Rural people and the Nation recognize that the quality of home and family life are basic to our progress and the development of youth. They know that the skill, knowledge, and understanding of the homemaker is basic to a family life that provides comfort, health, on a limited income, and inspires the children. They look to Extension to serve this important goal through its home economics program.

An American need particularly important in many rural areas is to help people with limited resources and low income become more productive and acquire improved levels of living. By working with rural youth, homemakers with limited resources, low-income farmers, the community as a whole, Extension is an important factor in helping people of low income solve their problems, prepare for opportunities, and more fully share in our American economy.

SIGNIFICANT CURRENT CHANGES IN EXTENSION

Now within this framework I would like to briefly discuss some significant changes currently taking place in Extension programs-changes in organization, methods, emphasis changes being made in response to changing needs of the people we serve.

MORE SPECIALIZED COMPETENCY

The first of these is an adjustment to provide more highly specialized competency in the field to help people with complex and difficult problems. I need not review here in detail the fact that the farm of today is becoming a more specialized business, a larger scaled business, operated by a better educated farmer, in a rapidly changing setting in which margins for error are very small and many complex decisions requiring the commitment of large amounts of capital must be made rapidly. These farmers are calling for highly trained agents with the specialized knowledge they need. Work with resource development committees and other groups concerned with the economic development of rural areas requires highly trained personnel with a high degree of competency for this work. Similarly, other phases of the Extension program require special abilities.

Extension directors recognize that there are limits to the number of special fields and special activities in which an individual worker can be expected to be highly competent and that each worker has his own unique abilities. Accordingly, changes are being made in job assignments and training. In the last few years there have been conspicuous increases in the number of agents with highly specialized assignments and training for these assignments.

As of September 1963, out of approximately 11,000 agents, 1,300 had highly specialized assignments and had received specialized training for carrying out these assignments. In some cases these specialized agents were working within an individual county. In other cases they were working at their speciality in an area of two or more counties.

The example of this type of adjustment with which I am best acquainted is in the State of Massachusetts where I was formerly associate director of extension. There we organized the staff of three counties into one staff for program purposes while continuing to maintain offices in the three counties. Each of the agricultural agents in that area had a field of special training and special competency. Each agent took on a specialized assignment for the three-county area and each agent was provided additional specialized training in his field of special assignment. One agent became the fruit farming agent, for three counties, another the vegetable farming agent for three counties, another the greenhouse and nursery agent for three counties, and so on. In this way, we were able to provide personnel with specialized training and specialized assignments for each type of farming. After a few years experience, the director of extension in Massachusetts is now organizing the entire State for this type of area program. Currently such adjustments to provide the needed specialization are being made on a limited scale in a high proportion of the States. Such an adjustment has been made in Missouri in a seven-county area. In Colorado, such a change of organization has been made in a four-county area. In California, arrangements have been made whereby many specialized agents work in their special fields in two or more counties. In Washington State an arrangement is being worked out in Chelan, Okanogan, and Douglas Counties that will enable each of the agents in that area to have a specialized assignment for work in the three counties while continuing to maintain offices in each county.

There is no one pattern that fits the needs everywhere. Each area is a somewhat different situation, requiring individual analyses in each State by the responsible people there.

Such programing and staffing adjustments are made only with the support of the local people. It requires work with county government officials to develop the administrative arrangements. It frequently requires resources to provide added training and to employ the more highly trained and more specialized staff.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS IN DEPTH

A second stype of adjustment I would like to discuss is the development of intensive educational programs for farmers. The farmer of today, better trained and better educated than his predecessors, who is operating in this dynamic situation is interested to an increasing extent in developing his basic scientific knowledge so that he will be better able to analyze his problems and opportunities and make decisions. The rapid increase and change in available basic knowledge (much of the knowledge learned 10 or 20 years ago is obsolete) has further emphasized the need for this type of basic scientific training. Farmers throughout the country have expressed this need and the Extension Service has been responding by adjusting its programs.

Typically these educational programs consist of 6 to 12 2-hour to daylong sessions in which basic instruction in depth is provided by the best specialists available from the colleges and by the county or area agents. This includes training programs in such subjects as animal nutrition to provide a basic understanding on which the farmer can develop and adjust his feeding program with changes in supplies, quality, and prices; instruction in soil science to provide the basic knowledge on which the farmer can develop and carry out programs of soil fertility and moisture control; programs in farm management in which basic information on economic principles, the economic situation, and needed technical information is provided in such a way as to facilitate the farmer's decisionmaking; and a number of other fields could be listed.

The response to this type of extension work has been most gratifying. This type of educational work will become a more important part of our program in the years ahead.

