Duration: 10/01/2026 to 09/30/2031

Administrative Advisor(s):

NIFA Reps:

Non-Technical Summary

Land managers, especially farmers, face many economic, environmental, and management challenges that often lead to intensive land management that can cause additional environmental risks. To minimize both the risks that farmers and other land managers face, and the potential unintended consequences of intensive management, the use of conservation practices is critically important. NC1190 researchers are focused on four objectives to improve knowledge and update of conservation practices through (1) developing and refining frameworks and models of conservation decisions, (2) participatory and engaged research and outreach, (3) identifying and evaluating applied adaptive management strategies, and (4) evaluating how different program and policy approaches shape the uptake of conservation practices. Our applied research is targeted at both land managers, particularly farmers, and conservation professionals in public and nonprofit sectors that provide oversight and technical support for conservation practice implementation. Land managers and conservation professionals will benefit from our participatory and collaborative social science research by gaining insights on land managers adapt to the different risks they face, identifying gaps between what land managers practice and what conservation professionals recommend, and disseminating information that gives land managers additional tools and strategies to adapt to and navigate economic, environmental, and management pressures. Much of our research is participatory and collaborative, where we engage with land managers  and conservation professionals directly and provide reports back to them in face-to-face meetings. In addition, we publish in academic and practitioner journals and share research findings at conferences that include conservation practitioners.

Statement of Issues and Justification

Need as Indicated by Stakeholders

Land managers — whether row-crop farmers, ranchers, private forest owners, or agency managers — face a variety of economic and management challenges from droughts, groundwater depletion, floods and intense storms, wildfires, and pests and disease. A major challenge is to minimize the risks that farmers and other land managers face, while also limiting unintended consequences of intensive land management to society. Responding to these challenges requires greater collaboration on the part of researchers, agricultural practitioners, and policy makers to support the improved financial well-being of farmers and land managers and greater stewardship of America’s natural resources.

The negative impacts of intensive land management are well documented and have lead to increased incidents of harmful algal blooms and hypoxic zones (Rabalais and Turner 2019), declining groundwater resources for irrigation and drinking water supplies (Deng et al., 2025), the loss of pollinators and other beneficial insects (Perfecto 2009; Vandermeer 2018), the loss of fertile topsoil (Thaler et al., 2021), and increasing wildfire risks for private landowners in multiple parts of the country (Burke et al., 2021). Farmers increasingly face financial hardship and tight margins, with the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture showing that 57% of farms operate at a net-loss (USDA 2024). 

One of the long-standing tools available for private and public land managers has been the promotion of voluntary conservation practices. Broadly, conservation practices entail a wide range of management techniques that have the common goal of providing reduced vulnerability to biophysically driven risks, while also reducing negative externalities to society. Despite extensive natural science research on the potential benefits of conservation practices both on-farm and off-farm, adoption rates have increased slowly for some of the most widely promoted practices, such as no-till and cover crops (Plastina et al., 2024). Dis-adoption continues to play a large role in the slowness of scaling up practices that have important benefits in reducing farmers’ risk to extreme weather (ibid.). At the same time, more research is needed to understand farmers’ and other land managers’ perceptions of the tradeoffs as part of their adoption decision-making process. 

Research on collaborative natural resource management has shown that stakeholders learning about different concerns often work through a series of learning and bargaining phases to generate agreements (Newig et al., 2018). One of the insights from this research is that technical assistance is unlikely to be effective in using an information-deficit approach, where researchers or extension agents simply provide information and expect farmers or land managers to promptly change their management approaches (Blackstock et al., 2010). Collaborative research, such as knowledge co-production approaches, may also be critical to information sharing among farmers. Prior research indicates that knowledge co-production, where both specialists and practitioners learn from one another, does improve learning outcomes (Lemos et al., 2018). 

