Extension Has New Face

Extension Service Has a New Face

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report after this.

As those of us in agriculture know, through land grant universities each state’s extension service provides many worthwhile educational and outreach programs. One state’s extension service has take a different approach than most to sharing its information with the public.

Emery Tschetter, South Dakota State University Extension Director of Communications and Marketing shares more about SDSU Extension’s iGrow.?

Tschetter: “It was designed to take into account the new social market place that we are all doing business in and allow our programs to be offered through the internet. It is something that we’ve all talked about. But a year ago we had a fairly substantial budget reduction and that was the trigger that helped us to determine this is the way we want to move into the future. So in the course of restructuring extension, we created the iGrow.org website. We also gave all of our staff an assignment to give at least 20 percent of their time into this website. That means that we consequently have a staff now that contributes 200,000 hours a year to this website.”

They are also creating apps for ag producers. Their first app is free and is a feed cost calculator and allows livestock producers to compare both the nutritional value and cost when making feedstuff choices.
There is an amazing amount of information in a very user-friendly setting. Check it out at iGrow.org.

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.