STATEMENT OF LOWELL H. WATTS, DIRECTOR FOR EXTENSION AND UNIVERSITY SERVICES, AND DIRECTOR OF COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE, COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY, AND CHAIRMAN OF ECOP; ACCOMPANIED BY F. W. SCHNEIDER, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE, UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY, AND CHAIRMAN, ECOP SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY AND RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT; AND W. M. BOST, DIRECTOR OF COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE, MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY, AND A MEMBER OF ECOP

Mr. WATTS. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, we appreciate the opportunity to present testimony before your subcommittee. We do request that our prepared statement be made a part of the record.

We would like to address our comments this morning to some of the problems you have under discussion, but perhaps with a little different

context.

As you know, the cooperative extension service was authorized in 1914 under the provisions of the Smith-Lever Act. The growth of cooperative extension educational programs across the country has resulted in the gradual development of a unique educational system which focuses upon the use of new technology and information to solve everyday problems of people at the local level. I think that you have serious local problems. The involvement of our extension agents and our staff specialists has brought the extension program into an extremely close relationship to the people whom we serve.

Functioning as an educational arm of the Department of Agriculture and as a grassroots problem solving extension of our land-grant universities, we share with this committee a concern for the welfare of rural America. Our close and continuing contact with people in their local environment has also brought to our attention certain types of problems and concerns which we feel are of relevance to your committee in its review of Federal assistance in the development process.

Extension's early activities might best be described as that part of an educational process aimed at promoting and encouraging change in individuals. The sum total of these changes has made and is continuing to make possible the highly efficient commercial agriculture which provides the American consumer with the world's best food supply at less than 20 percent of disposable income.

Unfortunately, the past concentration on agricultural production largely ignored the more complicated interrelationships of individuals and families with their communities and ignored almost entirely community interrelationships within the broad economic and social framework of the Nation.

As we look at the role of cooperative extension today we recognize that in addition to individual learning, the processes of planning and development also require the stimulation of group decisionmaking as basic to development. Said another way, the initial purpose of extension is to enhance individual decisionmaking and the second purpose is to enhance group decisionmaking. This is really the second purpose that we are addressing our comments to this morning.

Development in a nation such as ours requires recognition of the community as a fundamental unit involved in structural change. Structural changes affecting the community will not take place until and unless there is sufficient understanding, information, and motivation by decisionmakers to make such changes both possible and palatable at the community level.

Let me speak for just a moment on the needs for rural development. I think this has been brought out by other witnesses who have appeared before the subcommittee previously. Rural communities lag behind the rest of the Nation in many aspects vital to the social and economic development of our country. Chief among these these are inadequate education, family income, job training, employment opportunities, health, housing, and community institutions and facilities that make for a viable society.

You have just been discussing this in terms of medical facilities specifically.

Moreover, rural areas do not have the organizations, agencies, and professional personnel common to large metropolitan areas which provide leadership and technical assistance for coordinated development of all aspects of their community. The large metropolitan areas have planning commissions and planning authorities and many subdivisions of government to carry out specific programs of transportation, urban renewal, housing, health, water and sewer development, job training and similar aspects of human, natural, and economic development. These planning commissions and governmental subdivisions usually have full-time technical staffs which make studies, forecast needs, and prepare proposals for use of Government grant and loan programs. Consequently, largely I think because of the fact that the urban areas get the lion's share of Government assistance.

The fact that half of this Nation's poverty exists in rural areas but that a majority of funds now go to metropolitan areas illustrates this impact.

Mr. RESNICK. If I could interrupt right at that point. We have a variation of figures on this subject. We are talking in terms of onehalf of the people. In other words, the poor, I believe, is 20 percent of the Nation's total-there are 40 million poor and 20 million live in the rural areas, whereas the other 20 million live in our cities, so that, on a percentage basis, more poor reside in rural areas.

Mr. WATTS. If you take it in terms of percentages, I would agree;

yes.

Mr. RESNICK. In other words, in absolute figures one-half is in rural America and on a percentage basis this is probably up around 70 percent.

Mr. WATTS. Yes.

Mr. RESNICK. That is a very interesting point. I will go into that later. I just wanted to understand whether we were talking in percentages or in absolute figures.

Mr. WATTS. Those who live in rural areas are often viewed as ultraconservative and as slow in adopting to new ideas. The very fact that our agricultural industry has moved forward rapidly during the past two decades indicates that this is not necessarily true. Rural Americans will change and will innovate providing they have a full understand

ing and appreciation of the reason for change and are convinced the changes can be beneficial for them.

If we review the history of agricultural development we recall the early difficult days of the county agent whose first job was to win the friendship and confidence of the farmer whom he sought to serve. Only after this confidence was achieved was the agent able to provide the innovative stimulation which resulted in progress in agricultural production techniques.

As we turn to the present day, it would appear that some parallels can be drawn. The types of problems faced in rural America are many and they are highly complex. They involve communities, regions, and trade areas which often transcend not only county but State lines.

The concern regarding local problems is relatively high. The factors that are forcing changes upon rural America are much less well understood. Local residents should not be expected to apply corrective innovations until the agencies assisting them win confidence and trust.

The rapid evolution of many different programs in a short span of time has, however, tended to confuse the smalltown resident and has resulted in suspicion of intent and outright opposition in some cases. Testimony already presented to this committee has indicated some disenchantment at the local level with many Federal development programs.

