Our Impact
Making A Difference in Our County
University of Georgia Cooperative Extension is working hard for its constituents. The following are examples of Extension’s impact in the county over the past year.
Agriculture and Natural Resources
Taylor County has a diverse agricultural community with a variety of commodities from peaches to pastures and turfgrass to corn. There are more than 8,700 non-farming residents that we assist with their agricultural and natural resources-related endeavors. We accomplish this by providing information to citizens in multiple formats.
Weekly newspaper articles are a great way to reach clients and increase awareness of our programs and expertise. Our office supplies weekly newspaper articles that span the range of agricultural topics, mostly focusing on homeowners and landowners. The Middle Georgia Gardener is a new blog with authors from several middle Georgia counties. The Three Rivers Ag News blog, reaches commercial growers across middle Georgia keeping them abreast of timely issues and events from the field.
Local television is another way that we reach our clientele. “Backyard Basics,” is filmed and coordinated by our office. This program also focuses on topics that interest both homeowners and landowners. We also collaborate with other offices and agents to allow them to highlight upcoming or recent Cooperative Extension/4-H events.
We also help promote and coordinate state wide programming in both peach and strawberry production to growers and agents across the state. Our office is regularly contacted for assistance with agricultural related news stories by media outlets across the state and country.
Family and Consumer Sciences
University of Georgia Cooperative Extension places non-biased, research-based information at your fingertips on topics including food safety, nutrition, preservation, child development, parenting skills, personal financial management, housing and healthy living habits. Our office continues to serve clientele in this program area by collaborating with agents in neighboring counties and using resources provided by state specialist.
4-H Youth Development
Taylor County 4-H is working with schools to provide both in-person and online teaching and tools and continuing to explore ways to provide hands-on learning opportunities. Our most participated activities are summer camp, hog shows, Shooting Sports & Poultry Judging teams along with project achievement. We are excited to have added monthly activities such as holiday crafts, building birdhouses and recycled gardens. We continue to be active in school club meetings through zoom and the use of social media outlets.