As with any type of educational approach, coalescing around a shared understanding of whether there is a need for changed management (or behavior) is a crucial first step (Eaton et al., 2021) to then better understand the different decision-making strategies that farmers and land managers may prioritize in response. Current research needs to better understand how information shared through outreach approaches is understood by farmers, what aspects of messages are salient, and whether the economics of different conservation practices are feasible with or without financial assistance. In particular, a better understanding of whether on-farm benefits and costs can be changed by improved knowledge could be critical to improved adoption rates (Irvine et al., 2025). Evaluating conservation program design also needs to be paired with an improved understanding of what dimensions can support an enabling environment to improve conservation practice adoption—such as policies, market demand, technology, infrastructure, alongside technical assistance for decision-making. 

Importance of the Work and What Consequences Are If It Is Not Done

The primary approach for supporting farmers and other land managers is the use of voluntary USDA conservation programs that provide technical and financial assistance. The work to be undertaken by the NC1190 researchers is aimed at how to reduce farmers’ vulnerability to economic and biophysical risks by improving communication and understanding around the advantages and disadvantages of different management strategies related to conservation practices. While there has been substantial research in both natural and social sciences on managing risk (Kasperson et al., 1988; Kahnemann, 2011; Pannell, 2017; Findlater et al., 2019; Houser, 2022) and why farmers do or do not adopt conservation practices (Prokopy et al., 2008; Baumgart-Getz et al., 2012; Prokopy et al., 2019; Ranjan et al., 2019), a major challenge remains on how best to improve the communication of information about risks and to ensure that farmers and land managers are included in the process of identifying management strategies. 

Within social science research, more work is needed to improve how management strategies are understood, trialed, and implemented (Stuart et al., 2014) and how collaborative approaches shape these dimensions (Jackson-Smith et al., 2018). Voluntary programs that provide cost-share support are limited both in the overall amount of financial assistance that can be provided and in the number of farmers that are interested in working with public sector programs. Collaborative and engaged social science research can provide insights into how to improve the uptake of management strategies that can reduce farmers’ economic and biophysical risks and on the potential efficiency of voluntary conservation programs. Without this work, farmers that face tight margins may be less likely to learn of effective approaches because NC1190 social science projects help to facilitate discussions among farmers and researchers to identify best practices.

Because many farmer-focused support programs are implemented without systematic social science research, NC1190 has the potential to increase our knowledge about what aspects of these programs can be improved to increase support for farmers to reduce the risks they face. These insights can be incorporated in conceptual framework, behavioral theories, and decision-making models to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of technical and financial assistance programs for farmers and other land managers. Because farmers operate in a wide variety of biophysical conditions and use varied management strategies, social science research is helpful to identify how different types of designs may be tailored to farmers with large grain farmers or farmers with more varied production. Better tailoring of policy designs and greater technical assistance support for farm management has the potential to increase the use of conservation practices that can minimize the risks of extreme weather, which subsequently can reduce the costs to taxpayers of crop insurance indemnities paid out to farmers.

We propose to continue this multistate research technical committee to advance our understanding of how collaborative research efforts can improve farmers management strategies with respect to conservation practices to reduce their economic and biophysical risks.

Overarching Research Question: How do psychological, economic, and social factors drive land management behaviors that affect conservation outcomes?

Specific research questions:

• Adoption: What factors or resources help farmers overcome barriers to conservation adoption and how does this vary by individual, farm, or landscape characteristics? What types of social, economic, and environmental outcomes emerge from the adoption of conservation practices? 
• Programs and Policies: What is the impact of different programs and policies in addressing conservation adoption? How do programs and policies and their design impact farmer decision making and the structures affecting the adoption of conservation practices?
• Participatory engagement: What approaches to participatory engagement are most effective at achieving improvements in adoption and conservation outcomes?

