Thank goodness today’s “Extension Service” has no relationship to the ag extension agent once portrayed on the Green Acres TV show, which ran in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Change is good!
Established as part of the land-grant university system in 1887, the “cooperative extension” was created to inform people about current developments in agriculture, home economics (remember those?), and related subjects.
An earlier version of the extension service was in place during the 1845-51 Irish potato famine, when the British government sent traveling instructors to rural areas to teach small farmers to cultivate alternative crops.
In fact, eOrganic – the modern-day version – looks nothing like your father’s extension service. eOrganic is a national organic agriculture research/outreach community that gives farmers, agricultural professionals and other members of the organic agriculture community relevant food and farm-related information in a variety of media and educational formats, online and off.
Linked directly to the Washington State University Extension and the Cooperative Extension Service, eOrganic is a 21st-century service that is available to anyone interested in good food: growing it, processing and preserving it, and eating it!
Take a look!