摘要：Since 1970s, agricultural research produced many technologies and knowledge that were never properly used by farmers. Various extension methods are designed to increase the adoption, by that group, of technologies produced in universities and research centers. One of the methods is the technological reference unit (URT), a farm that uses a innovative practice or technique. The selection of this farm, however, is not simple, since there are many URTs that don’t serves as a mirror to visitors. What this article discusses are the requirements for choosing a farm that could constitute an URT with great chances to stimulate visitors to use the innovative technique. To do so, that article presents the experience of URT selection in the technology ‘integrated crop-livestock-forest system’ (ICLFS or ILPF) at ‘Território do Ribeirão do Boi’, located in the northwest of Minas Gerais State, Brazil. In describing the selection of URTs it takes into account the characteristics of the farmer, technology, technical assistance and farm, in a critical analysis of the extension action in that process.
