NOW IT’S YOUR TURN... Write an Impact Statement for Your Agriculture and Natural Resources Program Linda J. Brewer Senior Faculty Research Assistant Department of Horticulture Oregon State University

Impact Statements Justify the investment of public dollars. The consequences of what we do; Follows evaluation – data collection; Environmental, social, economic; Can be planned or unintended; positive or negative; Attribution vs. impact. 2

Parts of an Impact Statement Part 1: Issue; Part 2: Goal or mission statement; Part 3: Outputs =What you did; Part 4: Outcomes =What changed; Part 5: Impact =Interpretation of outcomes.

The Issue: First Sentence General Fact – generally accepted Example: Oregon produces 99% of US commercial hazelnuts, with farmgate sales at $60-75 million per year.

The Issue: Second Sentence Local fact - generally agreed upon about your state, region, or county. Example: Pacific Northwest hazelnut acreage increased from 1905 until 1970 when Eastern Filbert Blight was discovered in the growing region. Since that time, acreage has declined; commercial production outside the Willamette Valley is virtually non-existent.

The Issue: Third Sentence Focus of Concern for your program. Example: Oregon has lost 1600 of about 30,000 acres of hazelnuts to Eastern Filbert Blight in the past decade. More than 70% of Oregon orchards are infected, or are close to diseased orchards. Eastern Filbert Blight control costs about $310 per acre per year.

Program Mission or Goal Statement of Goals: The goal of this project is to develop disease-resistant hazelnuts adapted to production outside the Pacific Northwest. Write this first? Complete this sentence: Our mission was to... My goal in creating this program was to...

Outputs: What You Did With the support of USDA NIFA SCRI funding, the ‘Gasaway’ gene confers resistance to Eastern Filbert Blight; it is now fully mapped and characterized. Fully resistant selections from the breeding program are crossed with susceptible cultivars to improve desirable characteristics.

What You Did: Specific Outputs EFB resistant ‘Jefferson,’ a cultivar valued for its large nuts, is being readily adopted by growers. Output Outcome Partnership, an

Statement of Impact This work has saved a specialty crop industry in the United States. Hazelnuts provide an alternative enterprise to the Willamette Valley’s grass seed growers, who continue to suffer from stagnant housing markets since In a fully established orchard, Eastern Filbert Blight resistant trees return $1,940 per acre over cash costs to the grower, as compared to -$3,014 for susceptible trees, a cash flow difference of $4,954 per acre. w-art-ONV-Fixed

Check Your Work Review the Top Tips Handout Glossary CRIS Database Handout Critically analyze what you put in the fields in the SOARS template, keeping in mind the definitions of output, outcome, and impact.