Abstract

Media summary

Asking questions, listening to my audience and then using what I hear, are crucial in my work. Building what I call ‘information legacies’ into projects is a key responsibility.

Keywords

Introduction

The current typical situation of employment in environmental or agricultural extension, is for short-term contracts of one to three years duration, with annual funding reviews and ongoing support being subject to satisfactory outcomes and reporting. This is particularly the case with new projects or initiatives. In such a climate, there is great pressure to make an impact in a short space of time, and then to justify ongoing funding.

One of the aims I have in this paper is to give guidance to those of you who may be daunted by having just begun in a new unfamiliar role and feeling the pressure of making a noticeable difference in a short space of time. You may know what is expected of you but not how to go about it, where to begin or what to do next. I hope that what I have to say is also of relevance to officers in established positions that may be ‘stuck’ for approaches or who could benefit from new ways of thinking about what they experience.

Another aim is to challenge you to think about how you go about ‘securing’ a long-term future in the industry beyond the term of your contract. Do you build what I call ‘information legacies’ into your work so there is the possibility for information transfer beyond the project term, or do you purposely not take this approach. I consider this a very important issue warranting discussion.

I am now in my tenth year as an officer in pioneering environmental project roles. In those ten years I have needed to learn about and adapt to, six different industry sectors. I am in the fourth year of my latest new role as IPM Adoption Coordinator, and it is primarily what I have learnt in this role that I would like to speak about.

Methods

Asking and listening

I am a national coordinator facilitating the adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) strategies by Brassica (cruciferous) vegetable farmers and their advisors across Australia. What this involves is relaying in an understandable and relevant form, the scientific information that the group of researchers in the national project team produces. Effective IPM results in the use of insecticides as a last resort and nurtures the presence of natural enemies to the pest. Introducing effective IPM strategies results in large changes in farm management for most growers.

It is seen as an advantage that I am not a scientist, with the expectation that if I can learn to understand IPM, then chances are that I will be able to relay this information in a non-scientific way to others. I was confident in my ability to learn about the pest problem and the IPM strategies, and to express this information to the target audience in an understandable way, but I didn’t know which vehicles were best to use to communicate this information, and especially if different ones would be needed in each State.

I needed to do lots of asking to discover the best communication means. I had no networks in this industry so I began by phoning the project scientists in each State. I asked what were the particular publications that growers read, how well did workshop go in their States, about the value of field days and if they knew how many growers had computers and Internet access. The scientists frequently would refer me to others who they thought would be able to answer my questions better than them. Eventually I found that the vegetable industry development officers in each State were the most valuable to me due to the intimate local knowledge they had of their industry, as well as their extensive database of growers and consultants.

My role included attending workshops for the Brassica growers and their consultants in each State. I decided to use these workshops to further refine the information I had from my phone research. I had my list of options for ways the audience could receive their information, I now needed to know which were the preferred options according to them. My list was not long, so at the workshops I stood before them and asked for a show of hands for each option. The list included electronic, paper, and face-to-face ways of communication. I did this in each State.

I learnt a lot from also asking growers one-on-one at the end of each workshop, and learnt more again via the six question anonymous paper survey I distributed. This was designed to get their opinions on the workshops and learn more about which aspects of IPM they wanted to hear more about.

These multiple approaches to gathering information worked well for me. I felt I had given the opportunity for my target audience to express their opinions either anonymously or openly, so I was confident I had genuine feedback.

I now knew the best vehicles that were going to get the most exposure, I also knew some of subjects the growers wanted to hear more about, and I had discovered some key people to refer to for future opinions. This gave me confidence to begin producing tangible outputs, and gave me the information I needed to justify to my team members and the funding committee future plans. None of this information was enough for me to be sure I could be effective in facilitating IPM adoption. For that, I needed to make the information relevant to the audience.

During the face-to-face discussions in the workshops, I had heard of some potential obstacles that I would face. The workshop attendants told me of the obstacles they saw to IPM adoption faced by growers. I listened carefully and was concerned that some of the obstacles seemed out of scope of control to do anything about, but some comments were very helpful even if they just confirmed what I suspected.

