North Dakota home economics agents rode the rails in the 1920s to the 1940s to deliver educational programs to communities. Groups were on the road for as much as month at a time. Courtesy of the Extension Service
Extension Sevice still vital
Remains agent for change, farmers' adviser
By Mikkel Pates
The Forum
The Extension Service has arguably helped develop rural North Dakota and Minnesota more than any part of government.
The word "extension" comes from its principle of extending science from the university to the people - farmers, homemakers, youth and others.
The "cooperative" concept reflects its blend of federal, state and county financing.
At its grass roots level, the symbol is the county agent.
In North Dakota, the extension philosophy started with North Dakota Agricultural College (now North Dakota State University) in 1899.
Early private funding and special emergency federal programs catapulted Extension programs into existence in 1911.
A primary goal back then remains the same today - diversification from wheat and small grains.
An early report speaks of the "continuous small grain cropping systems … having brought about loss of fertility and many other adverse influences" of dependence on one or two crops, writes Stanley W. Bale, in "Hired Hands and Volunteers," a history of the organization published in 1989.
Giants in the region’s early ag education were generalists - J.H. Sheppard, an animal scientist who spoke in one meeting on everything from brome grass to rapeseed and barns.
Henry L. Bolley, a professor of botany and zoology - "the conqueror of flax wilt" and battler against potato scab and wheat rust - also was the college’s first football coach.
Farmer managers gather for an educational tour of the John E.
Thelin Farm near Devils Lake on July 18, 1928. Institute for Regional Studies, NDSU
Libraries
"Agents rode their motorcycles or drove their trusty ‘Model Ts’ into farmers’ yards to urge them to diversify - plant alfalfa and corn and raise some livestock," writes Bale, adding, "Many were wary of trusting the better dressed young college graduate sent to show them how to farm by the Better Farming Association, which was financed by business, banks and railroads."
In its early years, the system faced political critics and high drama.
The Nonpartisan League political party was suspicious that the agency was working to profit bankers and commodity dealers. Other critics felt the answer to farm prosperity lay in a better price for wheat and flax.
Gov. William Langer of the NPL vetoed the Extension Service appropriation as a first order of business in 1933.
In 1934, one of Langer’s supporters was thrown into a creek by university students when he came to the campus. Langer reduced salaries of all college staff to $1,920 a year - including Extension staffers who are paid from federal funds under state control.
The governor was indicted, convicted for violating the Hatch Act on charges of soliciting political funds from Extension workers who were partly funded by the federal government.
Langer won on appeal, but the political conflict eventually led to creation of the independent Board of Higher Education in North Dakota.
The 1930s brought the Dust Bowl and Depression to farmers, but helped establish Extension as a key helping agency.
The Extension Service became responsible for helping to deliver the Farm Security Act and grasshopper control. It helped with emergency livestock purchasing, the Agriculture Adjustment Act program, Soil Conservation District organization and rural electrification education.
County ag agents educated farmers on how to grow and preserve their own food during the 1940s, recruit wartime workers and establish homes when they returned.
Extension was there in the 1950s and 1960s to increase farm management skills and adopt crop chemicals. Their 4-H clubs would help educate children and build leadership.
4-H clubs originally were Boys' and Girls' Clubs, teaching the children of immigrants the
fundamentals of homemaking and farming. Institute for Regional Studies, NDSU Libraries
The county agents remained jacks-of-all-trades until the 1980s and 1990s. Minnesota started its "cluster" system, which grouped counties for specialized effort.
"It gave agents a chance to specialize in today’s agriculture to keep up with actual happenings," says Eddie Bernhardson, a retired Clay County Extension agent in Moorhead.
Extension workers continue to deliver certain relief-type programs. In the debt crisis of the 1980s, Minnesota agents - now Extension "educators" - were tapped to recommend mediators whenever a farm foreclosure in their county involved more than $5,000.
Extension workers in the late 1990s are helping farmers use stress management and other techniques to cope with the latest financial crisis.
Future
Informal education continues to be the mission of Extension. Jobs are added but seldom taken away.
North Dakota still has an extension office in every county, but salaries rank 49th in the nation. Only South Dakota pays less. Minnesota counties support nearly twice the number of agents in North Dakota.
North Dakota and Minnesota have had joint specialists in potatoes and sugar beets, and on small grains in the last two years.
State funding has been relatively stable, but is a declining percentage of total spending due to grants and other funds.
In North Dakota, counties pay half of the agents’ salaries, and all of their operating expenses. With competition from private enterprise, recruitment continues to be a problem.
"People get into this work and it kind of consumes us in a way," says NDSU Extension Director Sharon Anderson.
