Accountability and the Cooperative Extension Service: An Emerging Role for Rural Sociology

Presidential address of the Southern Rural Sociological Association, Orlando, Florida, February 1986

Beef Cattle Producers of the Texas Gulf Coast: Characteristics and Production Practices

Agricultural production in Texas and the nation has been characterized by two major trends: farms are getting larger in size and fewer in number, and more farmers are seeking off-farm employment. For those who remain in farming, technology is becoming more complex, the industry is becoming more highly structured, and the market for their agricultural products is being affected by international events. Today\u27s farmers must have strong managerial skills and be aware of modern agricultural technologies if they are to succeed. The purpose here is to identify and measure characteristics of ranchers and related activities as organizational units; and to determine herd, pasture, and forage management practices followed by producers. Also examined is the relationship between agricultural technology utilization and selected personal and farm characteristics. Data are derived from a proportionate random sample of beef cattle producers in the gulf coast region of Texas. The sampling was designed to provide an accurate picture of the 10,000 organizational units of the gulf coast region and each county in the region with percent responses ranging no more than - +7% with a 95% confidence interval

An Assessment of Extension's Long-Range Planning Process: Programming into the '90s.

20 p

Adoption of Irrigation Technology: The Effects of Personal, Structural, and Environmental Variables

During the past decade, there has been a growing interest in expanding the list of factors affecting the adoption and diffusion of agricultural technology. It has been suggested that most previous research efforts have been insensitive to contextual variables and institutional constraints. The physical environment has been suggested as one contextual variable that has been largely ignored in past adoption-diffusion research. The present study tested for the relative effects of a site-specific indicator of the physical environment (saturated thickness), as well as personal attributes and farm structural characteristics for the adoption of irrigation innovations in the Texas High Plains. The results revealed that saturated thickness is an important variable in understanding the adoption of the irrigation innovations considered. While a multivariate analysis revealed that farm size overall was the most important variable, the environmental factor was more important than traditional research variables selected for use in this study. It is concluded that the use of environmental variables does contribute to our knowledge of adoption of technology and should be included in studies of the diffusion of innovations

An analysis of economic rationality in decision-making

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An Interim Evaluation: The Effectiveness of Nonprofessionals in Cooperative Extension Education for Low-Income Farmers.

28 p