Rick Koelsch
How well are we communicating our natural resource education opportunities
to agencies and organizations addressing water, soil and nutrient issues? Two
recent meetings in which I have participated suggest that Extension may be
missing some important opportunities.
A recent meeting with Nebraska NRCS State Conservationist Craig Derickson and
District Conservationists suggested that professional development of NRCS field
staff is a critical need around several issue areas including irrigation,
nutrient management, and soils and soil health. Tight NRCS travel budgets has
created difficult challenges for NRCS to meet the professional development
needs of their field staff.
They were
hungry to learn about existing on-line courses through UNL Extension and
eXtension as well as planned producer and advisor targeted workshops. The
discussion suggested considerable inconsistency in their awareness of workshops
that had occurred this past winter and complete lack of knowledge of our
on-line course offerings.
This week Katie Pekarek and I met with the NRD managers and shared a
two-page summary of nine water related extension initiatives and highlighted in
our oral presentation the Brule Water Resources laboratory and its August field
day, the Ag Water Management Network (and the value of the Extension/NRD
partnership), and the partnership between Extension and Monsanto’s Water Education Center.
In
conversations with individual NRD managers I learned that many of the
initiatives we shared were new news to the NRD managers.
So how do we better communicate our Extension educational opportunities with
NRCS, NRDs, NDEQ, Department of Agriculture and other organizations?
Here are a couple of thoughts for your
consideration.
I would welcome additional
suggestions you may have:
·
For programs that address natural resource
topics in your county or region, have you connected with regional NRD(s), NRCS,
or NDEQ offices as possible partners, co-sponsors, or promoters? These organizations may be able to help us
connect with potential clientele as well as offer to their own staffs these
educational experiences as a professional development opportunity.
·
Have you met and established a working relationship
with the Information/Education Specialist or Public Relations Director for NRDs
in your region. This is an important
point of contact within NRDs with which Extension needs to have a strong
relationship.
·
Do we need to have a means of collectively
gathering all Extension programs on selected topic areas (e.g. ag water use,
nutrient management, soil management, water quality, urban/suburban water
issues) and sharing with these agencies?
This was the request that was made of UNL Extension by the State and District
Conservationists for NRCS. Suggestions as to how we might implement this are
welcome. Volunteers who might serve as a
point person for gathering professional development opportunities around one of
the topic areas would be most welcome.
Please give some thought as to how we might better engage our natural
resource related agencies and organization in sharing of our educational
program plans and opportunities.
