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Extension Service celebrates centennial, learning social media

2014_0224_Extension
Agriculture Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden, right, moderates a panel discussion on the Cooperative Extension Service at the USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum on Friday. From left are Doug Steele, Texas A&M AgriLife Center; Frances Gould, Agricultural Communications Center at Louisiana State University; and Jimmy Henning, Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)


The Cooperative Extension Service is celebrating its centennial this year while adapting to the age of social media, officials said Friday in a session at the USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum chaired by Agriculture Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden.

The centennial events will include:

  • A Capitol Hill reception on March 5 organized by the Council for Agricultural Research, Extension and Teaching (CARET)
  • The Public Issues Leadership Development Conference organized by the Joint Council of Extension Professionals (JCEP) in Alexandria, Va., April 6 to 9
  • A convocation organized in conjunction with the extension service’s federal partner, USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) on May 8.

One of the goals of the centennial is to increase awareness that the extension service is still active everywhere in the country, even though most people now live in cities and suburbs.

Established by the 1914 Smith-Lever Act, the extension service was set up to disseminate the knowledge developed at the land-grant colleges to farmers and the public.

To this day, the extension service has an office at every land-grant institution and in every county and parish of every state and territory in the country, with a total of more than 3,000 locations, noted Frances Gould, the director of the Agricultural Communications Center at Louisiana State University.

The extension service is the only office in every county that “will open a door” to many types of opportunities, said Doug Steele of the Texas A&M AgriLife Center, who is one of the co-chairs of the centennial committee.

While the extension service is most associated with disseminating information to farmers, its purpose has always been much broader with a motto of “extending knowledge, changing lives.”

Its accomplishments in recent years have included the Colorado extension service’s role in organizing cantaloupe farmers after a deadly listeria outbreak to prevent future cases and to defend their product, and the service’s advice in many states to help people prepare for and deal with weather disasters.

The extension service also encourages young people to go into agricultural careers, addresses substance abuse issues among rural youth and helps farmers with estate planning.

Some of the offices in urban counties help people establish farmers’ markets and promote links between farmers and consumers.

Each extension service office’s activities are determined locally, noted Jimmy Henning, the director of the Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service.

Critics have asked why the extension service needs to exist when people can get information on the Internet, but “complex problems need more than a website,” Henning said, noting that the extension service offers an opportunity for interaction.

But the officials acknowledged that most people find the extension service offices online, and that local employees have to learn how better to connect to people that way.

“People who don’t know us find us on the web first,” said Steele.

“A lot of clientele know nothing but mobile delivery,” added Gould.

Steele said that the extension service’s “brand value” used to be its connection to the land-grant universities but the people who who find the offices on the web “don’t care about that.”

He also noted that when they call they already know how to grow a tomato but want “interaction” about the life of the tomato all the way to harvest.

The challenge, he said, is “How do we create learning environments?”

Harden noted some critics say the extension service is too agricultural, others say it should not be in cities, and still others say it is not diverse enough and she challenged the supporters to respond to the criticism.

Steele said the extension service should still be proud to be associated with an industry as successful as American agriculture and that many of the problems cooperative extension addresses such as weather disasters affect both rural and urban areas.

Gould noted that the extension service works with 4-H, which is also administered by NIFA, and that with 6.5 million members, it is the largest youth organization in the country. In Louisiana, she said, 48 percent of 4-H members are non-white.

Steele acknowledged that it is hard to find employees who can deal with science and communicate in person and online.

But he also noted that the extension service hired 125 people in Texas alone last year. The extension service seeks diversity in employment, but “our challenge has been letting people know who we are,” he said.