Agricultural Extension Services in YoungDong County , ChunaBuk Province

충북 영동군의 농촌지도사업

Agricultural extension services in YoungDong county, ChungBuk province have tried and changed many things to overcome difficult situations since localization of extension services in 1997. The county Rural Guidance Office changed the name of the office as county Agricultural Technology & Extension Center (ATEC), and has been operated as a service center for all people who need help in agriculture. The recent efforts of the ATEC have been placed on eco-friendly agriculture and sustainable agriculture for protecting the natural environment of the county as well as production of safe agricultural products. In order to overcame difficult situations under the IMF, the ATEC has tried to find new ways for the extension services because of reduced extension educators under the IMF restructuring. The followings were a few examples of many efforts in various fields to overcome difficult situations in the rural county; 1) The ATEC has supported services to produce safe and high quality agricultural products and to increase their high value through extension services for food processing. 2) The ATEC has opened experimental fields for farmers who want to learn new technologies to cultivate grapes, persimmons, apples and pests etc., specialty fruit trees in the county. 3) The ATEC has implemented many kinds of programs to improve the quality of the extension educators to serve better.