INTENSIVE TRAINING OF AGENTS

The third type of development I would like to discuss is in the training and preparation of extension staff. In all the States in recent years an improved competency of extension staff has been achieved through the employment of personnel who are more highly trained and exhibit a high degree of capacity for future service and future growth and development. Most States today employ as extension workers those whose undergraduate college record is of such quality that they will be qualified for admission to the land-grant university's graduate school. All States have initiated intensive inservice training programs for existing staff. This includes more than training programs of several days' duration designed primarily to bring staff up to date on new information. The predominant feature of these is the enrollment of staff members in intensive training, extending over a considerable period of time, of such a nature as to considerably strengthen their competency in fields of important need.

The number of extension staff members currently enrolled in graduate level courses of this prolonged and intensive nature is 2,211 or 15 percent of the total extension staff. This is an increase of 34 percent from the year 1958. In 1962, there were 393 agents on full-time study leave, an increase of 30 percent over 1958. Also in 1962 there were 1,818 agents enrolled in college credit courses while on the job. This is an increase of 76 percent over 1958. The proportion of the extension staff with doctor's degrees has increased by nearly 100 percent since 1956. Today more than one-fourth of the staff has master's degrees, an increase of 67 percent over the level of 1956. I cite statistics on degrees not because degrees are considered sacred but because they provide a measure of the specialized educational attainment of the staff and the growth that is taking place in the competency of extension workers.

This kind of accomplishment requires continued effort on the part of extension administration and it requires resources that enable them to employ and retain people who have acquired the competencies needed in our programs.

GREATER EMPHASIS IS BEING PLACED ON THE WHOLE RURAL COMMUNITY

We have talked with you before about the added emphasis the Extension Service is giving to the total economic development of the rural community. Increased emphasis on this is another conspicuous change in extension programs. Such work seems to have been in mind when Mr. Lever, reporting the bill that became the Smith-Lever Act, said:

"The itinerant teacher or demonstrator will be expected to give as much thought to the economic side of agriculture-the marketing, standardization, and grading of farm products-as he gives to the matter of larger acreage yield. He is to assume leadership in every movement, whatever it may be, the aim of which is better farming, better living, more happiness, more education, and better citizenship."

Since that day the Extension Service has been concerned with a wide range of problems of rural people and the total economic development of the rural community.

We are currently working with about 2,000 rural areas development committees. These committees consist of about 75,000 local agricultural and business leaders. In addition extension workers assist local chambers of commerce, planning commissions, development corporations, and other groups working toward the same goal.

The extension agent assists these groups in analyzing their own local situations, obtaining information that they use in evaluating potential opportunities for economic development, and helping them acquire the necessary knowledge and information for developing the alternatives that they consider to be sound.

The tempo of activity in this vital program is stepping up. More rural areas development projects are going beyond the planning stage and are becoming a reality. The latest quarterly report shows that the number of projects completed by county and area development committees has more than doubled, 3,869 compared with 1,704 in the previous quarter.

The potentials of this work are well illustrated by what has happened in Sumter County, Ga., where this work has been underway since 1954. During that period farm income has doubled from $5.5 to $12 million. Livestock income is up 8 times from 720,000 to 6.3 million. Poultry income went up 10 times. Dairy income up 5 times. This has happened since extension mobilized in 1954 to help the farmers of Sumter County shift out of low-income crops and into livestock production and better farming. At that time the Sumter County extension staff was increased from 4 to 7 members to put a real drive into this educational effort. Extension concentrated on a pilot educational effort to raise low farm income, thus bolstering the whole county's economic growth.

Important actions in industrial developments in that country have included the organization of a development corporation in 1955. A rural areas development committee of 25 business and agricultural and Government leaders was organized in 1961 and it has joined forces with the development corporation. This all-out development effort has brought to Sumter County a 400-acre industrial park with 884 new jobs; a 160-acre lake; and 3 hunting and fishing preserves; new schools; expanded library services; and a new expressway; a $1,600,000 home for the aged; a $289,000 flood control project; and expanded water and sewage system; a local housing authority with hundreds of new homes and apartments.

SPECIAL HELP TO LOW-INCOME PEOPLE

Also in recent years the Extension Service has recognized the severe problems of the low-income people of the rural area and accordingly has been shifting emphasis to provide increased educational assistance to these people.

Extension workers have recognized that the problems of low-income people are overcome as people of low income develop attitudes conducive to progress, as they acquire knowledge and skills essential to improving their economic status, as necessary training and stimulation are provided, and as income-producing opportunities become available.

Extension works with low-income farmers. As they study their alternatives and as nonfarm jobs develop, some find satisfactory alternatives in nonfarm work. Rural areas development has a special significance as through this new employment opportunities are developed in or near the rural area. But many decide that their best alternative is to stay on the farm and farm better. Extension agents perform a very important service in attacking poverty by helping them learn to do this.

Extension works with the youth of low-income families, as well as those farther up the economic scale, to help them recognize their opportunities, develop their abilities and their confidence, and acquire needed training. Many tens of thousands of youth from low-income families have found in their 4-H experience the inspiration and training that has been the key factor in their determination to get needed education and make the most of their abilities. Through 4-H Extension has been developing added work with youth to help them recognize, select, and prepare for career opportunities.

