Doing More with Less: Conservation Outreach

Funding reductions for federal and state programs that encourage agricultural producers to implement conservation strategies is making outreach more difficult than ever. The recent freeze on the Inflation Reduction Act is affecting farmers that were previously approved for financial and technical assistance to implement conservation efforts. In Iowa alone, farmers stand to lose up to $356 million in future conservation funding.

With funding and incentives on the line, it is crucial that conservation outreach professionals utilize alternative, efficient ways to sustain and expand the use of sustainable agriculture practices.

Shrinking conservation outreach workforce

Conservation outreach professionals work with farmers and ranchers to implement sustainable farming practices. They work across a variety of organizations including conservation districts, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), private organizations, and non-profit organizations. Outreach professionals are critical resources to support farmers and sustainability goals, but these positions are vanishing from agencies at an alarming rate.

The NRCS alone has lost a third of their workforce in this past year. Continued engagement and communication with audiences is already time intensive, and in light of recent losses in resources, it is more important than ever to ensure the engagement they can do is reaching new audiences and leading to behavior change.

While many outreach professionals are highly trained on conservation techniques and agriculture practices, most do not receive specialized training to effectively communicate to farmers and ranchers on a deeper level. As one outreach professional put it, "We often spend so much time learning the technical components of best management practice implementation that we forget the importance of how to communicate with and provide outreach to farmers."

Reframing outreach strategies

Fourth generation producer Cody Kuntz. The Kuntz family participated in the Yellowstone Regional Agricultural Sustainability Project to test and implement more sustainable agriculture practices like reduced tillage, cover crops, irrigation water management, and precision agriculture. Yellowstone County, Montana. June 2020. Credit: USDA

In 2018, the National Wildlife Federation created the Grow More program to equip outreach professionals with valuable tools and insights to encourage behavior change. From the Basics of Behavior Change, Messaging to Specific Audiences, Reframing to Reach New Audiences and more, outreach professionals will encounter science-backed methods to increase their outreach success and efficiency.

These immersive trainings provide relevant and practical materials so outreach professionals can leverage social science skills to better support behavior change in farmers and ranchers, specifically those considered "Middle Adopters."

All too often, outreach professionals hold events and end up with the same group of people at every event. We call this group of attendees "Innovators." While innovators are extremely valuable, they're typically the ones already implementing a specific practice, showing up to the office to ask questions or discuss research, and they might even be a source of inspiration to other land managers.

To have conservation practices become widespread, we need to reach the silent majority who we call the "Middle Adopters". These are producers and land managers that are waiting for the right set of circumstances to change. They may not come to conservation events, or when they do, they do not resonate with the messaging and choose not to adopt.

Outreach targeted to this "Middle Adopter" population improves conservation practice adoption, and better supports farmer and rancher business goals. Middle adopters make up a large percentage of the population, and are driven by their peers' actions. Once a critical percentage of middle adopters begin adopting, sustainable farming practices on the landscape become the social norm, leading to quick and independent uptake throughout the rest of the population.

Grow More has effectively trained over 1,300 outreach professionals since 2018, and the program is more necessary now than it ever has been. On a scale of 1-5, training participants rate the effectiveness of Grow More as 4.2 on average. Participants also rated the effectiveness of the behavior change approach to outreach as 3. Overall, survey results indicate that the Grow More training increases outreach professionals' confidence in their ability to accomplish various outreach approaches (See graph below).

One Grow More participant reflected on the training and noted "It was the best event I've attended in a long time! It was so relevant to the questions I have been wrestling with my outreach."

Effective outreach for conservation professionals is critical in this current climate. As staff capacity for conservation technical assistance decreases and conservation program funding remains uncertain, it is vital that conservation outreach professionals focus their efforts on land managers who will make the most of limited program resources. While financial incentives are imperative as an immediate motivator, outreach professionals must speak to audiences' deeper motivations for lasting and widespread adoption.

As funding for these incentives-based programs decreases, additional outreach and educational support that goes beyond financial support is even more important for continued conservation progress. Grow More is here to help outreach professionals do just that.

Learn more about Grow More and see stories of successful conservation practices on our website.