Local Advisory Committee

Each Discovery Farm is asked to develop a Local Advisory Committee made up of producers, their advisors, neighbors and the agency/education personnel. The overall purpose of the local advisory committee is to reduce the chances of conducting research on a farm for a number of years without evaluating an issue that this operation or other similar operations are facing. This committee expands the "real world" knowledge of production agriculture and provides the Discovery Farms program with a larger base of experiences.

The role of the Local Advisory Committee is to provide guidance to the Discovery Farms program on the types of issues that need to be researched and resolved for operations that are similar to this particular Discovery Farm. Operations that are similar could include farms that have similar location (e.g. topography, soil and physiographic settings); enterprises (e.g. cash grain, vegetables, livestock); production practices (e.g. tillage, grazing); and size of operation.

Another role of the Local Advisory Committee is to include the farm's advisors in the research design. Most farms will make some changes in their management practices based on the information collected during the baseline period. These changes could be in regards to feeding, fertilizing, tillage and/or other production practices. It is important that farm advisors understand and agree to work with the changes that researchers or specialists recommend for an operation. The time for disagreement is prior to the implementation of a recommendation. The farm's advisors will help design and implement any changes in production practices.

The Local Advisory Committee should also be viewed as a means of disseminating information. The committee members should be kept in the loop in terms of data collection and progress with the project. Having others in the area informed about what is happening on a particular Discovery Farm will help get the information out to other operations in the area.

The time commitment for committee members should be no more than one meeting each year. The local Discovery Farm will determine how often and when the committee should meet. They, in concert with their local advisors, are responsible for the selection of committee members.