44 



Mr. Chairman, the Cooperative Extension System differs from a 

 Une agency. Rather, it's a three-way partnership between the Fed- 

 eral Extension Service at USDA and State and local units of gov- 

 ernment through tiie land-grant universities in each State. This 

 partnership results in three-way leveraging of the Federal invest- 

 ment through State and local fonding for research, extension, and 

 education. In fact, currently, it's my imderstanding in the current 

 budgets there's about $400 miUion through the Federal Govern- 

 ment and about $1 biUion through the locad and State government. 

 In fact, the headquarters unit of ES-USDA, that coordinating unit 

 for the National Cooperative Extension System, consumes less 

 than 4 percent of the funding of the Federal appropriations, the re- 

 mainder going for this leveraging through the State and the local 

 community. 



The Extension System's program priorities are identified with 

 and for local people. T^ey provide about 70 percent of the pro- 

 gram's funding through these State and coimty levels of govern- 

 ment, and it is the people's link with the total resources of the uni- 

 versity and with Federal research. At the same time, the Federal 

 component, ES-USDA, of this cooperative structure provides a co- 

 ordinated approach to meet these national priorities. 



Strategic planning is an ongoing activity in the Cooperative Ex- 

 tension System. National leadership for strategic planning in the 

 system is provided by the Strategic Planning Coimcil. This council 

 is a key group in S5mthesizing information about the future, the so- 

 cietal environment, and the capacities of the system. It identifies 

 and assesses issues consistent with Extension's mission. It solicits 

 and synthesizes information from futuring panels, external scan- 

 ning processes, and national advisory councils. At the State and 

 county levels, similar structures and processes are in use to involve 

 citizens, staflF, and relevant collaborators in strategic planning. 



Mr. Chairman, the results of these are included in a futuring re- 

 port over the last several years, "Patterns of Change: Strategic Di- 

 rections for the Cooperative Extension System," and then at the 

 State and local level, "The Strategic Planning Process." I'd submit 

 to you that these aren't just more stacks of paper, but they are in 

 fact in process, guiding the total Cooperative Extension System. 



To remain relevant and to meet constantly changing needs of the 

 people, we must continue to work cooperatively with numerous 

 other agencies and groups who are also now networked techno- 

 logically so as to draw better on the appropriate research, dis- 

 ciplines, and data bases. 



Over the past several years, the sjrstem has undergone a great 

 deal of transition. "Change" has been the operative word through- 

 out the Cooperative Extension System. The focus of this change has 

 been made to move toward issue-based programming. As a result 

 of this change, some critical issues face the system. Among those 

 issues are some of the following that you would recognize. 



With increased intensity of the strategic planning process to 

 identify the most sensitive and critical issues, we've refocused some 

 resources on issues affecting agriculture, children, famihes, envi- 

 ronment, and consumers. The most highly visible current programs 

 focus on societal issues that relate to agriculture and consumers. 



