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Input on Knowledge Specialists employed by the Alberta Cooperative Agricultural Extension System

The Alberta Cooperative Agricultural Extension System was developed in early 2024 by a Working Group comprised of representatives from Alberta’s producer boards and commissions, applied research and forage associations, agricultural service boards, universities and colleges, Federal research centres, RDAR, private industry and Agriculture and Irrigation.
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A key component of the new system is recruiting knowledge specialists to fill critical gaps as identified by existing organizations and producers.

The intent of placing these specialists is to:
  • provide highly regarded subject matter knowledge in identified priority areas,
  • serve as a direct research connector and translator,
  • distill complex information into easily consumable extension knowledge artifacts by generating new extension factsheets, videos, and articles, and providing expert speakers at producer conferences, field days and webinars, and
  • train and mentor Extension Agents, in addition to direct producer engagement via organized extension events.

We’d appreciate your experience and creative thinking in sharing your thoughts with us by May 10th. We’ll share results with you in early June.

Thank you for your time in providing input. We are Better Together!

For more information:
1.There are two basic types of knowledge specialists: cross commodity specialists (ex: water, farm business management, soils, entomology, futures and marketing); and within commodity specialists (ex: cereals agronomy; beef nutrition, greenhouse technology, forage agronomy, etc.) In your opinion, given limited resources initially, what types of knowledge specialists would be most useful in the early stages of the Coop Extension System?
2.Name specific types of knowledge specialists you recommend with an explanation of why.
3.Communities of extension are essentially forums where extension agents in the field can get together with a knowledge specialist (usually virtually) to learn, explore topics of interest, share information, and create efficiencies through jointly building producer-focused programs. In your opinion should the initial communities of extension be:
4.Name specific communities of extension you recommend with an explanation of why.
5.Would you like to receive periodic progress updates on the Cooperative Extension System?
6.Your name, title and organization(Required.)
7.Your e-mail address
8.Which of the following best describes your perspective or representation?
9.The feedback shared here represents the views of
10.Please share any remaining comments related to the proposed Alberta Cooperative Agricultural Extension System.
Current Progress,
0 of 10 answered