Insights on peer engagement from farmers working with conservation advocates in the Maumee River basin

While traditional outreach has successfully engaged early adopters of conservation agriculture, it is less effective at reaching middle adopters, who make up the majority and are more risk averse. Peer learning can help encourage adoption among this group, yet existing efforts largely attract early adopters. This study explores the Farmer Advocates for Conservation (FAC) program, a semiformal, peer-learning program that trains and compensates early adopters to serve as mentors for middle adopters. These advocates engage their peers through a range of activities, with the goal of generating informal peer connections that will last (and grow) beyond the initial program structure. Triangulating three years of mixed-methods data from farmers engaged by advocates through the FAC program, this study evaluates the effectiveness of the program, identifies mentor characteristics and program features that facilitate or hinder engagement, and examines which farmers may be most effectively reached by advocates. We find that participants were satisfied with their experience, reporting increases in conservation knowledge, confidence, and intentions. Results further indicate that program success can be attributed to how the outreach was structured and delivered, with participants emphasizing hands-on, field-based experiences; flexible, relational engagement formats; and regularly scheduled opportunities that created safe spaces for discussion and iterative adjustment of practices. Participants were most receptive when mentors combined practical experience with technical knowledge, guided participants step by step through recurring engagement, communicated in farmer-centered and context-specific ways, fostered nonjudgmental environments for shared reflection, and openly shared both challenges and successes, thereby reducing perceived risk and making conservation practices feel feasible. Findings also indicate that the impact of peer outreach in a community can be constrained by skepticism or indifference toward conservation practices, fear of peer judgment and social risk, and the scarcity of conservation-minded peers. These results underscore the need for persistent and resilient mentors, one-on-one engagement to reduce social pressure, and peer connections at varying spatial or social distances. Finally, the findings suggest that this semiformal program was most effective for conservation-minded and younger farmers, indicating that the reach can still be somewhat limited. Together, these findings highlight several concrete considerations for future programs related to both program structure and mentors’ relational and engagement skills.