Technical Feasibility of Work

The scientists collaborating on this Hatch-funded project have made substantial contributions to understanding the opportunities and barriers to promoting conservation practice adoption among land owners. The contributions of the group include identifying the types of generalizable factors that can encourage adoption (Prokopy et al. 2019; Ranjan et al. 2019), new frameworks for how stakeholders can be more effectively engaged to contribute to learning and disseminating knowledge (Jackson-Smith et al. 2018, Church et al., 2020; Church et al., 2021; Yoder et al., 2024), and management-specific understandings of farmer decision-making (Asprooth et al., 2023; Asprooth et al., 2025; Upadhaya et al., 2023; Nowakze & Arbuckle, 2023). The team has documented its ability to work together with multiple collaborative projects and grant proposals each since the previous proposal was approved. Over the past two years, the members have produced on average a total of 30 publications, presentations, and reports each year.

Advantages of Doing the Work as a Multistate Effort

Current Proposal: Current team members work in diverse US ecosystems - Mississippi River, Great Plains, Chesapeake Bay, Great Lakes, and the Columbia River - that experience significant water and land conservation challenges such as water quality impairment, water scarcity and conflict, soil erosion, and ecosystem transformation. The challenges associated with catalyzing and enabling conservation behaviors may best be overcome by facilitating learning across these geographic contexts, groups of land managers (farmers, ranchers, forest owners, and public agency managers), and decision-contexts. Multi-state efforts create openings for quasi-experimental designs and comparative analysis. Working through a multistate team will enable the researchers to co-develop and test knowledge about the individual and collective actions to improve water quality across multiple ecological, cultural, political, and social contexts. In other words, working across regions will allow the researchers to more accurately identify triggers of behavioral change and under what conditions those triggers effect change. Further, many of the social scientists participating in this research have excellent case study data that are specific to their states or regions. Working across multiple states will allow for comparisons of these cases to identify key variables. To date, the opportunities and funding for across state collaboration have been limited. Finally, working as a multi-state effort provides opportunities for mentoring and collaboration among social scientists at different professional stages who are working in natural resources conservation management contexts.

What the likely impacts will be from successfully completing the work

We see two main types of impacts from this work. First, our research approach with farmers and other conservation stakeholders is often participatory. This approach can increase two-way flows of knowledge between farmers and researchers, which improves the quality of the research questions and findings from a deeper understanding of what information and ideas farmers and other stakeholders have and would also benefit from having (e.g., Blackstock et al., 2010; Jackson-Smith et al., 2018). It allows the research to be better tailored for application and ultimately to provide recommendations on adaptive strategies where farmers and land managers can implement conservation strategies that can also increase the financial and social viability of farming. To accomplish these impacts, we will continue to build on and synthesize prior research across states to draw on findings on individual and collective behaviors for conservation. We will also continue to update theoretical frameworks and models on land management and conservation behaviors. The second major area of impact will be to provide information and recommendations to conservation managers and practitioners at local, state, and federal levels on how different policy design approaches can have their intended effect on conservation adoption for farmers of different resource capacities, sizes, and operations (e.g., Wardropper et al., 2015; Church et al., 2021; Irvine et al., 2025). Adaptive strategies are likely to be important as farmers face changing market environments and the ongoing challenges with extreme weather.

For a list of expected participants, please see the attached file.

 

Related, Current and Previous Work

A search on the CRIS database for active projects revealed 265 results for “collaboration” and “conservation,” but only 11 active projects that also included social science. Of these, only one has some small overlap with NC1190.  The project, SERA 46 Framework for Nutrient Reduction Strategy Collaboration: The Role for Land Grant Universities, has a strict focus on the on agricultural extension capacities of land grant universities to provide guidance on nutrient management and conservation practices. While this overlaps some with research done by members of NC1190, our members have cast a broader net on types of natural resource challenges in agriculture than nutrients losses alone, while also looking at a wider range of policy approaches to farmers’ decision-making with respect to nutrient management and other land use practices. One other project has some similarities to NC1190, but does not overlap with our project directly. While the project NC1034 Impact Analyses and Decision Strategies for Agricultural Research looks at decision-making, it is focused primarily on agricultural research and development, innovations, and new technologies and not conservation practices or outcomes. A few other projects look at environmental issues, such as water scarcity (W5190), soil and environmental physics (W5188), aquaculture (W4004), and outdoor recreation (NE1962). The remaining projects focus on aspects of food and social systems and not on conservation issues. 

