This lesson doesn’t cover a required step of the research process, but it does offer a variety of topics we hope will be useful to you as you plan and conduct your project.

Getting Help

Research is difficult, but you don’t have to approach it on your own. Consider seeking professional help with any part of your project that you feel would benefit from it. Some places to turn include:

• your county Extension office
• Extension specialists at your state's land grant university who organize on-farm research projects in your area of interest
• your local USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) office
• any local nonprofits or producer networks with experience in collaborative research and demonstration projects

Funding Your Research

Conducting research on your farm or ranch can mean extra time, supplies, and space, all of which cost money. In addition, if your research involves trying a novel specialty crop or technique, you may be concerned about the risk of reduced income in case things don’t go as you expect. For these reasons, you may want to seek outside funding to help manage these expenses and risks.

A variety of organizations and agencies provide grants and funding opportunities for farmers, including SARE. A brief list of places to start looking for on-farm research funding is provided in the Resources section. Be sure to also look into opportunities offered by local organizations interested in your topic. Foundations focused on a wide range of subjects, including pollinators, wildlife, youth engagement, and so on, can be great sources of funding for projects, including research. In some cases, these programs can complement one another by funding different parts of a project.

As you investigate funding options, be sure to ask about your eligibility early on, as some sources only fund 501(c)(3) nonprofits, others only fund farms or ranches, etc.

The templates in the Sample Forms section might be especially useful for you as starting points if you’re preparing a grant application. If you are, be sure to tailor these forms to the grant program’s application requirements as needed.

To learn more about applying for a SARE grant, visit www.sare.org/grants, and contact the appropriate regional office for more information. We also provide some general information about SARE grants on the last page.

Letters of Support

Funding proposals often require a letter of support from someone not involved in the project. For sustainable agriculture projects, this letter might come from Extension personnel, a university researcher, a staff person or leader of an agricultural organization, a customer, or another producer. Whether or not such a letter is required for your project, reaching out for support and engagement from within your community can be well worth the effort. As the project progresses, consider keeping in touch with the person about how the project is going and what you’re learning.

Legal and Ethical Issues

As you develop your project, be aware of any legal and ethical issues that may apply to your plans. Here are a few examples of what you might need to consider.

Living subjects 

If you’re seeking grant funds and your project involves livestock, it’s likely you’ll be asked to document their care to meet federal, state, and local rules regarding the care of research animals. These rules are designed to ensure that animals are provided with adequate shelter, food, water, etc., for their year-round comfort and safety.

Social Science 

For human subjects, one issue to be aware of is privacy. If you’re planning to make your results public, be aware of the need to obtain permission before using photos of a person or private property other than your own. Avoid including any personal information such as full names, addresses, or finances without clear written permission.

Writing for Publication

When submitting written materials for publication, you must take care to ensure any statements you make are your own, unless you properly credit the source. If you mention information you got from another source, including published research, you need to cite them as a reference. There are a few citation formats used by research-based publications, including APA, MLA and Chicago. You can learn more about these formats online.

Notes on Soil Tests

Soil health and soil testing often come up in the context of on-farm research in sustainable agriculture, in both crop and livestock systems. So, we’ll share a few thoughts about soil testing here.

If you plan to use soil testing in your research, make sure to select the most appropriate test. Most laboratories run comprehensive tests that provide a lot of information, which can include various measurements of soil organic content, different forms of soil nitrogen, and concentrations of minerals and other nutrients. Some, such as the Haney test, are focused on demonstrating healthy microbial activity.

Soil tests can certainly provide essential information. But, their usefulness depends on your understanding of how the data they provide relates to your research question. Also, tests can be expensive, so it’s important to make sure you’re not paying for information you don’t actually need. Finally, time is an important consideration; specifically, whether a soil test can capture changes due to the management practices you want to evaluate within the time period of your project.

Tips from SARE

The following is a list of tips offered by SARE staff members who support producers as they conduct on-farm research through our regional Farmer/Rancher Grant programs. We’ve already addressed many of these ideas in previous lessons, but we thought it would be helpful to share their advice directly with you.

• Before getting started, identify the right study design, in other words, an experimental design, an observational study, or other.
• Narrow your research question to one specific farming practice, for simplicity and ease of setting up your research design.
• Be clear about the problem you are addressing.
• Review the information that is already out there. A literature review can show what's already been done, support your plans, and help to show what you are looking to do differently.
• The more you put into developing your research design the easier it will be to complete the project and/or to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.
• Be transparent in your research design, so that the methodology can be reproduced or can be built upon by others.
• Consider if a real time, side-by-side comparison will strengthen your findings, since comparing to past years has limits (changes in the amount of precipitation, temperatures, etc.).
• Clearly define your basis for comparison by identifying your control or your baseline.
• Make a plan for recording data before the project starts: Who will do it? How often? Where (in a notebook? via an online form or spreadsheet?)?
• Maintain good recordkeeping of your research methodology and data collection.
• Select a long enough time period that measurable changes should occur.
• Seek out an expert to review your research design.
• Consider how you will pay yourself (or a team member) to carry out the project. Do not underestimate the time it takes to conduct research.
• Research raises more questions. It’s okay if you don’t come to the conclusion you expected based on the results, or if the research takes you down a different path.
• Finding out what doesn’t work is as important as finding out what does work.