Dr. R.L. (Bob) Nielsen
The role of the university in transferring technology and disseminating information to the rural sector is an important issue for any agricultural university in any country of the world. That such a role is important and necessary for the sustained improvement of agriculture is not debatable in my mind.
An agricultural university should be a major developer of technology applicable to crop and animal systems in the agricultural sector. An agricultural university should also be the institution best equipped to educate the adult learners of the agricultural sector.
Assuming that the necessary human and financial resources are available to conduct university Extension education programs, the challenge is to identify and employ the methods by which an effective university Extension program can be conducted. The success of the possible alternative methodologies depends greatly on the strengths, weaknesses, and personalities of the university staff members assigned to the task of Extension education.
As an Extension corn specialist at Purdue University in Indiana, I can best address this issue by describing and sharing some of what I do to fulfill my responsibilities to Indiana's agricultural production sector.
My faculty appointment at Purdue University is partitioned between Extension education and applied research. I teach no classes on the W. Lafayette campus. Rather, my 'students' are the adult learners of the agricultural sector of Indiana. These adult learners are not only county Extension staff, but also farmers, private crop consultants, agri-industry personnel, farm youth, and the news media.
My responsibility to Indiana's production agriculture sector is to provide information and extend knowledge about corn management systems that will improve the ability of the Indiana corn grower to produce corn profitably and efficiently. My specific areas of expertise are a) corn growth and development and b) crop diagnostics and yield-limiting factors.
The approaches I use to fulfill my Extension responsibility include...
I coordinate and/or participate in a number of statewide educational programs throughout the year. Such programs range from small single-county meetings with very few farmers in attendance to statewide or multi-state educational conferences with hundreds in attendance.
At the smaller meetings, I may be the only presenter. At larger meetings, I may be one of many presenters. The locations of the programs are diverse, including school classrooms, hotel conference centers, public auditoriums, Purdue's outlying research centers, cooperating private farms, restaurants, county Extension offices, and agri-industry facilities.
County Extension staff historically have organized many of these meetings, but in recent years meeting organizers are just as often non-university agricultural entities. Examples of the latter group include high school agricultural teachers, local agricultural supply dealers (e.g., private seed companies), and state agricultural organizations (e.g., Countrymark Co-op).
Because of the participation by such non-university agricultural interests, developing and maintaining a good rapport between university and non-university agricultural interests is critical. Fortunately, Purdue University's School of Agriculture is well-respected throughout the state and region. Just as importantly, I have a great deal of respect for many of the non-university agricultural professionals that I interact with in my educational programming.
Another important component of my Extension program is simply serving as a source of information for corn production. Through telephone calls, letters, and electronic mail; a large proportion of my time during the growing season is devoted to responding to inquiries about current crop conditions and identifying issues that Indiana corn growers should be aware of. These inquiries originate from a diverse group of individuals, including county Extension staff, news media, farmers, private crop consultants, agri-industry personnel, and the general public.
In addition to responding to inquiries, I devote a similarly large proportion of my time to developing information pieces on current corn production issues that are communicated through university newsletters distributed throughout the state, electronic mail to a growing list of individuals with such access, World Wide Web pages available throughout the world, and interviews with local and statewide news media (newspaper, radio, and television).
During the growing season, I also travel extensively throughout Indiana to troubleshoot crop problems in farmers' fields and offer advice on managing or correcting the problem. The causes of crop problems are varied and usually are the result of several factors acting interactively. Farmers often blame an agricultural supply dealer for mis-applying an agrichemical to his field or for selling the farmer poor quality seed. The agricultural supply dealer is usually, and naturally, defensive about accepting the blame for the problem. Just as often, the farmer himself may have contributed to the problem through his own actions. Finally, pests and weather often interact together to cause many crop problems. My role, as an Extension specialist, is to provide unbiased opinions and advice on such issues.
Usually the county Extension educator, private crop consultant, and/or agri-industry representative accompany me to the field. With all the 'players' present, I can often take advantage of the 'teachable' moment to educate a number of individuals who otherwise may not have paid attention in a formal conference. Helping these individuals better understand the nature of a crop problem in the field helps them formulate management practices to avoid the problem in the future. Some of these 'players' will also spread this information to neighbors and colleagues, thus multiplying the educational effect of my having visited the field.