For example I was advised that –

• “Unless you can show growers how they will save money with IPM they won’t do it”
• “You won’t get the growers to come to workshops even though they say they will come. They
• don’t keep diaries so they just forget”
• “Growers are not willing to change from using a heavy insecticide regime to allow the natural
• enemies to build up, because they can’t afford to miss a season of sales. The problem is the public and buyers won’t buy produce with any insects or damage till the IPM is effective”
• “If you want the growers to rotate their chemicals you need to get the resellers in on this”.

I heard these statements more than once from different sources, which meant I needed to pay attention to them and address them in some way to be effective in IPM adoption.

I tackled each of these very differently as I will explain.

• Acting and branching

Acting in this paper is the word that covers doing something with the information that came from the asking and listening I had done. Branching describes the way you could categorise some of the types of actions I have taken to find solutions to the obstacles I heard about for IPM adoption. The types of actions are ‘branched’ because they could not be called core business activity. They clearly are a departure from the main ‘trunk’ of activity that would normally more obviously be associated with the core business of facilitating adoption. By showing you how I addressed the four obstacles above, you will be able to see what I mean by ‘branching’.

• “Unless you can show growers how they will save money with IPM they won’t do it”.

I discussed this with a researcher and she was fairly sure she could show the savings in insecticide costs as part of her research without much extra effort. Within a few months I had a good local research story on how IPM could save in costs that I then publicised in our national newsletter and in presentations at workshops. This level of action is not ‘branching’ in my definition, it is ‘acting’.

• “You won’t get the growers to come to workshops even though they say they will come. They

don’t keep diaries so they just forget”

I already knew from my show of hands result and workshop evaluation forms that growers liked workshops as a main way of getting information. So I expected that simply reminding them close to the day would be successful. I knew also that a direct voice or face-to-face approach is more memorable than a written or faxed reminder. So growers were rung on the phone three to four days before a workshop was scheduled, whether or not they had RSVP’d. This resulted in record numbers of growers turning out, doubling the previous numbers. Again this action is ‘acting’ and not ‘branching’.

• “Growers are not willing to change from using a heavy insecticide regime to allow the natural

enemies to build up, because they can’t afford to miss a season of sales. The problem is the public and buyers won’t buy produce with any insects or damage till the IPM becomes effective”

This one was a big challenge for me and I did need to employ branching to deal with it. I knew the public cared about the amount of chemicals in the environment and in what they consumed. So I was fairly confident that if they were asked to accept finding an occasional insect or damage in their crucifer vegetables - if it meant that less chemicals could be used by the grower, then this would be acceptable.

I needed proof of what I suspected, so I spoke to my supervisor about doing a community survey at the forthcoming Royal Adelaide Show. I knew I was proposing significant ‘branching’ from core business. Although neither of us could predict where the information could lead, he thought it was a worthwhile opportunity and approved the fairly minor expense and the use of my time. His approval gave me the confirmation that I possibly doing something proactive towards solving the problem, and it gave me confidence that he endorsed my idea.

I designed a short anonymous questionnaire and created a visual display of broccoli with actual pests on it and large colour photos of other damaged or infested vegetables, that the public would be likely to encounter on a green-grocers shelf if they were to buy IPM ‘transitional’ vegetables. The display was designed to attract their attention and also to assist them to answer the questions in an informed way. The display was a self-service arrangement where signs directed them to what to do. A sealed survey box took their completed forms.

747 people of various ages filled in the survey sheets over 9 days. The results were extremely pleasing. People were more prepared to find insects than I expected. Now I needed to figure out the best use of these results. Who should be informed? How can the significance of these results be put to best use?

The results were publicised in the national newsletter of the project that goes to all Brassica vegetable growers and their consultants, a general media release was created, radio interviews were held, the funding body was sent a copy of the results, a national growers newspaper printed an article, and I presented them at grower workshops.

The key for me was to present the results to the six-grower funding committee members at our annual meeting, together with some suggestions for how they could be used to further increase adoption of integrated pest management on farms. My suggestions were practical, if idealistic, and way out on the branched limb. I knew this and was prepared for any reaction as a result. I got a good hearing and valid reasons why my suggestions didn’t appeal, but I also managed to get some modifications approved rather than outright dismissal.

I finally had resolution to the problem, even though I believed it wasn’t the most progressive outcome, so I felt relieved and rewarded. I had done what I could and was free to let the issue go (for the time being at least). It is now two years since the survey and I have not heard this obstacle mentioned again in that time. There are many possible reasons for this that I have not yet explored.

