The Missouri Produce Growers Video Newsletter: Digestible, Accessible, Impactful, and Replicable Extension Education and Outreach
Teaching & Educational Technologies
Justin Keay
Field Specialist in Horticulture
University of Missouri Extension
Bowling Green
Abstract
Maintaining impactful, ongoing digital engagement with specialty crop farmers is challenging. Extension educators must compete with high-reward and low time investment media, such as video hosting and social media platforms. Farming information found on social media platforms often lacks supporting research and may rely solely on the opinion and site-specific experiences of the content creator. The bi-monthly Missouri Produce Growers Video Newsletter (MPGVN) was developed in 2020 by a team of six horticulture educators to support the adoption of research-backed farming practices by Missouri’s specialty crop farmers, and to serve as a resource hub for the specialty crop industry. Newsletter issues are created using the Dotdigital engagement platform and consist of five to seven educational videos three to five minutes in length. The concise interdisciplinary content includes live shot videos but consists primarily of narrated PowerPoint presentations. The videos are also hosted on the MU IPM YouTube Channel, where they have accumulated over 118,000 views. In 2023, a survey to assess impacts of the newsletter was sent to 948 subscribers using the Qualtrics survey tool, with a 14% response rate (N=132). Of respondents, 55% identified as “currently growing and selling produce or growing produce and planning to sell in the future” (growers). The survey showed that of the growers; 85% indicated knowledge gains; 78% reported adoption or change of farming practices; 63% attended an extension class; 56% connected with a partner agency; 23% applied to grants; and 5% received grant awards, thanks to information delivered in the newsletter. Additionally, an analysis was performed to assess MPGVN subscriber engagement. Email newsletter engagement metric data, tracked by issue in Dotdigital, was collected for issues released from 2020-2023. The MPGVN engagement metrics relative to industry benchmarks for educational email newsletters are higher by (66%) for unique opens, (190%) for unique clickers, and (77%) for click-to-open rate. The MPGVN is an effective educational tool and resource hub supporting knowledge gain and adoption of research-backed farming practices. The content and format of the MPGVN can be easily replicated by other Extension educators to provide research-backed information to their state’s specialty crop farmers.
Authors: Justin Keay
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Justin Keay Field Specialist in Horticulture, MU Extension, Missouri, 63334