Home » Regional Spotlight » Journal of Extension Article Highlights Study on Alternative Income Opportunities: Needs of County Agents and Foresters in the Mid-Atlantic Region

Journal of Extension Article Highlights Study on Alternative Income Opportunities: Needs of County Agents and Foresters in the Mid-Atlantic Region

Agents and foresters may need additional education to help them prepare for questions involving the range of alternative enterprise options. The specific objectives of the survey were to determine: The types of requests received by agents and foresters for specific alternative income opportunities; The demographics of the clientele served by each profession, and; Which alternative income opportunities the professionals would like to learn more about and through which media they would like to receive it. The article can be retrieved at: http://www.joe.org/joe/2004april/rb6.shtml

Rapid changes in land use in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region have resulted in increasing numbers of small farmers and forest owners with diverse objectives seeking information on alternative income opportunities to enable sound decision-making (Birch, 1997; USDA Census of Agriculture, 1997; Kays, 1998a; Kays, 1998b). County agricultural Extension agents ("agents") and professional foresters ("foresters") are a first point of contact for many landowners and commonly receive requests for information on alternative income opportunities related to agriculture and natural resources with which they may or may not be familiar. While agents are commonly more aware of income opportunities related to agriculture, their ability to provide natural resource information compared to foresters was the target of the study reported here.

The article can be retrieved at: http://www.joe.org/joe/2004april/rb6.shtml