Blending Traditional and Contemporary Agricultural Extension Methods to Address Broad-Based Stakeholder Needs for Agriculture and Climate Change in Pacific Northwest Cereal Cropping Systems.

Promoting scientifically-based agricultural responses to a complex challenge like climate change mitigation and adaptation necessitates a coordinated Extension strategy that addresses multiple stakeholder audiences with different information needs and educational methods. The USDA NIFA funded Regional Approaches to Climate Change for Pacific Northwest Agriculture (REACCH PNA) Coordinated Agriculture Project includes an Extension Objective that targets educational programming to a variety of stakeholder groups using a combination of proven, traditional and contemporary and experimental Extension methodologies focused on overcoming barriers to improved agricultural management. Our Extension Team utilizes a Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SAC) with broad representation from producers, producer organizations, allied industry, government agency, environmental market industry interests, and environmental organizations to guide Extension needs assessment, programming and product development. The team will employ traditional methodologies such as field days, producer workshops and Extension publications as well as contemporary methodologies such as webinars, video, and electronic media. In addition, the team will pioneer experimental extension methodologies and products such as Smart Phone applications, web-based forums and decision-support tools that utilize the REACCH Cyber-Infrastructure and Research Databases. REACCH Graduate Students will participate in the development innovative and experimental Extension products.