CE Farm Advisors serve as a valuable link between land grant universities and growers, remaining relevant by developing programs that address stakeholder problems, issues, and concerns . However, land-grant universities continue to face funding uncertainties, which has affected CE programming and staffing. CE currently operates with approximately half the staff positions it did in 1990 . With less funding from its traditional sources, such as the USDA, state government, and county governments, less Farm Advisors are hired, and therefore each advisor must cover more territory and a broader range of crops than in the past. In addition, self generated funds have increased by 63% over the past five years, placing a greater burden on UC staff to find their own funding to carry out research and outreach . More recently, the COVID-19 crisis has forced the reevaluation of spending priorities in the state budget. Making the case for CE moving forward will require a robust coalition of agricultural interests and the demonstration of results and impact . CE recognizes the importance of using evaluation data to demonstrate program value and set priorities for future programming based on input from a range of stakeholders . Needs assessment generally refers to methods, efforts, and activities involved in or used for identifying needs, providing a method to learn what has already been done and what gaps in understanding remain . In many cases, needs assessments are surveys used to identify stakeholders’ challenges and/or concerns, and help CE understand how they can respond with programs and services . Needs assessments are important because what one person identifies as a need might be irrelevant to another person and needs are subject to change over time . Therefore, vertical farming systems for sale research indicates that targeted strategies for developing CE programs are more likely to be effective than approaches broadly directed toward the general population .

A recently conducted needs assessment survey of 150 dairy producers in California demonstrated the importance of regionally targeted strategies, with the top 5 CE priority topics identified by respondents differing based on region . The northern San Joaquin Valley and greater Southern California regions were found to have greater similarities in priorities than the Northern California region, perhaps explained by differences in average herd size, type of production system, and climate . Because California agriculture is diverse and each cropping system will respond to change differently, adaptation research and effective stakeholder engagement should be regionally focused . In the rapidly changing context of California agriculture, identifying the relative importance of different topics is critical for prioritizing extension activities and making the best use of limited resources, while incorporating feedback from clientele will help to increase the effectiveness and impact of extension programs. Many forces beyond the farm level shape what is or is not possible on the farm, and there is a pressing need to understand how these forces intersect . New legislation, including the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act , which is the state’s first law regulating groundwater use in its history; new reporting requirements for the Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program; and new or impending agrochemical bans will shape the future of farming in California. Currently, it is unclear which issues are most pressing regarding grower management decisions and information needs. Equally important, the level of satisfaction with current extension activities is not well understood. Therefore, documenting the concerns and needs of growers, consultants, and allied industry will highlight the most important topics for research and extension to focus on, and guide policymakers and administrators on where resources and funding should be allocated.

Increases in California’s agricultural productivity have long been sustained by expanding water supplies, increasing use of fossil fuel energy, and new technology – all of which are now under pressure because of scarcity, cost, and public opposition . Now, more than ever, UCCE would benefit from a statewide understanding of common goals, challenges, and preferences for research and extension across different regions and crops to determine how innovative collaborations and partnerships might be established to meet clientele needs. While individual CE Advisors have conducted needs assessments for their clientele, to our knowledge there have been no prior efforts to comprehensively gather statewide information. Therefore, the primary objective of this study was to set research and extension priorities for agronomic crop production in California based on feedback and input from growers, their consultants, and allied industry professionals. The specific objective was to conduct a survey to i) identify top concerns and management challenges, ii) understand the motivations for growing agronomic crops and priorities considered in management decisions, and iii) prioritize information needs that can be addressed through research and extension efforts in the future.The needs assessment designed for this project was an online survey developed by members of the UCCE Agronomy Program Team and administered using Qualtrics survey software . The first step in developing questions was to collect and summarize previous needs assessments shared by individual members of the Agronomy Program Team for their specific crop or region. Based on overarching themes from past needs assessments and bearing in mind the objectives of this collaborative effort, questions were drafted and reviewed by a team of CE advisors and UC Davis faculty working in agronomic crop production.