This multistate project has been working together for more than ten years and has made substantial progress on knowledge on drivers of conservation behavior and decision-making, processes for effective stakeholder engagement, and productive frameworks for analyzing decision-making.

Current and previous work of NC1190 participants include testing and assessing different aspects of this project’s objectives.

Dr. J. Arbuckle is a professor of rural sociology and extension sociologist in the Iowa State University Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. He conducts survey, focus group, and in-depth interview research on farmers’ and agricultural stakeholders’ decisions and behaviors related to soil and water conservation. As director of the Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll, an annual survey of Iowa Farmers, he measures farmers’ soil and water conservation-related awareness, concern, and behaviors, especially those that are water quality-related. He has co-authored numerous papers and successful grant proposals with past and current NC1190 project collaborators. He currently serves as social science research editor for the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation.

Dr. Lauren Asprooth is a Food Systems Scientist in the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Asprooth has led research related to understanding determinants of adoption of diversified agricultural practices and systems in the Upper Midwest. This work focuses on structural factors that have traditionally received less attention in conservation adoption literature including markets, infrastructure, public investments, and local, state, and federal policy tools. Findings have been recently published in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation and Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. Dr. Asprooth works in collaborative teams of academics and agricultural stakeholders and co-authors of this work include NC1190 members Prokopy, Floress, Church, Genskow, and Arbuckle. 

Dr. Mark Burbach is an environmental social scientist in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He conducts surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interview research on the antecedents and outcomes of successful stakeholder engagement. Current work involves collaboration with fellow NC1190 members, Brasier, Eaton, and Chaudhary, to study the changes that occur in individuals, groups, communities, and the environment through community-led engagement. The team developed a conceptual framework for enabling social and environmental change through stakeholder engagement in water resource management and has documented social learning outcomes of community-led engagement. Additionally, his current research involves studying the effect of boundary spanners on collaborative water management, studying predictors of producers’ pro-environmental behavior, and testing the effectiveness of the Nebraska Water Leaders Academy in catalyzing change in participants to become civically engaged in water policy.

Dr. Sarah P. Church, Associate Professor at Montana State University and Director of the Institute on Ecosystems, conducts applied social science research on water quality, soil health, and decision-making. Dr. Church has collaborated extensively with NC1190 members on grants and peer-reviewed publications and served on the NC1190 executive committee from 2023 to 2025. Her work has shown that producers with systems-oriented mindsets are more likely to adopt cover crops—an essential practice for improving soil and water outcomes. In Montana, she has evaluated the Big Sky Watershed Corps program, collaborated with watershed groups on a longitudinal survey of water monitoring volunteers, and co-led a NOAA-funded project with Dr. Haigh, examining drought decision-making among land management agencies. She also investigates communication barriers between NRCS staff and farmers, contributing to a white paper that informs conservation outreach strategies, and continues to publish on conservation planning, watershed governance, and wetland assessment.

Dr. Tonya Haigh is Research Assistant Professor and Social Science Coordinator for the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC), University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Dr. Haigh’s research focuses on the adaptive capacity of natural resource managers and others to cope with drought. Her research connects social science with environmental risks by informing the development of stakeholder-driven resources and tools. Haigh and NC1190 colleague Dr. Sarah Church recently co-led a NOAA-funded project examining drought decision-making among land management agencies, leading to multiple manuscripts submitted for publication. Her paper, “Planning Strategies and Barriers to Achieving Local Drought Preparedness”, was awarded Best Paper of 2023 by the Journal of the American Planning Association. She also published in Weather, Climate and Society, as well as Rangelands and Rangeland Ecology and Management.

