Kentucky’s 90,000 miles of waterways drain into the Mississippi River, which provides two-thirds of the freshwater that flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Excessive nutrients carried by the Mississippi River contribute to the hypoxic zone (or Dead Zone) in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in low oxygen levels that cannot support aquatic life. Since 2014 at least one University of Kentucky Extension specialist has participated in collaborations with colleagues at 11 other land-grant institutions in the Mississippi River basin through SERA-46 (Southern Extension-Research Activity-46), a multi-state partnership working alongside state and federal agencies to address water quality issues contributing to the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone. 

The team has garnered financial support from the US EPA and USDA Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research to engage farmer leaders in conservation aimed at reducing nutrient losses to the Mississippi River watershed. An initial project to build capacity for watershed leadership resulted in two in-person gatherings of farmers, academics, federal and state agencies, and commodity groups to identify ways the agricultural community could engage in watershed management and conservation to address nutrient losses from the landscape. This project also developed and pilot-tested a farmer watershed leadership curriculum. A subsequent project allowed team members to expand their reach and explore mechanisms for peer learning among farmers. This second project, funded by EPA’s Farmer to Farmer program, focused on social science concepts (e.g. peer learning) to facilitate conservation information sharing and initiate farmer network building across the Mississippi River basin through two in-person events and a series of four virtual events. This project also developed an online learning platform for farmers (https://goodideafarm.org/). A third project is taking lessons learned from the two previous projects and adding two additional components – a mini-grant program and farmer leadership training. 

The long-term collaborative relationships forged among Extension colleagues at several land-grant institutions in the Mississippi River basin have resulted in support for farmer engagement in watershed leadership, positive attitudes toward conservation among event attendees, conservation practices installed in five states, and documented water quality improvements.