Samuel Baumer
I am grateful to be a part of a multi-disciplinary research team. During my interviews, producers often repeated their distaste for being subjected to new policies without ever being heard. By including a social science element to this multi-disciplinary team, it allows producers to speak into the situation rather than leaving other researchers, educators, and policy makers to assume what producers want or need. As one irrigator from Oklahoma said, "Those people down there are going to hire whatever experts they think, but they don't come out here and live it and experience it firsthand." By visiting with producers across the region, I am able to bring those valuable lived experiences back to the team and draw attention to other facets significant to producers for understanding water use that may have been overlooked by the grant team or policymakers.
