Don’t halt extension service funding
In 1914, Congress established the Cooperative Extension Service as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This act allowed land-grant universities to enter into an agreement with county boards to develop educational programs to meet local needs. In Illinois, the land-grant university is the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. It is the three-way partnership between the USDA, land-grant universities and county government that makes Extension a unique organization.
Extension education combines the expertise and resources of federal, state and local governments. University of Illinois Extension provides research-based educational programs in the areas of healthy society, food security and safety, environmental stewardship, sustainable and profitable food production and marketing systems, enhancing youth, family and community well-being. The most familiar programs are 4-H and Master Gardeners. Our youth development programs positively impact nearly 300,000 youth who learn leadership, citizenship and life skills through 4-H and other programs.
Thousands of volunteer leaders work under the direction of master’s-degreed youth development educators. In 2010, 3,440 master gardener volunteers donated a total of 186,748 hours to their communities educating people about topics such as safe food production and awareness of Emerald Ash Borer. Educational material from the federal government regarding disease and pest awareness directs citizens to contact their county extension office for more information.
Statewide, more than 2.5 million Illinois residents take part in extension programs each year. Extension web pages draw more than 10 million views per month, and people in over 200 countries access extension’s web-based information. In the state budget currently being debated, our funding has been deleted. Without funding from the state, extension will cease to exist. I urge our legislators to continue to fund extension so we can continue our mission of bringing the university to our communities.
Patricia Kosmach
Vice chairman University of Illinois Extension Council, DuPage County