Cooperative Extension

Part of the Department's mission is to extend research-based information that helps solve practical problems.  While all faculty are engaged with communities beyond the University, Cooperative Extension Specialists are particularly responsible for identifying and addressing issues critical to outside clientele. They conduct extension education programs and applied research in collaboration with a wide variety of rural and urban groups. Their work both serves and draws upon community organizations, agricultural producers and their trade associations, other resource users and managers, and public agency officials at the state, federal and local levels. 

Specialists are part of the statewide U.C. Cooperative Extension network of some 400 academic staff, including county-based Farm Advisors, Home Advisors and Youth Advisors, and Specialists at other campuses and research stations. These extension colleagues and their local clientele are important sources of critical questions that stimulate research and extension activities. 

Ongoing efforts include analysis of the economic impacts of public policies, resource use and policy, farm labor management practices and regulation, economics of pest management, environmental protection, international trade and competition, and regional development.  Many outreach activities are coordinated and housed at the UC Berkeley Center for Sustainable Resource Development, which is directed by Dave Sunding and David Zilberman. CSRD hosts events and conferences and is the home of the Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program, an international summer certificate course in sustainable environmental management. 

One channel through which faculty and graduate students share research findings broadly is the ARE Update, a quarterly publication for technical and non-technical audiences.  Research results from work performed by ARE faculty also receive frequent coverage in the press.  See Links and News for a sampling.  Several faculty members contributed to the recent publication and conference presentation of California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues.