New Technologies, Practices and Products

technologies, practices, and products derived through agricultural and natural resources research. Background It has been estimated that the amount of scientifically produced information has doubled every 15 years since the early 1900’s. The sheer volume of new information that must be acquired and consumed by technology savvy professionals is staggering. Yet today’s agriculture leader, policy maker, and consumer demands more information, not less. Within the context of agriculture, it is our profession that has the potential to best respond to these traditional and emerging challenges. Agricultural enterprises encompass components such as labor, marketing, finances, natural resources, genetic stock, nutrition, equipment, and hazards. When managed as a system, these components can realize positive economic, environmental, and societal impacts. These positive outcomes are not limited to production agriculture, but can be felt locally as well as globally within each societal challenge we face. Such was the case with a seemingly small event in 1928 when the Iowa State Agricultural Experiment Station research conducted on the release of hybrid corn to farmers yielded an adoption-diffusion process that has influenced subsequent information dissemination efforts for more than sixty years (Ruttan, 1996). The findings from the study implied that if innovative farmers were identified and targeted to adopt practices or technologies, other farmers would soon follow thus speeding up the adoption of new agricultural practices. Stephenson (2003) stated that this idea was simple, compelling, and provided the basis for a model of agricultural development that the Extension Service continues to use today. Subsequent research that cites innovation diffusion theory, as well as academic courses that include this theory, continue today (Lionberger & Gwin, 1991