Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Life science
industry
corporate
interests
Private
funding of
LGU
research/
Industry-
university
Private
sector
products
and
technology
delivery
Patenting
and other
forms of
proprietary
protection
Federal
funding of
fundamental
(“basic”
biomedical-
driven)
biological
research
Federal
competitive
funding of
LGU
research
Figure 2.2
Schematic of the “new model” of LGU research. From Buttel 2001.
model. New inventions are no longer to be transferred to agriculture;
they are patented and sold to private industry.
37
The Land-Grant University: What Knowledge Is Extended, and How?
Extension practice is inherently contradictory. It is a pre-meditated,
deliberate intervention to achieve the intervener's goals, but it can
achieve effectiveness only by inducing voluntary change. Authentic agri-
cultural extension is very difficult to conduct. Extension agents can really
only appeal to knowledge to promote change.
38
The design of an exten-
sion education program reveals who extensionists perceive their clients
to be; it also reveals their assumptions about how their clients learn.
Disagreement about the clientele and organization of extension educa-
tion work pre-date the passage of the federal legislation creating the
extension service.
39
Before 1914, agricultural extension meant either
travels by LGU scientists to farming communities (the “demonstration
method”) or farmers' institutes. In the latter case, rural communities and
farmers requested the service of scientists on their terms. The “demon-
stration method” was pioneered by Seaman Knapp in the American
South. His project was to create a corps of scientifically trained experts,
based at universities, that would persuade “reluctant” farmers to “mod-
ernize” their practices. Arrogance and paternalism tainted this approach.