• “If you want the growers to rotate their chemicals you need to get the resellers in on this”.

I heard this comment only a few times and in a variety of ways. Chemical supply staff were already invited to our workshops and kept in the loop with our mailouts. When the project funding term was nearing completion, it was time to write a new proposal and so I ‘branched’ out and made grower supply store staff a newly targeted audience. They were now to be included with specific, alternate year, short education sessions across the country. The grower committee liked the idea and funded it. One of these education sessions will be videotaped to create an ‘information legacy’ for self education of the reseller businesses beyond the life of the project. I will explain what I mean by ‘information legacy’ further on in this paper.

I am aware that branching type actions might be a departure from job descriptions or project briefs, and that it can mean more money needs to be found and ideas may need special permission. That makes them no less valid to be explored if possible. In my experience this has been well worth the negotiation and rearranging.

Information legacies

I believe it is a priviledge to be an officer that works on a project for a defined length of time. As I have always been predominantly funded externally from the organization I work in, I have been able to focus on my project work in a way that would not have been possible if I had the usual distractions of a permanent employee. The pressure of making a difference in a short space of time adds to the focus. It is this focus that I believe accounts for the outstanding outcomes I have seen in my colleagues, and has given me the opportunity to extend my thinking and hence professional practice.

I have seen the most remarkable results come from those officers who are acutely aware of the length of time they have to be effective, combined with being in touch with the importance of their work and being willing to take responsibility for the success of the project. These officers speak of having outcomes of their work delivered beyond them being in the current position or beyond the funded life of the project. In other words, they are planning for having an impact continue into the future after the projects are ended. They are preparing what I call ‘information legacies’ while still in their jobs.

The best projects have been written to contain some form of output that can provide relevant information in a relevant form, for the target audience after the project has finished. By this I don’t mean a final report. It can be in electronic or paper form, or be a tool of some sort that works to provide an item or information that addresses the issue/s that the project is dealing with. It will contain information such as instructions for how to go about something, case studies, a manufactured tool, or a brochure that explains where to go for information about the particular issue. It could be a group that has been formed with the officers’ assistance that continues long after the project. Actively forming the group with the view to it having a life for an indefinite period of time is creating an ‘information legacy’.

It disturbs me that I have heard more than once statements like the following:

“After I finish on this project there isn’t going to be anything for new businesses to learn from because they haven’t given any funding for that. But that’s OK I’m not saying anything because it means they will have to keep me on to do it, because there isn’t anyone else who can.”

Usually these comments have been made in the context of concern over future funding. I could argue that this type of attitude is likely to deliver exactly the opposite of what is wanted.

As professional extension people it is a part of being professional to notice and acknowledge openly when there is no provision made for information legacies in projects, as soon as this is noticed or becomes relevant. If we don’t, then I believe we are doing our profession and personal reputations a great disservice.

Why do I find this so disturbing? Firstly, project officers are in a position of trust and high responsibility in a way that isn’t common in the general workforce. Often they have control of the finances and the direction that the project takes. They are often funded by levy money collected from their audience. They can often select some or all of the members of their steering committee. They have the choice about what information they share from what they learn and what happens to that information. Officers are relied on for their professional opinion about their work and to report accurately to their committee and to their audience.

For all these reasons, being selected to be a project officer has inspired in me a high degree of trust and reliance and an automatic sense of responsibility. It is this responsibility for the projects outcomes and success that has prompted me to think about ‘information legacies’ and the high importance I believe they should have.

Withholding output so that you will be ‘needed’ beyond your contract term, is a way of thinking that has no place in the extension profession. Indeed I would prefer to see a situation where we gather to discuss with each other whether we are not noticing an opportunity to value add to our projects in a way that extends the ‘life’ of the funding.

I would like to emphasise that ‘information legacies’ must be relevant and useful to be credible. I have seen some produced that seem more like trumpet blowing about the person that created the item. That is distracting from the core issue being addressed, can be a waste of money and is off-putting.

The most useful legacies are likely to be outcomes of the learning from the types of processes I have described in this paper. The actions of asking, listening and acting are the cornerstones for being able to produce quality legacies and enjoy the process.