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The Honorable Charles Stenholm 

 May 3, 1993 

 Page Three 



Extension Service to not only feed me information, but to listen to input of problems 

 and send them up the line to be addressed by research of Extension. As I stated 

 earlier in statements before your committee, we need a strong infrastructure to keep 

 us on the cutting edge of information and application. As an example of my reading 

 and gleaning, I am including ONLY two weeks of articles that I have cUpped out of 

 only a few of my agriculture newspapers that tend to get their information from our 

 institutions. They address a wide range of issues, and it is up to me to pick out those 

 for which I need further information and appUcation. I can use my local Extension 

 Agent, or I can resource the university. This can be done several ways - (telephone, 

 mail, electronics, or personal visits). My clippings include: 



Exhibit A: Food Issues 



Exhibit B: Youth and Family Issues 



Exhibit C: Environmental Issues 



Exhibit D: Farm Safety Issues 



Exhibit F: Production Agriculture Issues 



Exhibit G: Miscellaneous Issues and Implications 



(The articles are held in the connnittee files.) 



Question 4a. Do you feel that fanners, ranchers and consumers are adequately 

 included in the priority setting process? 



Each state probably has their own way of collecting input. Our state uses several 

 ranking devices for research and extension with a cross-section of people in the state. 

 Our state CARET (Council on Agriculture, Research, Extension and Teaching) has 

 three members from every coimty in the state, and they are a part of this ranking 

 system. I feel that because of state and local funding in partnership with federal 

 dollars, research and Extension do indeed respond to current needs. There is local 

 input needed to get local important dollars, and this process is used at each level. 

 This is not to say that we need not to always be looking for more legitimate voices 

 that are being raised for total community good. I feel that it is not the loud voices 

 that should drive the priority setting, but voices that can sit down to the table and 

 rationally discuss our needs. 



Question 4b. How can we more effectively include them? 



There needs to be a continuous effort to include the organic, sustainable, traditional 

 production type, livestock, research. Extension, consiuner, food processor, hanking, 

 agricultiu-al industry, secondary and higher education, local and state government, 

 forestry, environmental, etc., persons. We need to accept that some farmers, ranchers, 

 and consimiers are like students in the public schools. The taxpayers pay for public 

 education, provide for transportation in most cases, and even provide meals at a 

 reasonable cost (some cases free); and yet, there are some who will not finish high 

 school and later will say that the school never did anything for them. Yet, out of that 

 same school will come doctors, teachers, scientists, entrepreneiu^ that include farmers 

 and all kinds of self-employed, even our future researchers, and all kinds of skilled 

 labor and technicians. The information and knowledge base is there for the taking 

 but we as individuals need to identify what it is that we want before we can get 

 answers. 



