[4] The primary mission of AgriLife Extension is to provide educational outreach programs and services to the citizens of Texas.

The first step towards the creation of Cooperative Extension occurred in 1862 with the passing of the Morrill Land-Grant College Act.

didn't teach any agricultural classes at all, leading to protests by farmer groups and much of college's leadership being replaced.

With the ample land available in the West, most farmers had little incentive to adopt intensive farming methods and other advanced agricultural technologies.

For most observers, however, the biggest issue was that there was no solid agricultural research on which to base the practical teaching being attempted, so to fill this need Congress passed the Hatch Experiment Station Act of 1887, which provided funding for agricultural experiment stations in each state.

While they made attempts at out-reach, the results were limited and required diverting critical funds away from their core mission: research.

Girls' clubs, home demonstration, farmers' institutes, and the establishment of a Department of Extension at Texas A&M followed.

Impressed by the success, Congress passed the Smith-Lever Act on May 8, 1914, which gave states the ability to establish official extension agencies affiliated with their land-grant universities to help "extend" the research findings of the colleges and Experiment Stations in practical ways that helped the citizens in every county.

The purpose of this effort was to create a unified branding which better associates the A&M System entities with Texas A&M University.

[13] Together, these agents and specialists, aided by more than 150,000 volunteers, education the public through classes, publications, web sites, television series, and other outlets in the areas of agriculture, family and consumer sciences, human nutrition and health, environmental and natural resources, community development, and 4-H and youth development.