Troubleshooting trips not only solve problems for the farmer and his suppliers, but also improves my knowledge and keeps me and Purdue abreast of current production problems. Using current knowledge, we can usually develop information pieces that immediately address similar problems for other farmers and clientele. Additionally, feedback from the field can provide the impetus for developing new research projects at the university.
An important component of any Extension education program is the availability of applied agricultural research that addresses issues important to the clientele. Developing research-based production information includes the ability to interpret research results generated by other colleagues and the ability to design, conduct, and interpret one's own research. Over the years, my field research has been conducted on Purdue Agricultural Research Centers, as well as on land belonging to private farmers.
Having a strong base in research lends credibility to an Extension specialist's program. Identification of issues important to corn growers in Indiana and nearby states is accomplished by personal interactions with growers and agri-industry, as well as by my own observations from troubleshooting crop problems in the field. Without the personal contact with the 'real world' of production agriculture, the ability to identify important research topics would be greatly hindered.
Because the percentage of my faculty appointment devoted to research is small (15%), much of the field research that I conduct is accomplished by the graduate students that I advise. Most of the students I have worked with during my tenure at Purdue have been M.S. degree candidates. Upon completion of their studies, many of my students have become employed as practicing agronomists by commercial seed companies in Indiana and elsewhere.
Examples of corn management issues I have studied include...
As with the variability of success of Extension methods, the success of alternative means of communicating information and technology to the agricultural sector varies from Extension specialist to specialist. The availability and knowledge of various communication technologies also obviously influences their use by an Extension specialist. The goal of any technology should be to efficiently and quickly transfer information and knowledge to the end user.
I employ a variety of approaches to communicate information to my clientele, including...
The development and use of Extension publications and factsheets has been a traditional means of communicating information and knowledge to the American farmer for many years. Written by the Extension specialist and published by the university, these information pieces are made available through the county Extension offices or directly by mail from the campus media distribution center. In the future, many if not most of Purdue's Extension publications will be available over the the Internet via the World Wide Web communication medium.
During the cropping season, several newsletters are published weekly and mailed to farmers, county Extension staff, news media, private crop consultants, and agri-industries. These newsletters provide a wonderful opportunity to multiply the impact of information developed by the university as readers share the knowledge with other users.
The Purdue Pest Management and Crop Production Newsletter is coordinated through the Entomology Department and contains articles on current cropping concerns written by agronomists, entomologists, plant pathologists, weed scientists, and agricultural engineers. Over 1,000 agriculturalists across the state subscribe to this newsletter.
The Indiana Weather & Crop Report is published by the Indiana Agricultural Statistics Service , which is a campus-based office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service . The primary purpose of the report is to provide current statistics on the progress of Indiana's major crops and updates on past weeks' weather around the state. The state agricultural statistician graciously allows Extension specialists like myself to include short newsletter articles about current cropping concerns. The subscription list of this crop report statewide is about 1,500.
The Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service maintains an effective telecommunications network to each county Extension office that allows accurate and quick electronic mail capabilities between campus specialists and county staff. I use this technology extensively to deliver information to county Extension staff for their use in the field, as well as for developing their own news releases. The county staff regularly use electronic mail to keep me and other campus specialists informed about conditions in their counties.
Over 5,000 Indiana farmers subscribe to a satellite-based electronic communication medium known as the Data Transmission Network . This private commercial information source, referred to as DTN, is available nationwide but often tailors information on a state-specific basis. Purdue's Agricultural Communications Service Department regularly provides DTN with agricultural information developed by campus Extension specialists. A Purdue 'page' is maintained by DTN that farmers can read along with the other market and weather information that is commercially available.
During the past year, the use of the Internet for distributing agricultural information has grown dramatically, especially the use of the World Wide Web (WWW). The WWW is officially described as a "wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative". It is an information system that links data from many different Internet services under one set of protocols (called the World Wide Web). Web clients (also called browsers or viewers) interpret HyperText Markup Language (HTML) documents delivered from Web servers.
