Managing Research, Development, and Innovation: Managing the Unmanageable, Third Edition

11.9. THE AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION MODEL

One government agency that has been extremely successful in technology transfer of research results in the past is the Agricultural Extension Service. The approach used by the Agricultural Extension Service is commonly called "The Agricultural Extension Model," which consists of three main components (Rogers, 1983, p. 159):

1. A research subsystem, which conducted agricultural research. This was a cooperative effort of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the 50 state agricultural experiment stations.

2. State extension specialists who were stationed in land-grant universities. They linked the research group to the county extension agents.

3. County extension agents, who worked as change agents with farmers, and ...