Is eLearning a viable option to face-to-face workshops for generating and sharing information within the New Zealand sheep and beef industry?

Attendance at traditional face–to-face workshops for New Zealand sheep and beef farmers has been dropping steadily over the past few years. FeedSmart, an industry and government funded research program, was charged with identifying the most effective learning approaches to use to assist New Zealand farmers to feed plan more effectively. As a result of investigating the ways farmers preferred to learn, eLearning was identified as worthy of investigation. This paper reports on a small-scale, exploratory, action research study designed to determine the viability and effectiveness of generating and delivering information to farmers via a video-conferencing approach, supported by the use of other digital technologies such as video-cameras. Key learnings from this study are that: the farmers enjoyed and increased their knowledge using this approach; eLearning of this type has potential as a learning approach for farmers; and that eLearning as a learning approach for farmer education is worthy of further investigation.