Digital Commons Network^™

Technical Assistance And Farming At The Rural-Urban Interface: A Study Of Farmer Utilization And Related Attitudes, Elijah Massey

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The rural-urban interface (RUI) is a complex landscape impacted by a variety of social and economic processes. Substantial U.S. agricultural production occurs at the RUI despite non-farm development pressure. Notably, at a time when U.S. farming is increasingly dominated by a shrinking number of large scale operations, RUI agricultural production occurs primarily on small and medium farms. Importantly, RUI farms exhibit greater diversity in terms of operator demographics, production type, and marketing channels, than their large-scale counterparts.

A critical resource in the persistence of diverse RUI farms is Technical Assistance (TA). While TA is provided by a number of different …