IT HAS BEEN ESTIMATED that, during the 20th Century alone, the world's human population and its demand for space, commodities, and amenities from global ecosystems have increased more than five-fold.

Clearly, state Agricultural Experiment Stations and Cooperative Extension Services must critically re-examine and modernize their land grant vision if they are to effectively deal with a broadening science and education agenda that includes relationships among agriculture, natural resources, and the environment, including the broader global ecosystems and human communities to which agroecosystems are inextricably linked.

To begin with, greater communication is necessary among scientists and specialists with disciplinary backgrounds in ecology and those currently conducting research and extension programs

Next, moving from individual fields to whole farms to basins and landscapes creates a need to employ new methodologies for acquiring and analyzing data at these higher levels of organization, including measurements and analytical techniques for determining the impact of agricultural practices at the agroecosystem level. Also, cooperative efforts are needed to develop contemporary extension and academic program educational materials to more effectively communicate concepts and issues dealing with agriculture in an ecological framework.