Denny, Riva C. H.
Michigan State University
Presented at the All Scientist Meeting and Investigators Field Tour (2017-10-06 to 2017-10-07 )
Knowledge is an understudied aspect of farmers’ use of a range of agricultural management practices, including specifically conservation oriented practices. However, knowledge has the potential to be an important component of practice use, both by having a direct influence on practice use and indirectly through attitudes. My goal in this poster is to make a preliminary exploration of the data from the 2017 LTER Crop Management Survey, specifically the questions on knowledge, education level, and farming experience to answer two initial questions: 1) What is the relationship between knowledge, education, and experience among farmers, and 2) Are these three related concepts functionally the same for predicting the use of conservation practices or are they different? An initial descriptive analysis of knowledge by education level and by farming experience suggests that these measures are independent of each other. Logistic regressions of the use of 9 practices on high knowledge, having a bachelor’s degree or higher, and having 40 or more years of farming experience shows that high knowledge is the strongest and most consistent predictor of practice use, though education and experience are significant for some practices. Interestingly, farmers with more experience may be less likely to use the included practices. Future work should include farmer attitudes and explore other predictors of farmer knowledge.
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