A Comparative Study Of Agricultural Extension Model Between China And USA

With the trend of economic globalization based on knowledge, the revolution of agricultural scientific and technology for different countries has rapidly developed. Most governments have taken great measures to improve agricultural productivity by agricultural extension. Thus, the most fundamental for governments to meet the challenges of economic globalization is to enhance agricultural innovation further, continue to explore new mechanisms and new models for agricultural science and technology achievements, and to increase scientific and technological support to agricultural development. Moreover, Agricultural extension has been regarded as a bridge and link for scientific and technological achievements to be put into practical productive forces. Agricultural extension is also an important part for science and technology to serve agricultural production, which plays an important role in agricultural development.China’s agricultural extension system first began in the late Qing period and was formally established during the rule of the KMT administration. After the founding of People’s Republic of China, agricultural extension was really taken seriously in the early days. However, during the Cultural Revolution agricultural extension was greatly influenced by the "leftist" ideology until the reform and opening up. Then China’s agricultural extension has been entering a historic period of change, and formed a government-led agricultural extension service system. On the other hand, America’s agricultural extension system was created with the enacting of three bills:"Morrill Act"、"Hatch Act"、"Smith-Lever Act"、which had gone through three stages, and finally established a leading land-grant colleges for the teaching, research, promotion of the "trinity" of agricultural extension service model. In comparison, China’s "government-led" agricultural extension model has been under the direct leadership of the agricultural sector. The agricultural extension organization from top to bottom is divided into five structures, namely, national, provincial, prefectural (city), county and township (town); U.S."Trinity" top-down agricultural extension organization is divided into three layers, namely, agricultural extension organizations of the federal government, state and county. In the long-term development, China’s "government-led" agricultural extension model shows the direct leadership of the Government, and its management has a dual nature; agricultural extension, agricultural research and education are under the leadership of different government departments, each independent of each other; agricultural extension is a narrow agricultural promotion. For the United States,"Trinity" mode shows the features of cooperation, education, planning, and a wide coverage for many aspects.In the process of running agricultural extension model, some significant problems of China’s agricultural extension have clearly existed. They are presented as follows: agricultural extension policies and regulations related are imperfect; the agricultural extension investment mechanism is not sound; the investment channels are too single; the supply of agricultural science and technology is often less; the overall quality of extension workers and farmers is low with instability; the coverage of agricultural extension is narrow and the content of promotion is not uniform; agricultural extension and agricultural education, research are not closely linked; the supply of agricultural technology and the demand for science and technology divorced from the farmers, etc. These problems have an serious impact on developing our agricultural extension work smoothly. On the other hand, in the United States, agricultural extension is relatively efficient, the transformation of agricultural scientific and technological achievements is rapid, and agricultural extension is closely linked to the farmers’ demand for science and technology. Therefore, based on China’s national conditions, we should learn from the successful experience of the United States to improve our existing agricultural extension model. Relevant departments should amend the existing agricultural extension law as soon as possible, perfect the agricultural extension investment system and operation mechanism, improve the overall quality of agricultural extension workers and farmers by a number of ways, expand the scope of agricultural extension and enrich the content of agricultural extension.