Support Your Local Co-operative Extension

Posted by Tony Bielaczyc


 
We love to get questions from listeners to Homgrown, we really do.  It makes us feel connected to listeners and that we're not just yacking away at each other on the 36th floor of a high rise building in Midtown Manhattan about a subject that we might otherwise think we're the only ones interested in with no one out actually listening.  Andrew and I rely on each other, our own wits and hands-on experience in gardening when answering said questions from callers each Tuesday and Thursday.  And for the times that one of you out there does stump us, we often will send you off to a source of immense experience and knowledge, your local Cooperative Extension .

The Hatch Experiment Station Act of 1887 created a working relationship with the nation's newly established land grant colleges and the recently established USDA to foster research and spread the word on how to be a farmer.  People were flocking across the uncharted parts of the middle west and west to stake a claim at the land that was made available through the Homestead Act of 1867. 


Even when people who had worked farms or plantations headed west to start new lives, they may have found themselves overwhelmed by any number of issues that fanned into major problems and there was nowhere to turn for experienced advice or guidance.  The Hatch Act was intended to make available research and the cutting edge technology of the day to those creating the 'new' frontiers on the farm.  It worked very well indeed.  And it wasn't just farming advice that was offered.

Home economic tutorials, animal husbandry standards, and 4-H (of which a young Andrew Beckman was a member) all grew out of the Extension services.  Not to mention the countless research publications on the finer points of planting, growing, training, grooming, pruning, harvesting, that offer the latest, most up to date word on any number of topics, from edibles and ornamentals particular to your region to disease and pest diagnosis and remedies.  Even today, Extension continues to positively impact and assist people all across the country in any number of different ways, agriculturally, socially, environmentally, domestically.  It may feel like a familiar friend, always there with sound advice; however, that easy friendship is under stress.     

From Chelan County in Washington state to South Dakota to Lancaster County Pennsylvania, extension agencies are feeling the the slash of budget cutting axes.  Andrew and I want to reinterate our support of extension agencies across the country, not just as a source for answers when we come up short or for livestock contests at state fairs, but for all the great and necessary research and work accomplished.  Extension is a major part of the economic and social network of countless communities across the country whose impact is felt out in the vegetable garden and in classrooms and kitchens.  And we want to ask you all, listeners of Homegrown, to take a minute and call your state senators and representatives to encourage them to also support extension agencies in your state by holding the line on budget cuts.  It's said that for every dollar spent on ag research, $20.00 in revenue is generated.  That's a great investment for the future.  So, let's start making some calls.    

Comments

[Builder Jack]

I love this article built on heritage and keeping the past vividly alive. Thanks for sharing