Sustainability Analysis and Plan

Outline & Instructions

Part 1
Assignment Info
This project is independent of farm system or size. You should be able to work through this project
whether you are a small farmer or a large farmer or whether or not you are even directly involved in
farming.
Pick a farming system (vegetables, small grains, forages, etc.) in your local area or region and work
through an analysis of the sustainability of the current system and how you would help that farming
system become more sustainable. Please use and cite scientific research and reports to support your
arguments. Remember to consider the Triple Bottom Line in your study. In your analysis, please
include all of following parts, but you can tailor the questions you want to ask and answer to your
particular problem you want to solve. The outline contains major parts of the plan and some ideas for
questions you need to ask yourself when developing the plan.
For the first part of the project, you should answer the following main questions. Please use and cite
scientific research and reports where possible to support your arguments. Remember to consider the
Triple Bottom Line in your study.
Question 1
What is the Big-Picture problem you are trying to solve or improve?
o Possible questions to ask yourself when determining the problem you are trying to
solve:
Is it a water quality problem?
Is it a soil loss problem?
Water quantity?
Farm profitability or sustainability issue?
Combination?
Regulatory too much; too little?
Other? you decide
o This portion of the project should serve as an introduction to the entire project. This
portion should be approximately 100-200 words in length and should explain what Big-
Picture Problem you have chosen and why. Please use and cite scientific research and
reports to support your arguments. Remember to consider the Triple Bottom Line in
your study.
Question 2
Provide a description and analysis of the current Big-Picture problem situation. Include
answers to the follow questions, where applicable, in your response. This portion of the
project should be between 300- 500 words.
Describe the current farming system you are interested in helping.
What practices are farmers using for soil, fertilizer, irrigation management?
What are the current economic and environmental problems associated with
agriculture from your perspective?
Are there current regulations for nutrient pollution sources in your area?
How are they working? Not working?
Is there lack of governmental or societal support for sustainable agriculture?
Is the current farming practice sustainable in terms of economics and
environmentally?
Is there any research that can be cited regarding the problem?

Part 2
Assignment Information
For the second part of the project, you should answer the following main questions. Please use and cite
scientific research and reports where possible to support your arguments. Remember to consider the
Triple Bottom Line in your study.
Question 1
Now that you have selected a "Big-Picture" problem to solve and you have already completed
an analysis of the current situation, take a deeper look at the situation and determine what
the preferred situation would be.
o Some questions/ideas to consider when determining the preferred situation:
Improved water quality?
What practices should be changed?
You may want more profitable farming
What issues and challenges are there for achieving any changes?
o This portion of the project should describe in great detail what the ideal and preferred
situation would look like. This portion should be approximately 500 - 750 words in
length. Please use and cite scientific research and reports to support your arguments.
Remember to consider the Triple Bottom Line" in your study.
Question 2
Now that you have selected a "Big-Picture" problem to solve, completed an analysis of the
current situation, and determined what the preferred situation would be, it is time to make a
plan! Develop a plan to achieve the preferred situation. This portion of your project does not
have a recommend length as each plan will be vastly different. You can choose to write your
plan formatted into numbered steps to be taken, or you may choose to format with topics and
subtopics. No matter what format you choose, you should continue the use of full sentence
structure and well-constructed organizational methods.
o Some possible questions to consider when developing your plan:
How do you think the preferred situation will be achieved?
What team members and partners do you need to be successful?
What new farming practices are needed?
Has there been any research on the problems?
Will economics be a problem?
Will you write grant proposals to get financial help?
What new ideas did you learn from the course that you think will be helpful?
Will farmers likely adopt new ideas?
How will you get farmers to adopt your ideas?
How will you get support for your approach?
Where will the support come from?
How will you plan to measure adoption?
How long will it take to start to see the benefits of your plan?
What are the inputs you will need to execute your plan? People? Money? Time?
Part 3
Assignment Information
For the third part of the project, you should answer the following main questions. Please use and cite
scientific research and reports where possible to support your arguments. Remember to consider the
Triple Bottom Line in your study.
Question 1
Now that you have created a plan to achieve the preferred situation for your selected "Big-
Picture" problem, let's take a look at the outputs.
Some questions to consider when determining the outputs
What percent of the community do you think you can get to go along with your
ideas
Numbers of newly trained farmers
Grant dollars, Incentive dollars
What will you produce in order to help you Videos? Blog? Farmer guidebooks? Etc.
This portion of the project should describe in detail the outputs of your preferred situation
plan. This portion should be between 300-500 words in length. Please use and cite
scientific research and reports to support your arguments. Remember to consider the
Triple Bottom Line" in your study.
Question 2
In the final step of the project, let's look at the impacts of implementing your preferred
situation plan. Impact involves a measureable aspect of success - you have changed the
habits, now the new practices become the norm, (e.g., increase in farm profits; reductions
in nutrient concentrations in the water; less soil loss; more financial support for growers
to adopt sustainable practices, etc.).
o Some questions to consider while looking at and determining the impacts:
If farmers adopted new best management practices, what impact will it
have on farming economics and on the environment?
How would you document your impact?
How would you share with others your success in moving toward
sustainability?
Do you think society will support the new BMP process?
This portion of the project should serve as your conclusion. Include all of the
impacts you have determined and bring together each aspect of the project to
wrap everything up.
Final
Assignment Information
For the final part of the project, you should take into consideration all feedback given to you from your
peers throughout the course, make the appropriate adjustments and edits and combine all three parts
of project into one written assignment. Please use and cite scientific research and reports where
possible to support your arguments. Remember to consider the Triple Bottom Line in your study.
Question
For the final part of the project, you should take into consideration all feedback given to
you from your peers throughout the course, make the appropriate adjustments and edits,
and combine all three parts of project into one written assignment.