NEOSHO, Mo. — What do goats, oats, and personal finance have in common? If you want to know about goats or other animals, oats or other agronomy topics, or factors relating to your personal finance or health, the answers can be found at the website eXtension.org, a web-based arm of your local university cooperative extension service.
With eXtension (pronounced e-extension) a user gets an interactive, learning tool delivering researched-based knowledge from land-grant universities across America.
Accurate
The information on eXtension.org is reviewed for accuracy. All of the articles are unbiased and research-based so that you can have confidence that the information is reliable. It’s a web location where university content-providers produce new educational and information resources on a wide-range of topics.
The resource areas within eXtension.org include alerts for financial crisis, community for everything from master gardeners to planning and zoning, disaster issues for floods and agro-security, energy, family issues from child care to personal finance, farm, pest management and youth development.
Most land-grant universities participate with eXtension and more than 3,000 local offices of the Cooperative Extension Service are available to serve you across the U.S.
For example, Lincoln University oversees the goat industry section within the farm resource area. “You may send in a question about goats and personnel from Lincoln or another land grant institution will answer your question. In some cases, they may refer you to your local Extension office since almost all counties have a local office,” said Jodie Pennington, small ruminant educator with Lincoln University Extension.
Search
Many resource areas within eXtension.org have a section of frequently asked questions (FAQs), a calendar of activities and news of events in the area.
“If you have a question, you may search the website for eXtension to see if the answer is there. If the answer to your question cannot be found on the website, then you can ask one of the experts and get an answer usually within a couple of days,” said Pennington.
For example, a search for “oats” will yield information ranging from the nutritional values of oats for humans to how to plant oats for pasture for cows.
Questions on the eXtension.org website range from “how to grow blueberries” to “how to market a home child-care business.”
There also are many fact sheets outlining proper feeding for animals and video clips of some of the more routine management techniques.
Additional information on this topic is available online at http://extension.missouri.edu or on the national Extension website http://extension.org.
