Effectiveness of Agriculture and Natural Resources Program Area Committees- Part 3

Darrell A. Dromgoole, Associate Professor and Extension Specialist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.

Scott Cummings, Associate Department Head and Program Leader; Professor and Extension Specialist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.

In the last installment of Next Step to Success, we examined research findings by Dr. Whit Weems, formerly with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service regarding the responsibilities of Agriculture and Natural Resources Program Area Committee members (Weems, 2011). In this installment, we will examine his findings related to Committee members understanding of the qualifications of serving on an Agriculture and Natural Resource Program Area Committee.  In order to determine participants perception related to their understanding their qualifications, the researcher posed six questions. Table 1 provides an analysis of the participant’s responses to these questions (Weems, 2011):

The researcher reported that three questions had a combined percentage of agree and strongly agree in the 80% range and the remaining three questions had responses in the 90% range (Weems, 2011). The three statements returning responses of agree and strongly agreeing equaling 80% or higher related to the following (Weems, 2011):

• Members must be representative of the program’s targeted audience (80%, n=148).
• Members having good visioning and communication skills (82.2%, n=152).
• Members should reside in the community or county (89.1%, n=164).

When participants in this study were asked about their opinions related to members of Agriculture and Natural Resource Program Area Committees having interest in agriculture and/or natural resources 91.8% (n=169) of the responses were agree and strongly agree (Weems, 2011). The researcher reported that 92.4 % (n=171) of the 185 respondents agreed or strongly agreed that members must have a broad, general perspective of the issues related to agriculture and/or natural resources in the county (Weems, 2011). The most frequent combination of agree and strongly agree responses related to members being interested in the quality of life of the in the county to serve on an Agriculture and Natural Resource Program Area Committee (Weems, 2011). Weems (2011) reported that 185 participants responded to the question related to members being interested in the quality of life in the county with 50.8% (n=94) agreeing and 47.0% (n=87) strongly agreeing for a total of 97.8% (n=181) agreeing or strongly agreeing with this statement.

This research clearly indicates that Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service should continue to focus on these requirements/qualifications for program area committee membership (Weems, 2011). The volunteers that are currently serving on the Agriculture and Natural Resources Program Area Committees consider these qualifications valuable and important (Weems, 2011). Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service emphasizes certain requirements/recommendations for members to serve on an Agriculture and Natural Resource Program Area Committee Weems, 2011). Members that participated in this study had the opportunity to respond related to questions related to their understanding of the six qualifications listed in the Agriculture and Natural Resources Program Area Committee job description (Weems, 2011). This six qualification statements included the following (Weems,2011):

• Members must be interested in the quality of life of the county.
• Members must be interested in agriculture and/or natural resources.
• Members should reside in the community or county.
• Members must have a broad, general perspective of the issues related to agriculture and/or natural resources.
• Members must be representative of the program’s target audience.
• Members must have good visioning and communications skills.

Participant’s responses to these statements indicated agreement with these statements (Weems,2011).

In Future Next Step to Success more insights gleaned from this research will be reported.

Reference

Weems, W.H., (2011). A study to determine the effectiveness of Agriculture/Natural Resource Program Area Committees on the Texas AgriLife Extension Service Program Planning. Unpublished manuscript, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX.