establishment of resource and conservation projects, accelerated public works, rural housing, area-wide rural renewal projects, community water systems, and the conversion of unneeded agricultural lands to recreational use.

RURAL OUTREACH

Federal resource development programs have tended to be less readily available to rural communities than is true of the more highly organized urban areas. Furthermore, organized leaders and technical competencies have not been available in many rural areas as a basis for planning and implementing various types of development projects. These conditions have prompted certain special efforts to overcome the disadvantages and obstacles encountered by rural people. The President of the United States directed that the Secretary of Agriculture

(a) provide an "Outreach" function by utilizing all facilities of the Department of Agriculture in the task of assisting other Federal agencies in making their programs effective in rural areas; and

(b) to take the initiative in advising on problems of rural communities which require the coordinated effort of various departments and agencies for finding effective solutions.

Accordingly, respective agencies of the Department have been assigned specific responsibilities for implementing this Outreach function.

The agencies of the Department of Agriculture and field offices are organized as Technical Action Panels at both State and Local levels. It is the function of these Panels to carry out the above directive and to provide technical assistance wherever needed. Planning and working closely with the Technical Action Panels, the State Cooperative Extension Services have the responsibility for providing educational and organizational leadership to groups and organizations concerned with the development of rural resources and rural people. To assist in expediting and coordinating this activity at the Federal level, the Rural Community Development Service was organized to maintain a working liaison with the various Federal agencies providing resources and services in rural communities. This staff organization also has the responsibility for developing working agreements and for the provision of information concerning available development programs.

This Outreach function is considered to be a Department-wide responsibility and is coordinated through the Rural Areas Development Board consisting of representatives from the respective agencies of the Department of Agriculture.

EXTENSION IN AGRICULTURE

The Cooperative Extension Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture is a highly successful system of informal education aimed at the development and efficient use of land, labor, and capital in agricultural production. These objectives are pursued through the use of educational programs to help farmers understand and apply the latest scientific knowledge and techniques to the various farm enterprises.

Extension is successful because of the ties and open channels of communication that exist between personnel of the Extension Service, institutions of higher learning dedicated to teaching and research, and industry. Particularly important is the two-way flow of communications between State Agricultural Experiment Stations and research agencies of the U. S. Deparment of Agriculture.

Research agencies provide Extension workers with the latest technical information that they may help farmers apply in their day-to-day operations. The

information is carried to the farmers through individual consultations, group meetings, demonstrations, tours, publications, radio and television programs, newspaper articles and special commodity newsletters. In turn, Extension personnel work with researchers in orienting research to the needs and problems of farmers and establishing priorities.

Cooperative Extension is a three-way partnership with Federal, State, and local governments sharing in financing, planning, and conducting programs. Since the beginning of Extension work in 1914, work with farmers has held a high priority. In addition, Extension conducts programs aimed at resource conservation and development, and community development.

FARM MANAGEMENT EDUCATION

Through increased specialization and new educational tools, Extension agents are helping strengthen the family farm as a basic unit of American agriculture. The percentage of total farm units operated primarily with family management and labor resources increased slightly, but steadily since World War II. Area agents have been employed in more than 40 States to provide the highly specialized assistance farm people need to make decisions in a scientific and dynamic agriculture. These 40 States represent a 200 percent increase in States using area agents since 1963.

Electronic data processing is helping farmers keep business records and data needed to analyze management problems. About 5,000 farmer-cooperators in 30 States are now making use of this technique. Development of uniform techniques such as coding systems has made the service more adaptable to a wider variety of farms and has been a major factor in the expanded demand for this service. Acceptance and the development of techniques have advanced to the point that private firms are now beginning to offer this service to farmers. Farmers using this service have doubled since 1963.

Extension programs are making use of the linear program techniques as a farm management educational device and also in educating farmers in its use as a farm management tool. Linear programming is a mathematical device which examines a number of acceptable alternatives and identifies the combination that is most profitable within limitations of resources available. It is now being used in 17 States to help producers make decisions ranging from least cost programming of rations to planning the optimum types and balance of enterprises for best use of total farm resources. The number of people participating has about doubled in the last 3 years.

Intensive farm management training courses in 42 States last year reached nearly 100,000 farmers. This represents a 50 percent increase since 1963. The courses, averaging 12.4 hours of instruction, were designed to meet the needs of specific audience groups such as top commercial farmers, beginning farmers, or low-income farmers.

