Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
and the health of farm communities—indeed, the former could beget the
latter.
The text of the report continues in this vein, beginning with laudatory
statements about the importance of country life. The commission then
addresses the important problems facing U.S. farmers, foremost of which
was agriculture's lagging productivity and effi ciency: “Agriculture is not
commercially as profi table as it is entitled to be for the labor and energy
that the farmer expends and the risks that he assumes, and . . . the social
conditions in the open country are far short of their possibilities” (18). The
report then gives a number of reasons for this “defi cient” character of
country life, the fi rst of which is “a lack of knowledge on the part of farmers
of the exact agricultural conditions and possibilities in their regions” (19).
Thus, in good Progressive fashion, one of the commission's fi rst recom-
mendations was to create a system of extension work through the network
of agricultural research and teaching resources already in place at the land-
grant universities:
We suggest the establishment of a nation-wide extension work. The fi rst original
work of the agricultural branches of the land-grant colleges was academic in the old
sense; later there was added the great fi eld of experiment and research; there now
should be added the third coordinate branch, comprising extension work, without
which no college of agriculture can adequately serve its state. It is to the extension
department of these colleges, if properly conducted, that we must now look for the
most effective rousing of the people on the land. (127)
By bringing knowledge to U.S. farm communities, extension work could
increase production and effi ciency, restore the public good in agriculture,
and make rural life better for all in the countryside.
Although the concept of Cooperative Extension and the use of local
agricultural advisors for improving farm practices was not a new idea, the
Country Life Commission's infl uence helped make the system a reality.
8
With the support of the Country Life Commission and other extension
movement interest groups, Cooperative Extension was offi cially created
through the federal Smith-Lever Act in 1914. This legislation provided
federal money for the states' land-grant schools to fund farm advisors of
their own. In addition, the state and county governments that received
advisors were to contribute their own funds—thus the name Cooperative
Extension, referring to cooperative funding by different levels of govern-
ment. In many cases, individual states' land-grant institutions had already