These documents use hypertext links to connect different documents and information resources together; click a link with your mouse and the client software retrieves the linked document, potentially from anywhere in the world, or jumps to a specific position in the current document. These links can access Web pages, Gopher menus, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) file directories, Wide Area Information Service (WAIS) databases, and more. Hypertext links can also be used to to allow the viewer to send email directly to a designated email address.
I have begun to make significant use of the World Wide Web of the Internet to provide much of my corn management information and updates to a growing group of agriculturalists with access to the Internet through what I call the Corn Growers Guidebook . The use of the WWW to dynamically disseminate information provides a powerful opportunity to include images, sound, and video with the textual material. In particular, this technology allows me to provide nearly real-time information to the agricultural sector for the first time ever.
Even with the growth of electronic mail and hypertext media, the traditional print news media still dominates the alternative communication media in the agricultural sector. Newspapers, weekly farm publications, and farm magazines are widely read and valued among our clientele. Purdue's Agricultural Communications Service Department works closely with campus Extension specialists to prepare news releases that are distributed, often by FAX, to news media throughout the state. Many of us are also contacted directly by the print news media for interviews.
Historically, the use of field days at a research center or on a private farm has been an effective means of disseminating research results and technology to the agricultural sector. Throughout the state today, Purdue has many partners who host educational field days. Commercial seed companies, fertilizer dealerships, agrichemical companies, county Extension offices, and other local government organizations are all likely to develop summer programs centered around field plots or machinery demonstrations.
Such field days continue to be an important component of my Extension program, especially where the information can be transferred in a 'hands-on' manner. A particularly effective infield educational program is the Purdue Crop Diagnostic Training and Research Center.
The Center is a 9-hectare field laboratory where crop problems (primarily corn and soybean) are created or simulated on small plots. Attendees gain multidisciplinary, hands-on experience in the art and science of crop problem diagnostics. We conduct single day training sessions during several weeks in June, July, and September. The clientele of the Center include county Extension staff, seedsmen, fertilizer and agrichemical personnel, private crop consultants, and farmers.
Extension specialists from several departments and disciplines are involved in designing and conducting the training sessions each year. The disciplines most often involved in the Center are crop science, soil science, weed science, entomology, plant pathology, and agricultural engineering. My responsibility at the Center is to teach corn growth and development as it relates to crop problem diagnostics. The Center also funds four or five M.S. graduate students each year, who gain invaluable experience in practical agricultural skills.
In summary, the role of Extension education within an agricultural university is extremely important in improving and maintaining the economic and environmental sustainability of the activities of the agricultural sector. University Extension education serves as an unbiased source of information to the agricultural sector. The information and knowledge imparted by Extension specialists and county Extension staff is rooted in applied research.
Purdue University Extension programs impact agriculture throughout Indiana, as well as neighboring states in the region. The county Extension staff provide the local contact so vital to maintaining the flow of information between producer and university. More and more, the opportunities for interaction between university and agri-industry also helps to foster the information flow. Through various printed and electronic communication media, Purdue's Extension specialists can quickly and efficiently extend and transfer information to those individuals who will multiply it to other users.
University Extension specialists have the capability to investigate problems thoroughly and develop answers for the producer in a timely manner. Through their travel out in the state and their contacts with farmers and their supporting industries, Extension specialists become aware of important issues facing the producer. The multidisciplinary support base on campus provides an easy, rapid access to a broad range of expertise to solve issue through applied and basic research.
I want to leave you with one last bit of personal philosophy on how to be successful as an Extension specialist. It occurs to me that as I have become more experienced and knowledgeable about corn management issues, these are not the only important factors in determining the trust and respect given to me as an Extension specialist. The really important components of a successful Extension program are the human factors.
Do I demonstrate a sincerity about the well-being of my clientele and their vocations? Am I visible to my clientele, through extensive use of various communication media or by my travels across the state? Or do I sit in my office all day, buried in paper and deadlines? Closely related to visibility is familiarity. When my clientele read my writings or listen to me in the field, do they feel a sense of familiarity with me? Or do I come across as a 'high and mighty' professor of a land-grant university?
The relative importance of these factors can be provided in the following formula...
(T + R) = (K + E) + 2S+ 3V + 4F
Where
T = Trust
R = Respect
K = Knowledge
E = Experience
S = Sincerity
V = Visibility
F = Familiarity