Dr. Douglas Jackson-Smith is Professor in the School of Environment and Natural Resources and Director of the Agroecosystem Management Program at The Ohio State University. Trained both as a rural sociologist and agricultural economist, Dr. Jackson-Smith’s research highlights the integration of farm- and household-level factors as well as the broader social, economic, and institutional structural context that drive or constrain conservation practice use in the United States. Since joining NC1190 in 2016, he has led several interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams to better represent the role of human factors in complex watershed and landscape ecosystem service models. His work has also implemented (and evaluated the effectiveness of) deeply participatory approaches where farmers and land managers co-develop innovative conservation solutions in partnership with scientists and other key actors. This work has been published in a wide range of journals, including Rural Sociology, the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, Socio-Ecological Practice Research, the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, and Environmental Science and Policy.

Dr. Pranay Ranjan, Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy in the School of Earth and Sustainability (SES) at Northern Arizona University, has led and contributed to research examining the role of conservation intermediaries on rented farmlands and understanding the role of conservation planning on farmers’ adoption of conservation practices. The paper on conservation intermediaries was led by Ranjan, with contributions from NC1190 member Prokopy, among others, and was published in the journal Environmental Management. Ranjan and other NC1190 members Prokopy and Church coauthored the paper on conservation planning, which was published in the Journal of Rural Studies. Ranjan, along with NC1190 member Prokopy and others, is working on a paper examining drivers of and barriers to success in farmer networks across the United States. Ranjan and Prokopy, along with other collaborators, completed social science evaluation of the federal Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP). Ranjan led a paper from this work, focusing on comparing conservation priorities and perspectives of first- and second-generation FRPP landowners, which is currently under review. Ranjan led and published a paper (forthcoming; in the journal WIREs Water) examining economic and legal anthropological approaches to water rights. Ranjan also co-authored a paper on collective action institutions for natural resource management in the periurban interface, which was published in the journal Urban Studies. In collaboration with SES colleagues, Ranjan is co-leading efforts to examine priorities and perspectives of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and their motivations for and barriers to serving as citizen scientists. This work built off a paper Ranjan coauthored in Nature Sustainability. Ranjan serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Society and Natural Resources. 

Dr. Adena Rissman, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, conducts research and outreach on conservation practice adoption in forestry, grassland, and agricultural management. She collaborated with NC1190 colleagues to examine state nutrient reduction strategies in the Mississippi River Basin in Journal of Soil and Water Conservation and a review of how nutrient reduction efforts shape urban-rural relationships in Agriculture and Human Values. Her research in Wisconsin uncovered a disconnect between in-stream water quality goals and in-field nutrient management, published in a report for practitioners available through Minds@UW. Her surveys of Wisconsin dairy farmers about water quality policy and Midwest farmers about conservation practices and programs reveal the relationships between farmer identity, behavior, and policy support. Rissman’s research in grazing shows the policy changes that would support greater transitions to well managed grazing, published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. Rissman serves on the Wisconsin Council on Forestry where she leads the Sound Forestry and Policy committee.  

Dr. Jessica Schad, Professor and Extension Specialist at Utah State University (USU), has contributed to research and outreach focused on Utah producers’ adoption and maintenance of soil health practices and South Dakota producers’ usage of nutrient management practices. Findings from this work have been used to inform on-farm trials and recommendations to crop advisors for their work with producers. Findings have been published by USU Extension, Agriculture & Human Values, Agricultural & Environmental Letters, and the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation. Dr. Schad has also been working on research on ranchers in the Intermountain west and their willingness to adopt islands of diverse, nutrient plant patches (i.e. smart foodscapes) that provide nutritional benefits for cattle while reducing environmental impacts of beef production. This work often seeks to engage ranching populations that are largely absent from research and uses a sense of place framework to understand the role of place connection in their decision-making. This work has been published in Rangelands and Rangeland Ecology & Management and finds that ranchers’ need more information about the economic, labor, and system implications of adopting smart foodscapes. 

