Mapping the road for voluntary change: Partnerships in agricultural extension

Robert Pence and James Grieshop

Agriculture and Human Values, 2001, vol. 18, issue 2, 209-217

Abstract: BIOS and BIFS are two California-based, small-scale alternative agricultural demonstration programs that define an applied Agriculture Partnership Model of extension. This model operates through a structure of local project leadership, a process of responsive farmer outreach and a primary goal of voluntary pesticide reduction. It reaches back to a Land Grant approach to extension of personal relationship, equal partnership, and collaborative learning. Overall findings from a systematic assessment of BIOS and BIFS imply that the operation and impacts of these two Agriculture Partnership Projects owe more to the model, approach, and values of the projects than to any specific farming or extension techniques. A model of local partnership and responsive, learner-centered outreach, operational values such as flexibility and relationship, and a balanced systems approach to farm management and project operation combine to create a promising organizational response to the rapidly changing regulatory, environmental, and political circumstances confronting conventional farmers in California. Though some farm advisors and field research specialists within the University of California Cooperative Extension have successfully used the projects to leverage decreasing Extension resources, increase their one-on-one contact with farmers, and learn new outreach and agricultural skills, others within that system are highly critical of the two projects. Organizational tension between Cooperative Extension and the quasi-university Partnership Projects largely reflects differences in fundamental beliefs and values about legitimate knowledge, learning processes, and effective teaching as well as primary goals for agricultural outreach. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001

Keywords: Agriculture outreach; Agricultural partnership; Almonds; BIOS; BIFS; Cooperative Extension; CAFF; Farmer-to-farmer; Local knowledge; Sustainable agriculture; Walnuts; Wine grapes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1011183810989 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:18:y:2001:i:2:p:209-217

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10460

DOI: 10.1023/A:1011183810989

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture and Human Values is currently edited by Harvey S. James Jr.

More articles in Agriculture and Human Values from Springer, The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().