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OSU Extension Teaching Financial Risk Management Skills

Julia Woodruff

Summary

Women play a significant role in farm operations, but many do so without any formal training or updates to past training. Annie’s Project has helped to address this need in Ohio throughout the past four years. In that time, 14 workshops have been conducted with almost 300 women completing the coursework. However, educators found there is a need for in-depth financial risk management skills. Additional workshops are being held and one workshop focused on financial risk, Farm Finance for Women, has been developed and is being piloted in four counties. Financial risk management topics have also been added to the Women in Agriculture Conference.

Impact data from the Annie’s Project workshops have shown an increase in risk management practices. Seventy-nine percent of participants reported they had written at least two goals for the farm, 72% became more involved in farm decision making processes, and 50% adopted at least one new risk management practice. Impact data from the financial workshops and the conference will be shared as well as the curriculum used to teach the workshops and tools used to evaluate the workshop.

With fewer Extension educators, the sustainability of the workshops are also being addressed by the creation of a web-based facilitator’s guide and development of class modules using Camtasia Relay. These modules will be housed on an Extension website as well. The facilitator’s guide and examples of the Camtasia modules will be shared during the presentation.

Details

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