| In 1914, the Cooperative Extension Service was established to disseminate information about agriculture and home economics from land-grant universities to the U.S. public. At that time, about 30 percent of U.S. workers were in agriculture-related occupations; by the late 1990s, that share had declined to about 1 percent. Today, the Extension System ("Extension") is largely publicly funded and links the educational and research arms of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, land-grant universities, and related institutions. The system has changed along with its audience. The number of full-time-equivalent Extension personnel dropped by 12 percent from 1977 to 1997, with the largest declines found in community resource development and 4-H youth programs, two of... |
