71st SWCS International Annual Conference July 24-27, 2016 Louisville, KY

1. Do demonstration sites
and field days influence
adoption of conservation
practices?
Linda S. Prokopy
Ajay S Singh

2. Motivation for Study
 Voluntary adoption of conservation practices is essential
 Rogers “Diffusion of Innovations” model suggests demonstrations
should be effective as they increase observability of a practice
 BUT demonstration events cost lots of time and money
 AND there’s little empirical evidence to suggest they actually lead
to adoption
 Is it only the “choir” who attends?
 Would the attendees have found the information some other way?
 Are there other benefits from demonstration events?
 Do they help to change community norms towards conservation?
 Do they give farmers a chance to talk to each other?

3. Research question
Does attending a demonstration site or field day effect
adoption of conservation practices or change how
farmers implement conservation practices?

4. Methods
 Agricultural producers in
Ripley, Jasper, Delaware, and
adjacent counties in Indiana
 Contacts provided by USDA
Farm Services Agency and
county Extension offices
 Mail survey (n = 2,225)
 July‐October, 2015
 Interviews (n = 24)
 Jan‐Feb 2016

5. Analysis
 Mail survey
 Chi‐squared test of association
 Adoption, No adoption / Attendance, No attendance
 Interviews
 Thematic analysis
 Identify major themes and patterns
 Intercoder reliability test on 1/3 of interviews
 kappa of >.070 achieved

6. Results
 745 survey responses (33.5%)
 Delaware = 33%
 Jasper = 30%
 Ripley = 36%
 513 responses from agricultural producers

7. 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Did not adopt Adopted
Percent
Did not attend Attended
Filter strips
X2 (1, 484) 60.320, p < .001;
Cramer's V = .353

8. 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Did not adopt Adopted
Percentage
Did not attend Attended
Two‐stage ditches
X2 (1, 509) 44.302, p < .001;
Cramer's V = .295

9. 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Did not adopt Adopted
Percentage
Did not attend Attended
Cover crops
X2 (1, 488) 111.99, p < .001;
Cramer's V = .479

10. Cover crops
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
INCREASED USE
CHANGED IMPLEMENTATION
PLAN TO CHANGE USE
STARTED USING
NO CHANGE
FIRST TIME HEARING
Number of respondents
Post‐event behaviors

11. Cover crops
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
INCREASED USE
CHANGED IMPLEMENTATION
PLAN TO CHANGE USE
STARTED USING
NO CHANGE
FIRST TIME HEARING
Number of respondents
Post‐event behaviors

12. Usefulness of events ‐ Survey
 Most useful
 Seeing the practice for myself
 Informing me about a practice
 Learning from other farmers
 Learning about the economics of the practice
 Least useful
 Finding out what the neighbors are doing
 Meeting new people/social networking

13. Interviews
 Decision criteria – need more info to know they’ll be
effective
“I took this away from there is that you need to get a plan
early and you’re going to have to get out in the standing
crop if you’re going to get a cover crop that’s going to do
some good. And I plan a lot of later season beans, so
that’s going to affect what I’m doing. If I start with cover
crops I gotta figure out how I’m going to do that. And
that kind of stuff.”

14. Interviews
 Expertise
“I don’t pay too much attention to the neighbors, I will
do more research or go to a forum or…..maybe go to if
there’s a leader in that new technology I may go to …. a
speaker or given a demonstration day and kinda get my
feet wet and then jump into it. We kinda did that with
cover crops as an example.”

15. Interviews
 Social learning
“…your peer groups is a good place to get a lotta
information, a crowd you’re in your own with and some
other people even that aren’t in your so‐called
neighborhood, you know.”
“You go to these events, you get different opinions from
different people, what they’re doing.”

16. Interviews
 Risk management
“I like to let the cutting edge folks work out all the bugs, and
then I like to jump on it right after all the bugs. I am not a guy
that is going to go to a farm show, and a brand new product
comes out that is unproven, and put it right on my
equipment or put it right on my farm, but let’s say that it is a
year after they come out and they are proven, I feel like as
long as it is a worthy opportunity, and make sense numbers
wise, then we will give it a try and give it our own test and if it
is worth its weight, then we will use it, and if it’s not then we
won’t.”

17. Conclusions
 There is an association between attendance and adoption
 But would these motivated farmers adopt anyway?
 Producers attend for different reasons and are at different
stages of the decision‐adoption process
 Know about a practice and want experience, expertise to
inform how to implement on their farm
 Standard practice: the newness of a project may effect
relationship of attendance and adoption.
 Older practices may become industry standard and may
adopt but not attend a demonstration sites/field day

18. Future Research
 How do we get the “non‐choir” to attend
demonstration events?
 Does novelty of a practice change influence of
demonstration attendance/adoption rates?

19. Questions?
Thanks to:
Dr. Jessica Ulrich‐Schad, South Dakota State University
Dr. Mike Dunn, Centre for Ecosystems, Society, & Biosecurity, U.K.
Brian MacGowan, Purdue University
Heidi Klotz, Purdue University/ Indiana University
Funding: Purdue College of Agriculture
Contact information
Dr. Linda S. Prokopy
lprokopy@purdue.edu
765.496.2221
Twitter: @lprokopy