Public service radio programming provided by state extension services will change drastically in the near future due to broadcast deregulation. The two aspects of deregulation affecting land-grant radio programming are elimination of the limit on the number of commercials per hour, and elimination of requirements specifying the amount of news and…

The intervention of the United States government in agriculture in the 20th century is an explainable response to basic characteristics of agriculture: unpredictability, immobile resources, technological changes and disproportionate supply and demand factors. The concentration of large benefits among relatively few producers and diffusion of costs…

Rwanda, a small country in Africa, has experienced declines in per capita food production. Fish culture is one part of a many-stranded effort to increase food production and food security by intensifying the use of land resources to produce a much-needed protein crop. Beginning in 1983, the Rwanda National Fish Culture Project has assisted farmers…

Program directors and evaluators need to address the important program accountability question of attribution of outcomes. This discussion is a beginning. Starting with some basics, such as the meaning of the program, approaches to program theory development, and the nature of attribution, the paper suggests three types of attribution. An…

The contributors to this document compare the main approaches to agricultural extension in sub-Saharan Africa; the cost-effectiveness in view of precarious national budgets; the weaknesses of the system for generating technology; the difficulties in forging productive partnerships between researchers, extensionists and farmers; the ineffective…

The goal of this paper was to develop a theory of organization/environment interaction by examining the impact of perceived environmental uncertainty on organizational processes and on organizational goal attainment. It examines theories from the organizational environment literature and derives corollaries that are empirically tested using a data…

The institutions and practices of agricultural extension in Australia are changing to meet the changing needs of rural people and communities. Issues and challenges facing rural people include the declining relative economic importance of agriculture; the declining agricultural workforce; and the shift in agriculture from a purely production…

A study examined the extent to which employees in one university extension organization oriented themselves to a vision of extension work that responded to nontraditional societal problems, nontraditional affected communities, and the expertise of nontraditional faculty. The state extension service organization (based at a large midwestern…

This paper examines trends and issues in international agricultural extension and offers seven reasons for the establishment of extension systems after World War II. It makes the case that, although the general situation is somewhat similar today, three current developments color and shape extension and may cause its demise: (1) institutional…

This overview is composed of four major sections. Part I is a map of agricultural extension's "territory," that is, the definitions and systems. It discusses extension functions in agricultural production institutions and varying institutional settings, describes types of extension systems, and considers farmers' degree of influence on extension…

The authors examine the historical context and current implications of four questions: (1) What is the relationship of land grant universities to agrarian discontent? (2) What was the Wisconsin Idea? (3) What is "public service"? and (4) What views of knowledge predominated in the early days? The land grant university was central as a cause/effect…

This paper examines how educational radio has been used to disseminate agricultural information to farmers in rural communities of Manitoba (Canada), and discusses implications for educational uses of radio in developing countries. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 communication experts involved in rural extension services in Manitoba.…

Rural economic development requires local consensus and a coordinated effort by community leaders and the public at large. In 12 rural Georgia counties, the University of Georgia is implementing a Rural Revitalization Initiative (RRI) that emphasizes collaboration of public officials and private individuals across disciplines, professions,…

Interviews with 940 Iowa farm operators and their wives were conducted during 1977 to address the question of perceived extension effectiveness (the degree to which the respondent perceived the Cooperative Extension Service as meeting his/her needs). Two models of organizational effectiveness were advanced and suggested as being consistent with…

Between the World Wars, a strong current of thought saw "the rural" as a reservoir of the spiritual capital of the nation, a view that stimulated back-to-the-land movements across western Europe. But the inter-war period also saw growing encounters of the urban and rural worlds, one of the interfaces being rural adult education. This…