Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers

Introduction

Agricultural crops contribute about $150 billion annually to the U.S. economy, most of which comes from the intensely cultivated corn-belt region of the Midwest (USDA-ERS, 2010). Successful crop production in this area is highly dependent on favorable temperatures and appropriate precipitation patters, making the viability of this industry subject to increasingly variable climate patterns.

Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers, is an integrated research and extension project that seeks to improve the resilience and profitability of farms in the North Central Region amid variable climate change through the development and dissemination of improved decision support tools, resource materials, and training. The goal is to help producers make better long-term plans on what, when and where to plant, and also how to manage crops for maximum yields and minimum environmental damage.

Objectives

During the span of this 5-year project, the U2U team will complete tasks associated with 5 objectives that together will improve the usability of climate information for the agricultural community and lead to more sustainable farming operations.

First the team will produce research on the biophysical and economic risks and impacts of different climate scenarios on corn/soybean yields and farm profitability in the North Central Region (objective 1). Simultaneously, research will be conducted to understand how producers use climate information, evaluate producers’ and advisors’ climate information needs, and assess effective methods for disseminating usable knowledge to the agricultural community (objective 2).

Based on these findings, decision support tools (DSTs) and training materials will be developed to effectively deliver climate information to stakeholders (objective 3). DSTs, training materials, and implementation approaches for corn/soybean producers will then be piloted in Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, and Michigan (objective 4). After several iterations with stakeholders to ensure the usability and utility of the tools, the program will be extended to all twelve states in the region (objective 5).

Approach

Ongoing engagement of key stakeholder groups including agricultural producers, advisors, and extension educators are at the core of this project and highly critical to its success. Producers refer to people growing corn/soybeans on their own land or rented land. Advisors refer to people who work with producers and help them make decisions including bankers, crop advisors, input suppliers, extension specialists, and others. Stakeholders will serve as both participants in the human dimension research and as representatives on the U2U Advisory Committee. These interactions will inform the design and dissemination of decision support tools (DSTs) and associated resource materials.

Project evaluation occurs at every step in the process, from fundamental research to product dissemination and outreach, to inform and improve performance. An evaluation team monitors progress toward activities and outputs, and measures the learning gains, attitudes changes, and behavior changes associated with delivered products and resources (see Logic Model).

HUBzero™ technology serves as the supporting middle-ware that integrates tasks across all objectives throughout the duration of this project and beyond. It facilitates the development and delivery of decision support tools, climate and adaptation information, and associated materials. HUBzero™ is a NSF-funded and Purdue University developed web-based collaboration environment based on a number of open source packages (Linux, Apache, LDAP, PHP, Joomla, MySQL). It provides features including: interactive simulation tools, presentations and webinars, user groups, wikis and blogs, content tagging, calendar and news features, and feedback mechanisms.