On June 19, 1972, the subcommittee heard testimony on land-grant colleges and their role in rural America. The hearing's purpose was to determine whether this system of education, research, and extension is working for or against the cause--livable communities in rural America. Among the candid questions asked about the land-grant college system were: (1) Who benefits from the land-grant college efforts? (2) Have the land-grant colleges conspired, wittingly or unwittingly in the displacement and improverishment of farmworkers? (3) Have these colleges lived up to their historic mission in rural America--to serve all the people of the Nation? and (4) Since 1% of all land-grant college money goes to the 17 colleges which are predominately black, what steps must be taken to eliminate racial discrimination where it exists in the system? Witnesses gave testimony on: the land-grant college complex and what it has done for family farmers, farmworkers, cooperatives, and the majority of other rural Americans; agricultural research pertaining to rural development and the needs of rural people in Pennsylvania; the land-grant college and the consumer; the creation and difficulties of black land-grant colleges; the legal environment in which the allocations of funds have been made to black land-grant colleges; and the land-grant college and organic gardening and farming. (NQ)