Extension agents and specialists continue to work through personal contacts, demonstrations, and by organizing tours, classes and meetings. Fairs, youth and women’s clubs, commodity associations, newsletters, radio and TV publicity, newspaper articles and published bulletins are still there.
But farmers and others increasingly are tapping into Extension through the Internet and information is delivered on-demand. About one in three farmers have computers and one in five go on-line for Extension information.
The information is still trusted because it is research-based and unbiased, says David Danbom, an NDSU history professor.
"Extension Service, the university in general, is still the only agency that has its first loyalty to the public rather than to the shareholders of a company or its board of directors."
Anderson says that because Extension is tax-based it must appeal to all farmers, large and small.
Extension remains a leader in food safety education - now focusing on educating institutional food preparers, as well as answering homemakers’ questions.
Half of the state’s children ages 6 through 18 have a "4-H experience" at some point each year, Anderson says, but the program is shifting away from its traditional long-term projects. It touches 45,000 youths, but only 8,000 are in clubs.
A dozen counties last year used digital cameras to photograph plant pest damage and instantly transmit it by computer to specialists back in Fargo.
"I think as we move ahead, we can see it more every day - our work becomes a lot more specialized and localized. I think there’s more and it will continue to be almost individual work with our producers."
Last summer Extension organized a computer "list serve" group of farmers in northern counties, monitoring the insect pest called the orange wheat blossom midge. "You had 50 to 70 people in that corner of the country, telling each other what was happening, talking to each other 24 hours a day," Anderson says.
In counties where population is waning, the county Extension office remains a hub where people can find "connectivity" through the Worldwide Web or other sources, Anderson says.
"It’s a place where new ideas can be talked about and researched, whether for community or school issues - whatever they are."
Bill Pietsch, a former North Dakota Extension director, says Extension will face increasing challenges in obtaining public funding and to focus on all of the segments of agriculture and society that it does - the high-tech farmers, middle-sized or small-scale farmers.
"When you focus your resources where you believe they might do the most good, you’re focusing on a group that has little financial or political power," Pietsch says. "It may be the right thing to do, but you have increasing difficulty in getting support in today or yesterday’s political environment."
Extension Service Timeline
1800s - In 1989, the North Dakota Agriculture College is established as a Land Grant University.
In 1894, faculty start farmers "institute" meetings, with one at Casselton featuring college faculty. Major sponsors include the Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Soo Line railroads. In 1899, the sixth Legislature finally authorizes farmers’ institutes and appropriates $1,000 to pay for them.
1900s - Better Farming Clubs are established in North Dakota in 1905. Universities reach youth through pig and corn clubs.
1910s - The first Boys’ and Girls’ Club Institute is held in Fargo in 1910.
In 1911, "College Extension" is born at the NDAC, with lectures, publications and high school youth work. Multi-day "Extension Schools" start across the state.
Thomas P. Cooper, a University of Minnesota graduate, is hired to organize North Dakota’s Better Farming Association, financed by bankers and railroads and based in downtown Fargo.
By 1912, a dozen counties have the Better Farming Agents. The first is M.B. Johnson in Bottineau County. Agents initially are provided with cars - usually Model T Ford Torpedo 10 Roadsters and Studebakers.
The first "Boys’ Agricultural Encampment" is held in conjunction with the Fargo Fair: 81 boys from 31 counties attend.
In 1913, Clay County in Minnesota gets its first extension agent that year - a joint project with the Farm Bureau. Also that year, the North Dakota Legislature passes a law permitting county commissions to levy a tax up to .5 mills to "promote diversified farming." Twenty percent of county’s voters can petition for a vote to help finance a county agent.
That year, the first North Dakota home agent is hired, to promote "the installation of modern devices which render the farm home more livable." World War I "Food Assistants teach food preservation and nutrition to have maximum health.
In 1914, Better Farming agents evolve into the Cooperative Extension Service and Cooper becomes director of Extension and the experiment stations.
In 1915, the North Dakota Legislature appropriates its first funds for the Cooperative Extension Program - $20,000, statewide. In 1916, each county with an agent is eligible for up to $1,200 in federal Smith-Lever Act funds.
In North Dakota, farmer clubs support early county agents, in 1917 start evolving into county Farm Bureaus - first in Grand Forks, Dickey, Morton and Ramsey counties.
Meanwhile, the North Dakota Farmers Union leadership opposes extension agents and their economic calculations:
"I can take the hide off of a county agent and hang it on a fence quicker and neater than anyone I know," boasts Charley Talbott of Dickey County, first president of the North Dakota Farmers Union.
