Dr. Elliott Dennis (right), with University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Center for Agricultural Profitability, receives the 2024 Outstanding Project Award for the North Central region from Dr. Brad Lubben, director of the North Central Risk Management Education Center, during the Extension Risk Management Education national conference on April 11, 2024, in Salt Lake City.
A team of faculty with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Center for Agricultural Profitability was honored for their risk management outreach work with the 2024 Outstanding Project Award for the North Central Region at the Extension Risk Management Education National Conference in Salt Lake City on April 11.
Their project, "Risk Management Education for Nebraska Livestock and Forage Producers Underserved by Crop Insurance," was recognized during the conference with other regional winners.
Dr. Elliott Dennis, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics, served as the project director. Dr. Jay Parsons, professor in agricultural economics, and Jim Jansen, an extension agricultural economist, were co-directors. All three work through Nebraska Extension and the Center for Agricultural Profitability to deliver timely and relevant information to help agricultural producers across the state to improve their decision-making.
The project focused mainly on educating cattle producers about federally subsidized crop insurance products through a series of workshops held from 2016 to 2022, which covered tools like Livestock Risk Protection (LRP), Pasture, Range and Forage Insurance (PRF) and Annual Forage Insurance. Beginning producers – those with fewer than 10 years of experience – were targeted through numerous workshops, conferences, webinars and in-depth meetings focused on marketing and risk management. Aspiring producers were reached through youth risk management events as well as post-university semester-long classes to focus on livestock risk management and marketing for operations they planned to start or join. Participants reported they gained a better understanding of available risk management tools and valuable hands-on experience.
One of the participants attending the workshop said, "University of Nebraska Extension events have led us to understand that producers need to be using protection in this specific area or they are not going to make it."
(Left to right): Center for Agricultural Profitability faculty Dr. Jay Parsons, Dr. Elliott Dennis, and Jim Jansen were honored with the 2024 Outstanding Project Award for the North Central Region at the 2024 Extension Risk Management Education Conference.
"It’s an honor to receive the Regional ERME award for our work," Dennis said. "Over the last five years, we have engaged with livestock producers throughout Nebraska using in-person meetings focused on educating on federally subsidized insurance products. The purpose of our project was to understand long-run producer implementation and understanding of these products several years after attending these meetings."
Dennis said the project worked with the Nebraska Public Policy Center to conduct a 20-minute phone survey after the workshops, which provided valuable insight into the federally subsidized products and the power of extension education.
"It has been a worthwhile process and significantly changed the way we conduct short- and long-term program evaluations of in-person producer meetings," he said. "A big thank you to all the livestock producers who attended meetings and completed the follow-up evaluation to help us be eligible for this award."
A synopsis of the project on the North Central Extension Risk Management Education Center's webiste: ERME Outstanding Project Winner 2024, North Central Region.
The North Central Extension Risk Management Education Center was established in 2001 and is located at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It is funded through USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), and is one of four regional ERME Centers located throughout the country.
The North Central Center serves the states of: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
The North Central Center, in conjunction with the other three regional centers, conducts the Extension Risk Management Education Competitive Grants Program. This program involves an annual competitive process, and provides funding to both public and private sector organizations for educational projects designed to improve the ability of agricultural producers to effectively manage the complex risks associated with their agribusinesses.