Increased emphasis on cooperation among State Extension Services on problems and programs affecting more than one State is one of the new trends in educational programs aimed at national concerns. This pooling of resources reduces duplication of effort in arriving at solutions to problems of people in contiguous political entities.

FERTILIZERS IN CROP PRODUCTION

Farmer purchases of fertilizers continue to climb and now exceed $2 billion annually. Tonnage of fertilizers applied to crops in the United States climbed from 9.5 million in 1963 to 12.3 million in 1966. Many new innovations in the fertilizer industry-liquids, gases, semi-solids, granulated micro-nutrients, mixtures of insecticides and herbicides-increasingly complicate the management and technical decision making of farm operators. These decisions are further

complicated by the increase of cost of farm labor trained to handle high potency agricultural chemicals and the differences in fertilizers needed by field and by crop.

Farmers, with the encouragement of Extension, are making more and more use of soil tests to guide them in making decisions concerning fertilizer use. Each State Extension Service now has a soil testing program. These Services tested about 1.5 million soil samples in 1960 compared to more than 2 million samples in 1966.

Farmers are most concerned with rate, method, and date of fertilizer application along with relative costs of various alternative choices among the formula, possible losses, and ways to reduce occurrence of losses.

ANIMAL SCIENCE

Extension programs aimed at livestock and poultry improvement feature both the principles of genetic improvement and use of new and improved husbandry practices to help producers get the most from livestock production enterprises. Part of the programs are operated on a national basis and others are operated on a State by State basis. In either case, they are operated in cooperation with existing producer organizations or groups organized for this specific purpose.

More than 7,500 beef cow herds containing nearly 600,000 breeding animals are enrolled in one of several beef herd improvement programs being operated in the United States. This represents an increase of about 46 percent in number of herds enrolled and 35 percent in number of animals enrolled in the past years.

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A second area of progress in the beef herd improvement programs has been the development of uniform standards that are acceptable by the different States and breed associations operating improvement programs. These standards have been developed within the last 3 years and have been accepted by most major improvement associations. These standards were designed to facilitate interstate movement and make comparison between breeding animals less difficult.

On January 1, 1966, 19.1 percent of all cows of milking age were enrolled in Dairy Herd Improvement programs. The same figure for January 1, 1963, was 16.3 percent, representing an increase for the three-year period of 2.8 percent. Total number of cows enrolled in the program on January 1, 1966 exceeded 2.9 million as compared to 2.7 million in 1963. A longer range view shows that the percent of the cows of milking age in the United States enrolled in the DHIA programs has tripled in the last 12 years.

Considerable progress has been made in the past three years in revising and up-dating DHIA procedures and standards to take advantage of new technology throughout the States. The new standards are scheduled to be put into effect in 1967. These standards are the result of many months of efforts of interested persons in the industry.

Extension and the lamb and wool producers in the past year have developed a program to improve production efficiency by making more effective application of available research data. The objectives of the program are to:

1. Promote greater product use and expand markets through increased consumer acceptance by improving carcass quality and wool fiber quality; 2. Overcome problems of uneven supply, small volume, and promote lamb production at uniform weights throughout the year;

3. Increase productivity and reduce cost per unit of production.

Steady progress has also been made in swine improvement through Extension's efforts in developing swine testing stations. Most States where swine contribute significally to the economy have testing facilities.

Results from the Illinois testing stations are a good example of the improvements made through testing programs. Boars in the 1966 tests consumed 275 pounds of feed per 100 pounds of gain. When the program started in 1955, the boars consumed 337 pounds of feed per 100 pounds gain.

These test stations are generally cooperatively owned by hog farmers organized into producer associations. Cooperating farmers provide hogs for the tests. Extension swine specialists help plan the tests and summarize data. The specialists also conduct educational programs on production and management to complement this effort and make it a total program.

Early emphasis in the poultry improvement program centered around eradication of pullorum disease and has resulted in almost total elimination of the disease as a source of economic loss. In 1966, there were no reactors to the pullorum test in turkey breeders' flocks, and only 410 out of 34 million chickens tested showed positive reaction. There were only 58 cases of pullorum diagnosed in the United States last year.