To help boost WWI food production and conserve food, the federal government funds "emergency agents" in North Dakota, 8 men and 3 women. Among their tasks is to recruit farm labor for the harvests of 1917 and 1919. One recruiter is honored for recruiting 602 workers in 1917 alone.
The NDAC starts traveling "Little Train" agricultural exhibits for crops, farm machinery and home economics teaching. In 1918, the "Get-Together Club" forms in Adams County - the first record of a homemakers club.
Radio broadcasts with scientific education are transmitted from Ladd Hall at the North
Dakota Agricultural College in the 1920s. Courtesy of the Extension Service
1920s - Extension delivers federal emergency aid - livestock feed loans and crop seed loans.
The North Dakota Taxpayer’s Association and the Farm Holiday Association help vote out extension workers in several counties. The Nonpartisan League and related Independent Voters Associations work to vote out extension. In 1922 there are elections to oust 21 of the state’s 35 county agents. Also that year, Extension program starts a weekly half-hour program on WDAY Radio in Fargo.
In 1924, seven North Dakota 4-H members attend an early club congress in Chicago. In 1927, North Dakota sends four delegates to the first National 4-H Club Camp in Washington, D.C.
In 1925, Extension in North Dakota hires its first "specialist" - not an agronomist, but a forester to promote tree belts. Two years later, E.G. Booth is hired in 1927 as the first Extension Agronomist, specializing in diversification into alfalfa and sweet clover.
1930s - As drought and grasshoppers grip the region, Extension coordinates programs transport livestock out of the state and feed into the state. A state entomologist/plant pathologist position is created.
Nearly 200 Extension homemakers clubs are established by 1930. Despite their own poverty, they rally to help with drought relief. The clubs use 1.4 million pounds of cotton to make 28,000 mattresses and 16,000 comforters to replace straw ticks for the poor. Home economists travel by train and are out for a month or more at a time. Among other things, Extension homemaker clubs promote home canning technique.
At the same time, home information becomes a lightning rod for critics. In 1932, tax relief promoters force votes in 19 counties and nine agents are removed, leaving agents in 21 of 53 counties.
The 1933 Federal Agriculture Adjustment Act involves extension agents as secretaries for local committees. In 1936, Extension supervises a program to obtain grain seed for drought-struck farmers in the Dakotas, Montana and Minnesota.
Extension agents organize local Soil Conservation Districts from 1936 to the 1950s, a requirement for receiving service from the Federal Soil Conservation Service a response to the Dust Bowl. In 1937, county agents begin coordinating testing programs for contagious livestock diseases.
In 1937, a year when 45 percent of North Dakotans receive some kind of federal relief, Gov. William Langer fires seven NDAC officials - president, the assistant director of the experiment station, dean of home economics, and the state county agent leader.
Langer later is indicted, convicted and ultimately acquitted on charges of illegally trying to obtain political funds from federal employees.
1940s - On Feb. 12, 1942, delegates in 26 counties form the North Dakota Homemakers’ Council. One project is testing pressure cookers for canning food, often prepared in Victory Gardens to help win WWII. They also kept members informed on rationing, bond sales, salvage drives and Red Cross fund drives.
In 1943, Extension recruits 33,000 students and 18,105 adults into the Victory Farm Volunteer program, with similar numbers in 1944 and 1945.
The agency is responsible for transportation, placement and supervision. Specialists and agents recruit from elsewhere and accompany workers on trains. Extension also promotes labor-saving devices and custom harvesting.
In 1943 alone, imported workers shock 450,000 acres of grain in 29 counties. The effort brings in 4,000 workers from Mexico and Jamaica, 1,500 from Canada, 1,000 prisoners of war, and 150 conscientious objectors. Another 5,600 U.S. Army airmen and soldiers awaiting equipment and assignments are brought in.
In the late 1940s, rural electrification - helping with loan allocations and hiring managers, as well as wiring on the farms - become major Extension projects.
In the late 1940s, extension workers helped organize emergency hay lifts into western North Dakota due to tough winters.
The 4-H International Farm Youth Exchange programs begin, a precursor to a still-popular 4-H International Exchange.
1950s - Rural electrification and irrigation development take center stage, in anticipation of the Missouri-Garrision Diversion Project. Agents help farmers with soil bank a new strain of wheat stem rust. Livestock is on the upswing because of automation. Livestock specialist Mel Kirkeide starts performance-testing beef herds. Oil funding improved extension funding in several counties.
In 1953, WDAY-TV in Fargo and KCJB-TV in Minot start running live half-hour programs on NDSU, largely with Extension programming. That year, an Extension Soils Specialist is hired.