Prior to launching the survey, it was piloted by 10 growers and other industry professionals. In depth phone conversations with pilot participants allowed for robust feedback that was incorporated into a final version of the survey. The final survey included a total of 21 questions, covering the areas of management challenges, concerns for the agronomic crop industry, motivation, importance of extension topics and level of satisfaction with UCCE. We also asked respondents who they communicate with about crop production practices and how they prefer to receive information. The survey was reviewed by the Institutional Review Board and approved as “exempt”. The needs assessment survey was a cross-sectional census survey attempting to collect as many responses as possible from anyone currently involved in agronomic crop production in California. We tried to ensure that we were getting accurate representation of California agronomic crops clientele by including a screening question. The survey link took respondents to a page asking if they grow, consult on, or work in allied industry of agronomic crops in California. If they responded yes, they were taken to the survey, and if they responded no, they were not able to continue. The first question on the survey following the screening question asked respondents to identify their primary vocation between “grower”, “consultant”, “allied industry”, or “other”. Depending on their response, we were able to direct management related questions specifically to growers, while still gaining insight from consultants and allied industry on broader topics. To identify concerns and challenges faced by those working in agronomic crop production, respondents were asked to rank their level of concern from a list of 15 topics that influence crop production in California. Next, respondents who identified as growers or consultants were asked to select their highest priority management challenges from a list of 8 common management challenges identified by our internal team of CE Advisors and CE Specialists. To understand the motivations for growing agronomic crops and priorities considered in management decisions, vertical farming equipment we asked respondents who identified as growers to rank how often certain factors affect their management decisions for field crop production . We also asked growers to select their primary reasons for growing field crops from a list of 9 commonly cited reasons, as determined by our internal team. To prioritize information needs that can be addressed through research and extension, we used Importance-Performance Analysis . This method is a quantitative approach for measuring how people feel about certain issues . The analysis generates a picture of how important specific topics are to clientele in comparison with how satisfying they are – or in this case, how satisfied clientele are with UCCE’s delivery of information on these topics . Typically, the visual output of this method is an IPA matrix created by plotting importance and satisfaction on a two-dimensional graph having four quadrants . The boundaries of the quadrants are based on the means of the two measures and each quadrant is interpreted as having implications for prioritization of information. The idea is that focus should be placed on topics found in the “high priority” quadrant, while resources can be allocated away from the “lower priority” quadrants . Focus should remain on topics that fall into the high importance and high satisfaction quadrant; however clientele is seemingly satisfied with UCCE’s work in disseminating information on these topics. Importance and satisfaction were each measured through a Likert-type scale, where participants were given a list of 19 topics commonly addressed by CE and asked to select if these topics were of “high priority”, “medium priority”, “low priority” to them. They also had the option to select “no opinion”, which received a score of zero. With the same list of topics, respondents were asked to select “high satisfaction”, “medium satisfaction”, “low satisfaction”, or “no opinion” based on how satisfied they were with UCCE’s delivery of information on these topics. High priority and satisfaction were given a score of 3, medium priority and satisfaction were given a score of 2, and low priority and satisfaction were given a score of 1. Scores for priority and satisfaction were averaged and plotted to create an IPA matrix. 2.2 Survey dissemination. The target audience of our online survey was all California agronomic crop growers, their consultants, and allied industry. Because no comprehensive list of such individuals exists, contact lists from individual agronomic program team members were compiled and duplicates were removed. In July 2020, stakeholders were sent an email invitation to take the online survey. The survey was open from July 23, 2020 until September 1, 2020 with three reminders sent to those on the centralized contact list, as suggested by the Dillman method to maximize response rate . The first 100 participants to complete the survey were also offered an incentive of a $10 gift certificate. As stated on the survey, all information was kept anonymous, and respondents were informed that the survey would be used to better guide UCCE research and extension efforts by highlighting the most important issues facing agronomic crop production in California and helping set priorities for future programming. While the centralized contact list contained statewide representation, the team decided that an aim of this needs assessment was also to reach people who UCCE might not already be serving. Therefore, to avoid excluding any potential respondents, the team developed a list of influential groups or organizations external to UCCE that could distribute the survey. This list included commodity boards, crop associations, Farm Bureaus, County Agricultural Commissioners, Water Quality Coalitions, and input distributors. These partner stakeholders were contacted and asked if they would be willing to share the survey with their clientele. If they agreed to share the survey, an anonymous link to the survey was sent to them for dissemination. The survey software was able to track which responses came from the original centralized contact list and which responses came from the anonymous link. However, with the anonymous link, the response rate could not be measured. Since our goal was to gather responses from a wide range of participants, we accepted this limitation in our methodology.Concerns varied by crop and region . For instance, the top categories for anyone identifying as a rice grower and rice consultant were “very concerned” about included regulations on chemical use , input costs , and regulations on water quality . The top categories that those growing or consulting on alfalfa were “very concerned” about included regulations on water use , water costs , and water quality . Respondents growing or consulting on wheat were “very concerned” about the commodity price of their crop , consumer demand , and availability of quality labor . Finally, corn growers and consultants were “very concerned” about regulations on water quality , availability of quality labor , and regulations on chemical use . All regions ranked “regulations on water use ” and “water costs” as the top concerns relative to other concerns. Based on mean responses, the greatest concern for regulations on water use was seen in the Southern San Joaquin Valley , the Intermountain region , and the Northern San Joaquin Valley , while greatest concern for water cost was observed in the same three regions: SSJV , Intermountain , and NSJV .