GET AN EXTENSION

County extension services offer an abundance of information on all things ag-related when you have crop, livestock or farming questions.

- SARAH E. COLEMAN

Do you need help determining what bug is eating your tomatoes? Do you want to bring your horse home but aren't sure where to locate your barn? Are you worried about food poisoning when you try to can this summer? All of these questions - and so many more! - can be answered by your local cooperative extension agency. Staffed by local experts with boots-on-the-ground experience, this office is tasked with disseminating science-based agricultural information to anyone who asks for it.

One of the most underutilized farmer resources throughout the nation, extension offices were solely created to disseminate information to those interested in or new to agriculture. Though the definition of agriculture today may be vastly different from what it was in the late 1800s when the agricultural revolution began, the mission of extension offices around the country remains the same: to provide research-based education to those interested in agriculture.

Extension is directly affiliated with land-grant universities (also called land-grant institutions or land-grant colleges) - schools of higher education that received federal support in the form of land and funding. The purpose of these schools was to teach agriculture, science, engineering and military science. Additional congressional acts allowed for the funding of agricultural experiment stations and the dissemination of information gleaned from research conducted at these stations.

Extension was formalized by Congress in 1914, when more than 50% of the U.S. population lived in a rural area and 30% of the workforce was engaged in agriculture. Today, less than 2% of Americans make their living farming and only 17% live in "rural" areas, but extension's mission to disseminate agriculture information remains the same.