Researching Relevant Professional Development

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Researching Relevant Professional Development by Bill Berning

Learning Task #1: Investigating a Professional Development Conference

A. Investigage the website or conference information for another upcoming professional conference you will be attending.

www.extension.umn.edu/-annconf provides a list of most of the upcoming conferences.

B. Plan and document which sessions you will attend. Design an interview or survey for gaining information from the other participants at the sessions.

The three courses I attended are:

1)FinPack 99 Center for Farm Financial Management University of Minnesota 249 Classroom Office Bld 1994 Buford Ave St. Paul, MN 55108 Dec 15-17, 1998

2) Dairy Management Alexandria Technical college 1601 Jefferson St Alexandria, MN 56308 Jan 7, 1999

3) Risk Management Alexandria Technical College 1601 Jefferson St Alexandrai, MN 56308 Jan 8, 1999

C. At a minimum of three sessions, conduct your interview/ survey on a sampling of the participants.

D. Summarize the information you learned from the participants.

Interview questions & summaries:

1. In what ways will agriculture technology change in the form of recordkeeping?

Records for farming operations will eventually be all kept on computer. Farms will either have to adapt to computers or they will need to hire someone to do the inputting. consultants will be needed to help the farms intepret the data.

2. What ways would it best provide training to farm producers in new technology? If seminars, how long?

Farm operations that are larger can have training sessions for two days. Smaller operations will need day classes that start mid morning and end mid afternoon. Training sessions need hands on learning. Follow up one month after training will be needed with on farm calls. This way their specific quesitons can be answered.

3. What areas do ag producers have a strong/ weak understanding of financial records and ratios.

Farmers may know what a specific ratio is but they often lack the understanding of what it means. An example of this is the current rato. Many operators know what it is but do not know what liquidity is and how important it is to an operation until they experience cash flow problems. Also with ratios and feed cost they may know where their operation is at but do not know where it ranks.

4. How could one get farmers to understand te imprtance of good financial records? I groups, what size?

One suggestion that might work is a financial club. This would be a group of a maximum of 10 people that would meet monthly. Each month a topic would be discussed and producers would gain knowledge. The problem is the high cost of instruction.

5. of the farms you work with, how many have computers and what type of financial information do they keep on the computer?

The response was over 75% of the farms have a computer. Only about 25% use it for record keeping. the information they keep is limited usually to check book ledger. No thought on any unitized accounting or GAAP was being used.

6. What type of records should they be keeping?

Financial records farms need are unitized accounting. They need to know exact costs to produce a bushel of corn, soybean, wheat and pound of milk or meat.

Learning Task #3: Who are the Experts?

A. Do www search of possible expert presenters regarding your professional questions for a professional development session in the future.

B. Interview colleagues regarding possible expert presenters who are among your staff regarding your professional questions for a professional development session in the future.

Tom Booker 37331 Co Rd 17 Bird Island, MN 55310 Commodity Marketing

Mark Skogerboe 3719 Regent Ave N Robbindsdale, MN 54422 Commodity Marketing

Lynn Murray 113 Front St Brandon, MN 56315 Financial/ Banking

Roger Johnson 1126 Westrac Dr PO Box 9020 Fardo, ND 58106 Financial/ Leasing

Randy Martinson 415 38th St SW Suite C Fargo, ND 58103

Bruce Gerhardson 125 South Mill PO Box 697 Fergus Falls, MN 56538 Legal

Larry Zillcox Douglas County Extension Alexandria, MN 56308 Extension

Kent Thiesse Blue Earth County Extension Gov't Programs

Robert Craven U of MN 1994 Buford Ave St Paul, MN 55108 Record Keeping

Dale Nordquist U of MN 1994 buford Ave St Paul, MN 55108 Ag Finance Trends



-- Anonymous, February 07, 1999

Answers

Hello, Bill. I hadn't seen this because I was looking on your discussion home page...sorry.

You've been busy I see (I know that's why we can never connect on the telephone.).

The conferences/development sessions you've participated in are really related to the tasks of this course. The information you got back from your surveys seems really important (percentage of folks just using the checkbook ledger, for example). What can you do with this information next? In other words, is there someone or some structure of change agents that you can work with to develop some supportive changes for the farmers? No small task, I know...but you seem to have a really good start.

Also, I couldn't tell if the list of people at the end of your entry are the people you interviewed or the experts they suggested...? I'm guessing they are the experts "nominated." If so, do you have a network of people to share the experts list with to get the word out?

-- Anonymous, February 22, 1999


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