The COVID-19 pandemic halted all face-to-face extension activities in Kentucky at the end of March 2020.  Kentucky’s Extension continues to focus on grassroots efforts conducting on-farm visits and hosting face-to-face educational sessions with beef cattle producers at the county level.  The pandemic ceased all these efforts limiting Extension’s ability to reach beef cattle producers.  Agents used Facebook, paper media such as newsletters, and other media to reach producers.  Dr. Jeff Lehmkuhler developed the Beef Bits podcast as a mechanism to deliver beef-related material to continue to support UK Extension’s efforts to assist beef producers in the state.

Dr. Lehmkuhler paid for a subscription to Squadcast, an online audio recording site with high quality audio capturing features that does not compress files.  He also developed an account on PodBean, a podcast hosting company that interfaces with the most common podcast listening platforms.  A lower-end USB microphone was acquired to improve quality of voice recordings.  Total investment was approximately $220 for the 1-year podcast hosting and audio recording licenses with another $40 for the microphone or less than $300 total.

The first podcast was recorded and released during August of 2020.  A total of 16 episodes have been recorded and released with an additional episode scheduled for release on June 30^th.   To date (June 24, 2021), the podcast has had 1,032 downloads.  Though the intent was to reach Kentucky beef producers, the podcast has actually had a much broader reach with listeners from 29 states.  Beef Bits Podcast has also had an international reach with individuals listening from 12 countries.

It is difficult to assess the actual impact of the Beef Bits Podcast.   The form of delivery will have short-term impacts increasing the awareness and knowledge of the listeners.   This short-term impact could potentially lead to mid- and long-term outcomes, but we cannot measure these impacts.   Utilizing a podcast to deliver content provides us a way to reach new target audiences that hopefully will follow-up with county Extension offices or access other Extension online educational resources.   The financial investment is relatively low per individual (ie. $300/1000 downloads = $0.30/listener compared to $75 mileage/60 participants = $1.25/participant).  Further, today’s technology provides us the opportunity to access expertise from anywhere with minimal cost and limited time investment.   The Beef Bit Podcast was a positive outcome from the COVID-19 pandemic reaching a new clientele group.