The development of methodologies for the determination and facilitation of learning for dairy farmers

Agricultural extension is a specialised sector of adult education. During the evolution of this service, industry has concentrated on increasing the rate of adoption of new or better technology. Extension research has searched for improved methods of motivating farmers to change in directions seen as being beneficial by the agency. The agencies have become increasingly accountable to their financial masters and the evaluation of extension effectiveness has been questioned more and more by both the client and the Extension Officer. In reaching for solutions agricultural extension has continued to re-examine and repackage the message or content. The people involved in extension (the Extension Officer and the Farmer Client) have largely been ignored in the examination of effectiveness. A large percentage of the farmer population has been viewed as not motivated to change. The New Zealand dairy industry is largely dependent on efficient grassland farming systems. The dairy farmers are generally aggressively competitive in their quest for increased production, efficiency and achieving family goals, particularly farm ownership. The Australian dairy industry is by comparison very diverse faced with structural and climatic problems. The attitudes of the two populations are quite different. However, this study has demonstrated that dairy farmers are very similar to other populations of adult learners in their learning behaviour. Most learning projects are related to on farm goals and are action based. The farmers are very capable self directed learners, planning, managing and directing their own projects. The issue becomes not how to motivate people to change but rather to improve the active learners' competence to manage change successfully. methodology of investigation developed within this study evolved from a card sort to a 'conversational technique' based on practised counselling skills, supported by a visual display and Repgrid matrix computer analysis. This method exhibited considerable power to extract information and to display it in such a way that both the respondent and the investigator learnt by mutual agreement. The adoption of Personal Construct Theory as a theoretical framework enabled a strong philosophical stance to be taken, which shifted the emphasis from the content to the process of learning. The conversational technique which was developed attained a better understanding of the process of how dairy farmers mananged their learning. Other people form the major resource used by farmers, and their use depended on the perceived social distance from the learner. Each social strata, i.e. paid experts, acquaintances and intimates, played different and specific roles all of which were very important to the learner and his project management. A learning model was developed using the conversational pathways and interpreting how people were used by the learner. The support information provided by the use of the Repgrid, clearly indicated the importance to the farmer of those people with a similar cognitive structure. Membership of this group was an indication of an extension officers effectiveness. The dairy farmers interviewed were all clients of various extension officers in either Victoria or New Zealand. Agricultural professionals were numerically a minor group of the total people resources used by dairy farmers whereas other farmers were a major group. The effectiveness of extension officers depended on a number of factors including an empathy with the farmers' objectives, a clear understanding of the learning process and his part in that process, and a sensitivity to the stress of personal change and decision making. It is also essential that Extension Officers can communicate technical and managerial information in an effective manner. The role of extension in this new era of an information society will change from being simply purveyors of information to one of assisting people to change. Professional staff need to challenge farmers to learn both about the nature of change and the principles of their business. Extension agencies will be effective in achieving their organisational goals by assisting clients to interpret and use information so contributing to the already effective, on going, rural adult learning activity. The challenge is . for extension to change.