Leveraging the Farmer Messenger Effect

Title: Decoding and Leveraging the Farmer Messenger Effect to Accelerate the Adoption of Critical Edge-of-Field Conservation Practices.

Location: Statewide.

Time Period: 2023 -2025.

Research Team: Jacqueline Comito, Wendong Zhang.

Project Description: Building on the 2021 INRC project “Identifying the barriers and strategies to accelerate the adoption of critical Edge-of-field Conservation Practices: A Farmer-Centric Integrated Research & Extension Approach”, the purpose of this proposed project is to further decode and unpack the messenger effect in encouraging farmers to adopt critical EOF conservation practices. First, we will work on videos and infographics that adopt more of a transportive narrative style. Second, we will survey 4,200 individuals farming in the Des Moines and Iowa River watersheds with split sample design featuring different messengers and messages about EOF practice adoption and corresponding environmental benefits. Specifically, our project will examine the following questions: 1) Do farmers react differently to a female vs. male early farmer adopter who is narrating the messages about EOF practices? 2) Is a factsheet still preferred to a video even when the video is more engaging, tells a more effective story and has added supplemental footage that illustrates the flora and fauna that are a part of some EOF practices? 3) Can we design the survey questions to enhance farmers’ knowledge of these less-well-known and often-mistaken EOF practices? Can we tell the “story” of these practices to be more impactful?

Publications:

Funders: INRC