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The final report
of your OFRF-funded research or education project provides a record
of your study and its results. Your report will serve as a resource
for others: copies of OFRF project reports are available to the
public upon request. Additionally, the core components and results
of your project will be presented in OFRF’s newsletter,
the Information Bulletin, and they may be posted on our
website.
Farmers are our primary constituency. Write your report so that
it is accessible to this audience.
Reports rarely need to exceed 20 pages, and most projects can
be well documented within 10 pages including charts and figures.
One paper copy of your report is required on or before the deadline
date stated in your grant award letter. In addition, we request
that you submit an electronic copy in a word processing format
via email to info@ofrf.org or
on CD.
OFRF retains the right to freely reproduce and distribute all
materials submitted by grant recipients in any format; to edit
and abstract submitted reports; and to subject reports to peer
review. Every effort will be made to present the author’s
information as clearly and completely as possible.
You may use the following guidelines as a checklist for organizing
your results and preparing your final project report.
1. Project Summary
Provide a brief summary of your project—its purpose, what
you were hoping to find out, and a short description of your main
findings.
2. Introduction to Topic
Provide an introduction to the problem being studied and what
led to the development of this project. This may be a re-statement
of the problem as defined in your original project proposal.
3. Objectives Statement
State your original objectives as outlined in your project proposal.
Include any supplemental objectives that OFRF requested during
our review of your project. Were there any changes in your objectives
as the project unfolded? Please describe any differences from
the original proposal and why these changes were made. This is
valuable information for others who are studying the same topic
and essential for our evaluation of the project.
4. Materials and Methods
Describe your project methodologies and materials used. How were
treatments applied? What data were collected and how? Maps or
drawings of the site and/or any special apparatus used are very
helpful (hand drawings are fine). Provide as much detail as possible
in this section.
5. Project Results
Present your project results. Quantitative results (numerical
and/or statistical data) and qualitative results (descriptions
of how well or poorly something worked) are both important. Tables,
graphs and other figures representing your data are excellent
ways to summarize data and present them in an accessible way.
6. Conclusions and Discussion
Discuss the results of the project and what you found out. What
do the results lead you to believe did, or did not, happen? In
the end, how useful was this project to you and the farm operation?
How useful do you feel the study and results will be to other
organic farms? Did you encounter any problems during the project?
What would you do differently if you did this project again? Based
on what you’ve learned, what do you think should be studied
next?
7. Outreach
Describe very briefly the type of outreach that you did, or expect
to do, including any publications, tours, or other presentations
of your project to the public.
8. References
Provide a list of references you used to help develop your project
and/or that you referred to in the body of your report.
9. Addenda
We strongly encourage the submission of photos of your project
site, of the results of different treatments, and/or of project
cooperators and field demonstrations. Additional materials, such
as articles about the project, academic publications, theses or
related research reports, are welcome and appreciated.