The 21st century has brought with it unforeseen challenges and influential trends that will have significant impact of the livelihood and wellbeing of Georgia residents. Extension personnel within Georgia can extend their mandate by identifying issues that represent present and near-present threats and use these issues to inform programming and…

Rural small businesses struggling against the current of competition from "big box" retailers, weak consumer demand, and on-line shopping options must find strategies that work. Many are finding that adoption of e-commerce strategies is a key to survival, even prosperity. This article highlights the lessons learned from a recent case study…

Purpose: The article explores the significance of "evaluation" in the delivery of multifunctional extension advisory programmes and argues the necessity of integrating evaluation into programme planning, to ensure that programme guidelines are adhered to and extension advisory programmes generate their desired impact. The article focuses…

Purpose: New approaches to extension service delivery are needed that stimulate increased agricultural production, contribute to collective action and which also foster the emergence of agricultural innovation systems. Research in Peru and Mexico explores some of these new approaches. Design/methodology/approach: In both countries, a qualitative…

Two imperatives form the basis of the present paper. The first is the market-driven imperative, vital to production and value-chain development. The second is the knowledge imperative, central to the advancement of human capacity and institutional development. In view of these two imperatives, this paper argues for overhaul in extension toward a…

This paper discusses the transition from a national focus on food security during the last half of the 20th century to an emerging strategy on helping small-scale farm households increase farm income to reduce rural poverty. The basic proposition is that if extension is going to help increase farm incomes and rural employment, then it must shift…

The geographical scale of West Texas provides a unique opportunity to demonstrate active engagement between Texas Tech University and the residents of this vast region. The institution responded to community requests and collaborated to develop four new, rural off-campus teaching and research sites and expand the presence of an existing site.…