Polarization is increasingly impacting Extension's work in communities. Extension has untapped potential to address division and lack of civility by building civic infrastructure and skills for constructive dialogue. We describe a pilot program that began as a one-off event and grew into a series organized by University of Wisconsin-Madison…

This article reports on a study to determine which information sources organic growers use to inform farming practices by conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews with 23 organic farmers across 17 North Carolina counties. Effective information sources included: networking, agricultural organizations, universities, conferences, Extension, Web…

Strategies for building effective extension-community partnerships around food use the following principles: building on community assets, involving diverse stakeholder involvement, being guided by community interests, and integrating research with practice. Strategies encourage partners to develop common goals, clarify roles and responsibilities,…

In the early decades of the Extension system, agents' core work was to organize rural people in order to address practical problems and issues. This educational organizing fostered instrumental, communicative, and emancipatory learning. Understand the historical foundations and evolution of the educational organizing tradition can help Extension…