Dr. Chloe Wardropper is an Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Policy and Sustainable Landscapes in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at University of Illinois. She and her research group study governance and the use of science for sustainable agriculture. She has investigated adoption of conservation practices, including cover crops and agroforestry, translating science into useful and usable decision-support tools, and co-production of science with agricultural stakeholders.

Dr. Robyn Wilson is a behavioral decision scientist at The Ohio State University whose research focuses on understanding how individuals are respondinDr.g to natural hazards, drawing on behavioral theory, risk communication, and decision science.  Much of her current work focuses on private lands management, and integrating behavioral heterogeneity into coupled systems models forecasting future conditions. Her active research projects include two USDA SAS projects, one focused on building models of technology adoption among farmers for harvesting and processing of sustainable bioproducts; and the other focused on modeling farmer types through a combination of survey data, remote sensing and AI/ML methods to inform carbon sequestration programs. Other active projects include work aimed at understanding how to close value-behavior gap in private lands conservation, as well as what drives persistence in conservation adoption. She is collaborating with other NC1190 members to aggregate existing survey data on farmer adoption of conservation practices on productive land and use that larger and more spatially variable data set to understand diverse farmer types.

Dr. Landon Yoder, Assistant Professor and Janet Duey Professor of Rural Land Policy at Indiana University, has contributed research and outreach with farmers in southern Indiana on measuring nutrient losses from their tile drains. This work provides insights on how to communicate the challenges of preventing nutrients losses and identifying effective nutrient retention practices. He has also contributed research on the opportunities and challenges of cover crop adoption in the Midwest. His work here has shown, along with Dr. Wardropper, that risk perceptions of extreme weather are not driving adoption decisions as many farmers do not perceive much risk from extreme weather on their farms. It also shows that many farmers report cover crops having a neutral effect on cash crop yields, while also finding that more farmers report increasing in yields than decreases. His research has been published in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, Land Use Policy, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, and Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment.

Dr. Adam Zwickle is an interdisciplinary social scientist at Michigan State University whose research focuses on sustainable natural resource management. His work draws from the fields of decision science, behavioral change, risk perception, and risk communication. His active research projects currently involve collaborative water management at the local level, sustainable approaches to water governance, and working with communities affected by environmental contamination in Michigan. Adam’s academic training and early research was centered around how perceptions of environmental risks influence decision making at the individual level. Motivated by a passion to address pressing societal challenges, however, he has shifted his research to support change at the policy level. His current work in collaboration with other NC1190 members includes measuring the impacts of environmental hazards on undergraduate students and understanding the drivers of farmer trust in predictive groundwater and crop models.

Objectives

1. Understand and develop conceptual frameworks, typologies, and analytical models of land management and conservation behaviors and their impacts on social, economic, and ecological outcomes.
   
2. Explore the impact of participatory and engaged research and outreach on various socio-ecological and economic outcomes
   
3. Identify, develop, and evaluate applied adaptive strategies to achieve desired actions and capacities of farmers and land managers to maintain or improve ecosystem functions.
   
4. Understand how different approaches to conservation programs and policies affect farmers or land managers with different farm scales, resource capacities, levels of experience, and geographic locations.
   

Methods

METHODS

Multiple researchers are engaged in work related to the objectives described below. To facilitate collaboration and synergy between states and members over the next five years, the group will:

• Continue to build an archive/library of research tools, methods, and protocols in a shared cloud-based space;
• Explore methods for standardizing gathering, sharing, and evaluating various social science methods to synthesize research protocols, findings, and implications; 
• Organize conference sessions and journal special issues that synthesize research outcomes, examine theoretical frameworks, and compare research approaches.
• Use the NC1190 listserv to share insights on upcoming requests for proposals, conferences, and calls for papers;
• Collaborate on research proposals and projects; 
• Continue to recruit new members with expertise across the human dimensions of conservation through presentations, organized conference sessions, listservs, and existing professional networks.

