The impact that research makes depends on communication to stakeholders. In soil science, it is our responsibility to improve our communication with producers and inform them of our scientific discoveries related to soil health management practices. Each state has an established Extension service to disseminate research to producers, but research on what messages are most effective in influencing producer behavior is not often done. Even more critical is facilitating knowledge transfer among producers who have experience with implementing soil health management practices and those who are interested in such practices. Increasing the effectiveness of transferring knowledge both through improved communication techniques and producer-to-producer networks has the potential to increase implementation of soil health management practices. Improve Outreach to Improve Soils: Combining Data, Economics, and Communication to Improve Soil Health Across the South Central United States was funded by USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service grant program in 2017.
The project will benefit all producers in the South Central U.S. by
- Providing producers the knowledge necessary to make decisions about what soil health management practice to implement.
- Serving as a model to other regions on what communication messages and modules may be effective in their areas and the type of information that is most useful to producers.
- Improving the current level of knowledge on soil health management practices across the South Central U.S., which is critical for making reliable recommendations to producers.
The project is a collaboration between Texas A&M University, Oklahoma State University, and Louisiana State University. The Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M University is leading the project.
This material is based upon work supported by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under number NR183A750008G013.