effective when clearly tailored to the local landscape).

Link economic risk to over-application of nutrients, a common practice for ensuring maximum yield.

Link education to production decisions to reflect the fact that operators prefer to make production decisions based on their own farm records and advice from on-farm employees.

Local understanding about place and identity can provide coherence and justification for the creation and function of an organization as well as for individual or policy decisions about land use.

Look to these conditions for opportunities to provide education that is more likely to be effective:

Make sure that participants know about the initiative and know how to participate.

Pay attention to unique factors of cultural groups, but programs that focus on efficiency and productivity in decision-making are likely to succeed, whatever the social characteristics of the farm group

Present nutrient application simulations to farmers in a group, to give farmers an opportunity to learn what practices others are using and how they weigh aspects when making decisions about nutrient management.

Provide a Web site for fruit growers that is simple to use, provides up-to-date information, and provides access to information on specific pests.

Provide information that is high quality, explains risks; and is:

Provide information through field days, pamphlets, farm journals, media and books. These can contribute to:

Provide information to farmers in three stages:

Provide information, encouragement and cash incentives to participate in or practice a new technology, but keep in mind that incentives have a weak influence on adoption.

Recognize the limits of regulation in producing behavior change:

Recognize the role of economic factors in behavior change:

Recognize the role of economic factors in behavior change:

Rely on farmer personal experience as more influential than education or research reports

Sources of information that most influenced farmer views about problems associated with groundwater and agricultural chemical use were: farm magazines and newspapers; general newspapers and news on radio and television; educational/research agency reports; personal observation

Support stakeholder engagement more fully by anticipating a political dimension in addition to a focus on subject matter. [This emphasizes Cervero and Wilson's (1994) democratic approach to program planning whereby adult educators talk openly about social and political aspirations of interested parties in addition to content matter objectives.]

Tailor materials to details of the farm operation.

Tailor messages to provide the audience with information that affects them personally.

Tell the audience what actions they can take to improve the situation.

The choice of type of visual, spatial information to use in an education program depends on the audience. Some prefer pollution modeling, others prefer satellite images and maps or simply the discussion generated by showing models and maps.

Time education with heightened audience awareness created by press coverage of rules release, public hearings and a compliance deadline.

To address the complexity of water resource management problems, combine the technological dimension with the social dimension, based on stakeholders involvement; use decision-support tools in a shared platform through which the debate is organised and the different sources of knowledge are integrated.

To address the complexity of water resource management problems, engage stakeholders in structuring, i.e. systematizing the knowledge which emerges during the participative process, in order to make it comprehensible for the other participants and functional for the decision process. Cognitive mapping (concepts linked to form chains of action-oriented argumentation) and analysis is an example of a system that can be used to produce different points of view and information, in order to enrich a collective ‘‘knowledge base’’ with creative ideas and concepts around the problem.

To effectively engage watershed partners and major stakeholders to investigate: landowner issues, awareness of environmental management problems, business development intentions, and potential impact of incentives.

To enhance participatory decision-making, build commitment to research by engaging watershed partners and major stakeholders in answering questions such as: a) what information is needed?; b) how is the information to be collected and analyzed?; c) Who has access to the data and on what conditions?; d) How will the data be used to improve watershed management outcomes?

To gauge landowner willingness to engage in riparian zone management, assess identified predictors of landowner intentions: willingness to consider the recommendations of groups such as governmental agencies and watershed associations, beliefs that riparian management would be beneficial, and past and current riparian management behavior.

To promote riparian zone management: clearly and convincingly demonstrate the benefits of riparian zone management; promote a supportive normative climate by getting groups or important individuals within the community to strongly endorse the practice; solicit endorsements from other rural landholders; devise strategies for overcoming the barriers (real or perceived) associated with riparian zone management or provide alternatives; and engage landowners in riparian management behaviors to increase familiarity with options.

Track program changes through a comprehensive pre-treatment survey and follow up surveys. Assure that program resources actually reached targeted audiences.

Trusted individuals can deliver messages effectively

Understand the roots of the environmental management problem and select your target audience based on a specific need. For example, if economic activity is most closely associated with the environmental problem, outreach initiatives should relate to the needs and interests of the target audience engaged in the economic activity

Use a comparison strip to provide the farmer with opportunity to make their own evaluation of pros and cons of a new procedure

Use a comprehensive pre-survey; conservation plans, soil tests, workshops, and farm visits during the growing seasons as a basis for developing relevant land and water education programs.

Use a variety of outreach methods, with each targeted at specific, desired behaviors.

Use farm assessments to identify pollution risks when the use of an assessment tool is likely to lead to cost-effective, voluntary actions to reduce those risks.

Use farm assessments to increase the likelihood of management changes for topics addressed in the assessment

Use farmer-preferred sources of information and strategies for outreach about making decisions.

Use farmer-preferred sources of information and strategies for outreach about making decisions.

Use financial incentives, where possible, to facilitate behavior change:

Use financial incentives, where possible, to facilitate behavior change:

Use in-depth discussion and interviews to provide a useful finding about target audience interests and preferences about farm management topics.

Use the internet for training new farmers in preference to other distance education techniques

Visual, spatial information is effective in stimulating group discussion when presented as part of a participatory approach.

When persuading farmers to reduce chemical use:

When providing information related to sustainable farming, use conventional sources of information to convey new ideas rather than start a new newsletter or organization or other new source of information.

When using predictive models to aid farmers in making a nutrient application decision:

Work with consultants:

Work with consultants:

Work with consultants:


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