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Agricultural Economics
and Rural Sociology
Extension Programming |
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| PENN STATE COOPERATIVE EXTENSION |
| WHAT IS COOPERATIVE EXTENSION?
Penn State Cooperative Extension
is an educational network that gives people in Pennsylvania's 67 counties
access to Penn State's resources and expertise. It is funded by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture and state and county governments. Through
this county-based partnership, Penn State extension agents, faculty,
and local volunteers work together to share unbiased, research-based
information with local residents. The extension network is one part
of Penn State Outreach and Cooperative Extension, which also includes
Continuing Education, Distance Education/World Campus, and Public
Broadcasting. |
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| MISSION
The mission of Penn State Cooperative
Extension is to extend nonformal outreach educational opportunities
to individuals, families, businesses, and communities throughout Pennsylvania.
Cooperative Extension education programs enable the Commonwealth to
maintain a competitive and environmentally sound food and fiber system
and prepare Pennsylvania's youth, adults, and families to enhance
the quality of their lives and participate more fully in community
decisions. |
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PROGRAMS
Penn State Cooperative Extension
offers educational programs and resources on agriculture, horticulture,
environmental issues, forest resource management, food safety, 4-H
and youth, community development, family life, nutrition, and health,
among many other topics. The backbone of this community-based educational
network is people working together. Cooperative Extension's teams
of experts and volunteers seek new ways to help people in your communities
solve their problems. Find out how we can help you by contacting your
local Penn State Cooperative Extension Office.
Pennsylvania Cooperative Extension Offices:
http://www.extension.psu.edu/CountyList.html
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FOOD SYSTEMS
The goal of the Food Systems
extension program is to enhance the competitiveness of the Pennsylvania
and U.S. food system and to contribute to its long-term economic,
social and environmental sustainability. We achieve this goal by providing
timely and relevant research-based extension programs to our extension
clientele.
Our programs encompass the entire food system-dealing with decision
making at the farm, firm and consumer levels, and with public policy.
An important part of our research and extension programs involves
monitoring, evaluating, and analyzing system performance and identifying
ways in which this can be improved. We study how producers, agribusinesses,
and consumers make decisions, as well as developing and evaluating
production, marketing, and whole-business management strategies
for farms and agribusinesses. Among these strategies are investment
and savings decisions, marketing, employment and labor issues, international
competition, policy, and effects on community and environmental
sustainability. Other areas of focus are the effects of managerial
decisions on efficiency and future growth, and the aggregate effect
of firm-level and consumer-level decisions on the economic viability
of the food and agricultural sector as a whole.
Social, economic and structural changes in the food system in Pennsylvania
and elsewhere also require that we deal with issues of land use,
the rural/urban interface, heterogeneous production environments,
the impact of animal production systems and their changing structure,
the environmental effects of agricultural practices, and farm and
off-farm employment issues.
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ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES
The goal of the Environment
and Natural Resource extension program is to improve decisions concerning
Pennsylvania's natural resources and the environment. We strive to
provide timely information to help citizens and public officials understand
the forces shaping choices about the natural environment and the economic
and social impacts of environmental change and policies. We help people
understand how environmental and natural resource issues are resolved
within our governmental context, including information about how they
can effectively participate in policy-making at the local, state and
federal level.
Major themes in both extension and research in the department are
the agricultural and environmental interface, land use, water resources,
and design and evaluation of policies and institutions for managing
environmental and natural resources.
Extension programs focus on the rural-urban interface, land use
issues, and water resources management. These programs address farmland
protection and siting of large-scale animal operations, non-point
source water pollution, nutrient management, water law, and watershed
management. Faculty and staff frequently work with other departments
at Penn State as well as other universities and agencies in designing
and implementing educational programs.
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COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
The goal of the community development extension program is three
fold:
- improve decision making in local communities
- empower communities to guide their own decisions
- improve the social and economic well-being of citizens
Our focus on community and economic decision making seeks to improve
the capacity of citizens, community leaders and policy makers to
understand and respond to external and internal forces for change.
These include the problems and opportunities that arise from social
and demographic change and the dynamics of local economies.
We conduct research on a broad range of community issues, and use
this knowledge to provide research-based extension and outreach
programs that address a broad range of issues related to community
and economic development. These include: municipal finance; economic
development; land use planning; environmental issues; and child,
youth, and family well-being.
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