Useful Techniques in an Extension Program in Farm Management

Abstract

FARM management extension as it is carried on in the States today is broad and diverse. It includes educational work on farm management phases of farm planning and county planning, farm records and their analysis, enterprise records, farm surveys, farm business problems, farm labor utilization and efficiency, farm tenure, economic information and outlook, statistical information service to State and county extension workers, farm finance, land utilization, and national policy and economic forces. The problem of keeping up to date and abreast of new technical developments in the subject matter field as well as in educational procedure is an important part of the specialist's assignment. Numerous techniques have been used in carrying on extension programs in the broad field of farm management. Some of them have been very effective; others not so effective. Our need now is for techniques which will reach a maximum number of people with the limited amount of trained personnel available. Training of agents and farm leaders has materially increased specialists' efficiency in some States where definite attention has been given to this angle of the work. To be more effective in our farm management education, we must endeavor to make the subject matter simple and interesting rather than complex, confounding, and confusing. We must spend more time, whatever the technique, thinking about our audience and its level of understanding, and then prepare our material so it can be understood by that audience. In the time available to me, I would like for us to take a look at some of the teaching techniques used in farm management which have proved or promised to be more effective in reaching farmers. In order to save time, point up the discussion, and possibly be more specific, let us take a recognized farm management problem and examine a few of the extension techniques which may be used effectively in the teaching process. I think the problem of proper land use will serve our purposes quite satisfactorily.