Home economics extension agents have helped raise the aspirations of families by working with them at whatever social-economic level they are found. Cleaner, more orderly homes, better meals through wise buying, home production and preservation, and correct use of donated foods, and repaired and remodeled clothing that can be worn with pride are the first steps in helping some families make progress.

Home economics extension agents have contributed in the planning of concentrated community action programs which attack social and economic problems from many angles. Because of their concern for the development of all family members, they have been alert to needs such as health facilities, schools, libraries, safe water supplies, and other services essential to these family members. Their experience in working with other agencies increases their effectiveness when a concerted attack on poverty is planned.

There is currently going on throughout the country much experimentation to find new and more effective ways of helping low-income people through extension work.

Home economics agents have conducted pilot projects throughout the United States to strengthen their ability in working with very low-income families. Most of the pilot projects have been on a very intensive basis and through intensive programs families have been helped to raise their hopes, develop self-respect, make better use of their resources, find ways to keep their children in school, and in many cases find better jobs. In some instances they have trained and assisted these people in establishing successful home industries. These and other pilot projects have demonstrated clearly that extension agents can with adequate resources make a major and lasting contribution in improving the status of very low-income people.

The problems of poverty and the solution of these problems is a major part of this administration's goals. Mr. Chairman, the Cooperative Extension Service can, if given an opportunity and resources, make a major contribution in support of these goals.

A DYNAMIC PROGRAM AND DEDICATED STAFF

There are, of course, many changes taking place in the details of our programs-changes in response to national need and local situations. The changes I have discussed are, I believe, of considerable significance and illustrate the dynamic nature of the organization and its programs.

These changes have been made without significant change in the size of total Extension staff. They have been made only as we have constantly sought ways to make the most effective possible use of available funds and manpower in serving high priority needs. They have been made with the help and guidance of the thousands of local people who have a hand in developing extension programs. And they have been possible because of the very high degree of dedication of the Extension staff and their willingness for hard work and personal sacrifice. A more dedicated group of workers are to be found nowhere else in the public service.

THE 1965 BUDGET REQUEST

We are here today to discuss with you the proposed budget for 1965. In view of the present national budgetary problems and the need for reducing Government costs, the budget recommends a reduction in payments to States of $2,590,000 from the level of 1964. The budget further recommends that appropriations to the Federal Extension Service remain at the same level except for mandatory pay-increase costs as that appropriated for 1964. Mr. John A. Cox, Deputy Administrator, and Mr. Luke M. Schruben, Assistant Administrator of the Federal Extension Service, are with me. We will be happy to respond to any questions you may have with respect to the Extension Service and the 1965 budget.

Dr. DAVIS. In the prepared statement we have emphasized several significant changes taking place in the orientation and organization of extension programs and the training of the personnel.

To supplement that statement, I would like to make a few brief comments on two phases of our work.

WORK WITH THE FAMILY FARMER

First, our work with the family farmer: This has always been an important part of our program. We in the Extension Service are convinced that it continues to be a very basic, valuable, and essential part of our work.

I will not dwell on accomplishments of the past. It is generally known that Extension has performed a monumental service in helping farm operators learn about the results of research, apply scientific knowledge in their operations, develop managerial skill, develop cooperatives to obtain services and supplies, and to market product.

This work has greatly contributed to the strength of the family farm as a basic economic unit in our rural economy.

It has improved the levels of living of farm families. It has helped provide an abundance of reasonably priced, pure, safe, food and fiber for all Americans.

This is a job far from done.

As we see it, Extension has at least as challenging a job to do in this field as in the past.

The rate at which new technical and scientific developments become available is increasing at an ever faster rate. Changes are constantly taking place in the markets for farm products and in the structure of these markets.

Adjustments are constantly required in the production of crops and livestock, with changes in these markets.

Farmers are directly affected by many public issues of great importance to them.

For the American commercial family farm to compete in world markets, and in the markets for its products at home, it is important that all family farm operators use scientific and technical knowledge, adjust their businesses with market conditions, and apply a high degree of managerial skill.

To support the public policy that the commercial family farm should survive and flourish as the dominant element in American agriculture in competition with the corporate-type farm, it is important that reliable scientific, technical, and management know-how be readily available and accessible to all family farm operators.

It is likewise important that the farm family understand public issues affecting them and their farm business, and participate with good judgment in decisions on these.

The educational programs of Extension are uniquely well suited to serving these needs. Some of these needs of farmers can be met by distribution of information by publications, newspapers, radio, television; other needs can be met by use of the time-tested Extension demonstration technique. Other needs, particularly the pressing complex management decisions involved in major adjustments in farm organization, in livestock and crop enterprise combinations, in size of