Collectively, our research has common and emerging themes and implications for natural resource planning and management outcomes. Some of these include enhancing community resilience and adaptation to ecological-human system stressors including deteriorating soil health and erosion, water quality impairment, natural gas exploration, extreme weather, loss of biodiversity, bioenergy demand, urban-rural land use dynamics, and changing market pressures, international competition in supply chains. We will apply and disseminate new knowledge to inform decision-makers seeking to sustain and develop institutional arrangements such as conservation agreements, water quality trading, and social norms campaigns. Specific tasks we are currently planning to address our objectives are discussed below. Additional tasks may emerge over the course of the next five years.

Objective 1. Understand and develop conceptual frameworks, typologies, and analytical models of land management and conservation behaviors and their impacts on social, economic, and ecological outcomes.

The integration of multiple scales of social interaction from individual, to group, to watershed community to regional communities requires several types of modeling and conceptual frameworks. The team will explore parsimonious models and conceptual frameworks of relationships among social-economic, institutional, and ecological systems.

Specific projects: NC1190 members are addressing this objective through collaborative research on: 

• Factors that influence successful lake association management of water quality (Gasteyer)
• Farmer and rancher trust in purveyors of information on conservation and adaptation (Wardropper)
• Closing the gap between intentions and behavior and increasing persistence in conservation agriculture (Wilson)
• Understanding pathways and drivers of diversification according to self-determination theory (Asprooth, Arbuckle, Church, Thompson)

Objective 2. Use participatory and engaged research and outreach to advance socio-ecological and economic outcomes

Participatory and engaged research and outreach hold promise for improving both conservation and economic outcomes in many land-management contexts. However, little long-term and cross-case research has been done to evaluate short- and long-term outcomes of these emerging methods. Throughout the project, the team will share participatory/engaged research and outreach strategies, methods, tools, and outcomes to facilitate best practices and ensure transferability and applicability of methods across social and ecological contexts.

NC1190 members are addressing this objective through collaborative research on: 

• Engaging Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities as citizen scientists (Ranjan)
• Farm conservation innovations and adoption (Douglas-Smith)
• Collaborative water management (Burbach)
• Participatory policy recommendation processes (Asprooth, Arbuckle, Church, Genskow, Thompson)

Objective 3. Identify, develop, and evaluate applied adaptive strategies to achieve desired actions and capacities of farmers and land managers to maintain or improve ecosystem functions.

The myriad of approaches being developed in-situ by managers responding to social and ecological conditions has created a situation where the practice of adaptive watershed management is rapidly evolving. Through collaboration between investigators and with diverse stakeholders, adaptive management strategies will be developed that respond to these changing conditions. These strategies will be grounded in social science and water resource management theory and lead to new approaches for watershed management practices driven by the synthesis of practical knowledge emerging from the field. 

NC1190 members are addressing this objective through collaborative research on: 

• Exposure and adaptation to extreme weather shocks (Douglas-Jackson)
• Cover crop adoption (Yoder)
• Agricultural drought management and adaptation (Haigh)

Objective 4. Understand how different approaches to conservation program and policies design affect farmers or land managers with different farm scale, resource capacities, levels of experience, and geographic location.

NC1190 members are addressing this objective through collaborative research on: 

• Structural (farm financial programs), network, and cultural factors associated with conservation practice adoption (Lu, Asprooth, Yoder)
• How people working on the ground in farming, forestry, and restoration convey their stewardship goals, practices, rights and responsibilities (Rissman)

Measurement of Progress and Results

Outputs

• Shared methodologies, data collection instruments, conceptual frameworks
• Special issues of journals, books, and/or joint journal articles published by NC1190 members addressing objectives;
• Conferences or special sessions of conferences, such as IASNR, RSS, SWCS, and UCOWR.

