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Avoiding the ‘One and Done’ Extension workshop in Grain Marketing Education with a Pre and Post Workshop Cohort

Wm. Bruce Clevenger, Seungki Lee, Grant Gardner, and Ben Brown

Summary

A two-year grain marketing education strategy was developed to intentionally provide more than a typical grain marketing workshop, hence avoiding a “one and done” Extension experience by farm managers. The multi-state, Extension planning and teaching team accomplished this with pre and post interactions for farm managers that attended a 2-day, in-person basics of grain marketing workshop. The attendee learning and engagement experience for each annual cohort was 11 months.
The target audience was farm managers responsible for grain marketing decisions for the farm operation. The goal was to increase attendee knowledge on the basics of grain marketing, improve the awareness of market data, and develop action-oriented grain marketing plans. The pre-registered cohort of farm managers attending the workshop completed pre-workshop learning modules, worksheets, and self-assessments. The pre-workshop assignments assisted farm managers to estimate the cost of production for the coming production year. The farm managers identified their tolerance for risk by completing an online quiz assessment. All pre-workshop information was anonymously summarized and incorporated into workshop content to support education on risk management and grain marketing plans. The post-workshop interactions included three, 1.5-hour webinars for the workshop cohort to reinforce and expand workshop knowledge, explore new topics, and stay current with grain market outlook.
Workshop cohort reported highest knowledge gains in hedging and basis. Eighty-six percent of attendees planned to use local and regional basis data in their grain marketing plans. Seventy-two percent of workshop attendees planned to have a written grain marketing plan within 21 days of the workshop.

Details

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