Recent progress in the poultry improvement efforts have centered around shifting from the control of pullorum disease to a program of total performance testing for evaluation of poultry breeding stocks available in the United States.

PESTICIDE USE AND SAFETY

The importance and role of agricultural chemicals in producing a safe, and adequate food supply at reasonable cost to the consumer is the basis of Extension's new and expanded emphasis on this subject. Overall, new attention has been directed to integrating control programs that employ pesticide use records, use of pest and disease resistant varieties of food and feed crops, and biological controls.

Extension personnel are working to help researchers design projects that will produce additional information leading to a safer and more effective use of all controls including chemical pesticides.

The following developments in five major Extension projects aimed at pest and disease control have taken place in the past three years: 1) initiated in-depth training programs for aerial and ground pesticide and chemical applicators and dealers; 2) initiated surveys and projects to provide guidelines for developing future programs; 3) initiated coordination programs within and between States; 4) doubled the development of visuals and publications dealing with pesticides for producer and public use; and 5) at least doubled the amount of pesticide information on all aspects of the safe and proper use of storage and handling of pesticides disseminated to the public.

MECHANIZATION OF FARMING

The decrease in both quantity and quality of farm labor in recent years coupled with increases in wages have forced many farmers to mechanize, stop farming, or produce crops requiring less labor. Extension agricultural engineers are working cooperatively with research engineers, industry, and farmers to mechanize farming operations.

Mechanization has progressed most rapidly in the vegetable production. Machines are now used for direct seeding of many vegetables that were previously transplanted. New equipment harvests head lettuce, tomatoes for processing, asparagus, and carrots as the machine moves down the rows. A new machine picks, cleans, and squeezes the grapes and puts the juice in a container, all in one operation. Fruit and nut harvesting has been mechanized by commercial use of tree shakers and catching frames. All of these machines were put into commercial use in the last three years.

CONSERVATION, RECREATION, AND BEAUTIFICATION

Protection and prudent management of basic natural resources are rapidly becoming subjects of national urgency and are generating increased public concern. In response, Extension is exerting additional effort to develop greater appreciation of our resources by all people and encourage wise use, protection, and improvement of these resources.

As a basis for these efforts, Extension can draw on its experience with longstanding programs in multiple-use forestry, soil and water conservation, and fish and wildlife development and uses.

Conservation farming techniques have long been a part of Extension programs. Of late, additional emphasis is being placed on teaching youth, through 4-H Clubs and other formal and informal groups, the need for and techniques of conservation; beautification; and outdoor recreation.

Each State Extension Service has designated a person or persons whose duties include giving leadership in outdoor recreation programs. This represents about a 50 percent increase in the past three years. Also each State Extension Service has designated a specialist or a contact to give leadership in natural beauty programs. Nearly all these were named in 1965 and 1966. Extension has recently developed educational programs to help farmers, resource managers, and communities:

1. Convert low-paying farmland to higher paying recreation enterprises; 2. Superimpose recreation enterprises over existing farm and forestry operations to provide income to the farmer and facilities for the public;

3. Convert wasteland to recreation facilities;

4. To provide adequate community recreation facilities and service.

SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION

Soil and water conservation practices on private land moved ahead at an accelerated pace during 1964-66.

Conservation agencies in the Department of Agriculture continued to broaden and strengthen assistance programs in a coordinated effort to strengthen the resource base and boost the economy of rural communities. The foundation for much of this work lies in the proper development and management of natural

resources.

Soil and water conservation on private land is a voluntary program. The Government offers technical help, cost-sharing incentives, and long-term loans to individuals and groups through a variety of conservation programs. SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICTS

All 50 States plus Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have passed enabling legislation which provides for the formation of locally managed soil and water conservation districts. By the end of fiscal year 1966, 27 States were completely covered by such districts and many others were nearly covered. Conservation work was carried on in 2,995 conservation districts-including nearly 1.8 billion acres, 98 percent of the farms, and 95 percent of the land in farms.

Districts are organized for the purpose of planning, applying, and maintaining conservation practices that will prevent soil erosion, improve soil fertility, conserve land and water resources, provide for watershed protection, and safeguard the productivity of land on a long-term basis. During 1964-66, landowners and operators organized 53 new districts, and additions of new territory were made to many older districts.

More than 2,080,000 landowners and operators who manage 685 million