Outcomes or Projected Impacts

• Improved Conservation Policies and Programming. These will focus on the types of actions (individual or collective) that best address particular problems in addition to the factors and forces that influence individual and collective action for conservation with recommendations for appropriate reward/incentive combinations to promote conservation.
• Data Synthesis: This will recognize instances where data collection can be synthesized by participants to identify lessons learned from the field, such as in the areas of existing frameworks, typologies, and analytical models.
• Enhanced Synergy among Team Members. There are not many social scientists working in the field of water resources management. NC1190 brings these individuals together. Outcomes of this synergy include: more competitive grant proposals will be written and funded, research will be relevant and not needlessly duplicated, junior members of the team will be mentored and supported, and the social sciences will earn more respect in team members’ universities.

Milestones

(2026):2026: June -- Organized sessions for NC1190 members at the International Association for Society & Natural Resources annual conference. Plan collaborative research and publishing opportunities.

(2027):June/July -- Meet to share data collection, methods, and project ideas and possibly organized session. Plan collaborative research and publishing opportunities, including special issue and/or book advancing Objectives 1-4.

(2028):Meet to share data collection, methods, project ideas. Explore organized session to present findings related to objectives 1-4. Publication of joint journal articles.

(2029):Meet to share data collection, methods, project ideas. Explore organized sessions to present findings related to objectives 1-4. Publication of joint journal articles and/or special issue advancing Objectives 1-4.

(2030):Meet to share data collection, methods, project ideas. Explore organized sessions to present findings related to objectives 1-4. Publication of joint journal articles and/or special issue or book advancing Objectives 1-4. Meeting to synthesize progress to date and new directions of research and collaboration.

Projected Participation

View Appendix E: Participation

Outreach Plan

NC1190 members produce dozens of peer-reviewed publications each year and present at academic conferences, several of which include conservation practitioner networks. Additionally, multiple members of NC1190 conduct research directly with farmers. Our outreach plan is partially embedded into our objectives given that a major priority of this project is focused on participatory research, which allows for regular and sustained engagement directly with farming communities. Feedback on results will be shared in meetings with farmers or at meetings with soil and water conservation districts, where farmers will be in attendance. Additionally, we will look to identify opportunities to participate in other forms of outreach, including webinars and podcasts to disseminate information from our research to different conservation, agricultural, and public audiences.

Organization/Governance

The committee will be governed by three positions elected for a one year term: chair, vice chair, and secretary. The chair of the committee will be responsible for organizing the meeting agenda, conducting the meeting and assuring the task assignments are completed. The vice chair has responsibility for planning the annual meeting (with support from members) and supports the chair by carrying out duties assigned by the chair. The vice chair will serve as chair in the absence of the elected chair. The secretary is responsible for the distribution of the documents prior to the meeting, keeping records on decisions made at the meetings (minutes), maintaining an updated roster of participants, and preparing/submitting the accomplishment report (SAES-422). Members will carry out the agreed research collaboration, research coordination, information exchange and advisory activities. Members are responsible for reporting their progress, contributing to the committee progress towards objectives and communicating their accomplishments to other committee members and their respective employing institutions.

Literature Cited

Asprooth, L., M. Norton, and R. Galt. 2023. The adoption of conservation practices in the Corn Belt: the role of one formal farmer network, Practical Farmers of Iowa. Agriculture and Human Values 40: 1559–1580. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-023-10451-5.

Asprooth, Lauren, Margaret Krome, Alyssa Hartman, Ashley McFarland, Ryan Galt, and Linda Prokopy. 2025. Our daily bread in the Heartland: Understanding and leveraging diversification to small grains in corn and soybean systems. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 80. Taylor & Francis: 116–143. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224561.2025.2451000.

Baumgart-Getz, Adam, Linda Stalker Prokopy, and Kristin Floress. 2012. Why farmers adopt best management practice in the United States: A meta-analysis of the adoption literature. Journal of Environmental Management 96: 17–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2011.10.006.

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Attachments

Land Grant Participating States/Institutions

IA, IL, MT, NE, OH

Non Land Grant Participating States/Institutions

Indiana University, Northern Arizona University