Completed Project Report


Reducing Farmer Risk from Ticks and Tick Borne Diseases

  • Award Amount: $45,137
  • Regional Center: Northeast Extension Risk Management Education Center
  • Grant Program: 2019 Education Projects
  • Project Director: Kenneth Smith
  • Email: kas294@cornell.edu
  • Organization: Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chenango County

Extension RME Regional Centers
Extension Risk Management Education Region Map

Project Overview

The project purpose was to reduce health and economic risks to farmers by producing a series of presentations, videos, and posters that show how to: avoid ticks and tick bites, safely remove and identify ticks, and how to manage farms to reduce tick numbers.

Early in the project, before Covid-19 restrictions ended in-person meetings, we met with more than 200 farmers and heard their questions about how to manage ticks on their farms. In-person meetings identified farmer concerns about the safest tick pesticides, and about pets and livestock carrying ticks.

With the help of farmer input, we were able to create 4 tick disease prevention videos. These videos had more that 425,00 views during the grant period. The videos were: Identifying Tick Habitat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0VHpQz6okA&t=14s, Removing Ticks, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlkQ1tQb8Xk&t=23s, Avoid Disease with Tick Repellents, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGupNHBxIeY&t=24s; Dress to Avoid Ticks, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e0QOH-9nvM. 

We also created a series of posters showing farmers how avoid ticks and tick born illness available in English and Spanish at http://ccechenango.org/. These posters were viewed by 12,080 people during the grant period.

We also created a full Ticks and Tick Borne Diseases Webinar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjbwjw2t-kY&t=21s. More than 140 people participated in or viewed the webinars

Number of Participants: 65

Outcomes

Project Steps

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

There are no promotional materials available for this project.

EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS

There are no educational materials available for this project.

REPORTS & EVALUATIONS

There are no reports or evaluations available for this project.

DELIVERY AREA

DESCRIBE ANY UNEXPECTED RESULTS OF THE PROJECT:

HOW WOULD YOU IMPROVE THE PROJECT IF YOU WERE TO DO IT AGAIN?

WHAT WERE THE KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR YOUR PARTICIPANTS?

INDIVIDUAL STORIES / EXAMPLES OF SUCCESS / QUOTES