PSII-20 Extension programming and stakeholder engagement on a long-term project developing a bioeconomy around dairy manure.

Abstract In many regions in the U.S. and worldwide, modern dairy farms typically operate as confined operations, concentrating a significant amount of manure and nutrients in relatively small geographical areas. Over the years, this situation has increased the concentration of nutrients in farms surrounding dairies due to repeated manure or bioproduct application beyond the capacity of crops to uptake those nutrients. The University of Idaho, through a USDA-NIFA Sustainable Agriculture Systems grant, has implemented a project known as the “Idaho Sustainable Agriculture Initiative for Dairy (ISAID).” Now in its fifth year, the six-year project involves a multidisciplinary team of 25 faculty and post-doctoral researchers, 11 Ph.D., 22 Master and dozens of undergraduate students. The project includes three defined areas of work: research, extension, and education, which, in practice, are strategically interrelated to maximize the project’s impact. The research components emphasize the creation of a circular bioeconomy around dairy manure, intending to develop technically and economically viable ways of recycling, exporting, or using dairy manure as input for new marketable products. The educational section emphasizes the training of graduate and undergraduate students on the different aspects of the system approach to prepare them to work in associated industries or institutions. The extension component of the grant started its activities from the project’s inception. Contrary to commonly used methodologies that trigger extension involvement at the latter stages, this project included extension activities from the beginning and during the whole project evolution. Extension activities and deliverables were designed to allow researchers to explain to the public, especially dairy and crop producers, the science and technology of their research and their expectations of results. A multifaceted media campaign using diverse electronic platforms, popular press publications, field days, demo videos, interviews, progress reports, and podcasts are the main strategies used by the extension team to keep the audience engaged and informed on how each research project is advancing, how the researchers and students are solving the challenges that arise, and sharing their preliminary results, as well as receiving audience’s feedback. Extension components are embedded in the education section, requiring all graduate students to generate extension products (bulletins, infographics) as part of their studies. This extension material preparation extends to the project researchers who interact with students from areas of study not directly related to their research, adding a synergist effect to the communication of the science, economics, sociology, and other aspects of each project research.