ABSTRACT
Food security remains a persistent human concern and priority. Until the reemergence in the last decade of a progressive conservation movement, increased farm production has been a little-questioned primary objective of virtually all agricultural science. Traditional extension rhetoric has emphasized dissemination of research ideas and information as if research groups were factories producing ready-to-use innovations needing only to be described or delivered to potential users. Similarly, extension theory, in the form of the adoption/diffusion model, emphasizes the adoption of selected innovations as a function of communication and persuasion, reinforcing the misconception that development of innovations is a separate and somehow autonomous process. Extension mechanisms are needed in addition to research units because the whole process of developing and using innovations tends to become subdivided into separate and distinct organizational tasks. Industry has long recognized the development of applications of new knowledge as a distinct function and has historically emphasized applied research and development.