Secretary Freeman in appearing before this committee on June 6 acknowledged that, “*** some local communities are prejudiced against Federal assistance." He then emphasized the serious efforts being made within the executive branch of Government to coordinate development programs and to develop model applications to cut down on duplication of effort and complexity of filing for Federal assistance. I would like to address some comments to the proliferation of Government programs. The proliferation of Government assistance programs and the lack of technical assistance for dealing with them in a meaningful manner has caused confusion and frustration in rural areas. The latest Catalog of Federal Assistance Programs, published by the Office of Economic Opportunity on June 1, 1967, lists 459 different "domestic programs to assist the American people in furthering their social and economic progress."

With such a vast array of programs and the complicated and variable procedures and requirements for obtaining assistance under them, with insufficient leadership and a lack of technical help, it is no wonder that rural communities not only lag behind but also suffer untold frustration in trying to take advantage of these programs. In my own State of Colorado, one of the few successful rural community proposals has been the direct result of one individual who was willing to work almost full time in studying various programs and in seeking guidance in proposal development. This individual has suggested that programs provide staff assistance to rural communities to assist local leadership in understanding required procedures and proposal requirements.

It has been suggested that more programs should be provided for help at the local area level to compensate for this lack of professional help that is available in the cities.

Mr. RESNICK. If I may interrupt you there. Do you not think that is a function of the State?

Mr. WATTS. Not entirely.

Mr. RESNICK. Do you not think that the Government should provide this assistance, that is, the local and State levels?

Mr. WATTS. I think that the State and the local areas have the primary responsibility. The problem is this, that when you deal with certain kinds of Federal assistance the rules are not always the same. There is a multiplicity, I guess, of procedures and of methods, too, by which you apply for different kinds of assistance that tends to become confusing and frustrating.

Mr. RESNICK. I understand that. One of the problems I have is doing this for our communities. In each and every one of my communities in my district, they know that if they have any problems on any of these programs that they can come to our office. Now, it seems to me that the State should provide those services. In other words, the State, knowing the level of leadership in the local community, should have people travel around the district to help the communities. It has been my personal opinion that where rural America gets shortchanged is where the States will not provide the assistance they will not provide the liaison between the Federal Government and the local level; nor will they provide the technical assistance or even to tell you to fill out the forms. It seems to me that this is not a problem of the Federal Government, but certainly a problem with the State government. The State government does not seem to care what happens to the rural residents, this is my opinion.

Mr. WATTS. I will agree, sir, that the State acceptance of this responsibility would help. I personally favor the greatest decentralization of the responsibility within reasonable program functions as is possible because before we get to the local community level the more impact these programs will generally have will be had there. Federal leadership is appropriate but it should not be complete. So I would accept this as being relevant to this problem. I do not think that it is well provided, however.

Mr. RESNICK. This is the problem. This is what I said the other day, and I want to say it again because it created quite a stir. The State governments have almost completely ignored these hearingsin other words, the States do not seem to be interested in the problems of their rural residents. It might be interesting for you, being from Colorado and for my fellow members here on the committee, if we stirred up a little dust with these hearings. We did the other day when I had the discussion in the cloakroom, when one of the members of your delegation informed me that there was no poverty in rural America. He informed me there was poverty in the cities, but that there was absolutely no poverty in rural America. This member indicated that I did not know what I was talking about and neither did the witnesses. This was a Member from Colorado. I just point this out so that you know the problem that is facing us in holding these hearings, in trying to get something done about these problems. I know these problems exist but we have to get the point across to the Members and to the public.

Mr. WATTS. Perhaps poverty at the rural area is not as well identified or perhaps concentrated in the same structural identifiable unit, but certainly it is there.

Mr. RESNICK. It is not visible—it is not entirely visible, I grant you.

Mr. WATTS. The visibility is not as well defined, that is for sure. I might call your attention to the appendixes which contain a few charts that I would like to deal with for illustrative purposes. They are not definitive. They are designed to illustrate very briefly what I would call program overlap.

The charts attached as appendix A are illustrative of another type of problem-program overlap. Figure 1 shows Colorado counties involved in the Southern Colorado Economic Development District. Two of the same counties have been designated as redevelopment counties. Figure 2 outlines the area served by an OEO sponsored development project. Figure 3 shows area economic development regions established by a division of State government. The counties previously shown are included. These regions have now been consolidated into a statewide group for compliance with statewide planning under the Federal planning assistance program. Figure 4 indicates counties in the Four Corners Economic Development Region for assistance under the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965. And finally we note the same rural counties embraced within a newly designated Federation of Rocky Mountain States under a Department of Commerce grant. It is small wonder that local residents are confused-and these are only selected illustrations, certainly not a complete roster of available programs. The fact that we have this kind of thing-of course these are in no way complete-is not in itself at all bad and is of no concern as such. However, the fact that each of these has its own kind of objective and its own set of programs, that is, generally does work differently in accordance with the people at the local level, is a brief illustration of the fact that we do have a lot of overlap in terms of different programs as they operate on the local level.

As important as Federal assistance programs are, they are but a resource and not the total answer to the problems of rural areas. Until local people are made aware of the cause of their problems, the resources they have to work with, the limitations of these resources, and how they can best develop them, rural development fostered by Government assistance programs will best be only on a piecemeal basis and at worst will build antagonism between the Federal agencies and local governments.

Local people must know the causes as well as the cures for their own unique situation. This requires knowledge and understanding of social and economic forces, knowledge of the close association between educational levels and economic well-being, knowledge of structural imbalances within their area, knowledge of the human economic, and natural resources of their area, and most of all it requires the will and ability to do something about their situation.

Once the leaders of rural areas are motivated and trained to carefully analyze their situation, they are then-and only then-in position to study the various alternatives for development including the use of Government assistance programs.

We spoke earlier of the need for educational programs if development efforts are to be successful. As I personally see it, there has been