Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Commodity
Organization
Scientists
UCCE Farm Advisors
ARC
(Gary Obenauf)
Growers'
organization
Growers
PCAs
SAREP
DPR
USEPA
Figure 6.7
The Integrated Prune Farming Practices network.
constructively engaging UCCE. It has been led by Gary Obenauf, a for-
mer Farm Advisor who for decades has worked with the California
Prune Board (now legally renamed the California Dried Plum Board). In
1994, he formed his own company, Agricultural Research Consulting
(ARC), and the Dried Plum Board contracts his services as research
director. In part because of this commodity's historical reliance on diazi-
non, the prune partnership has received funding from SAREP and the
DPR. This partnership illustrates the strengths and shortcomings of mak-
ing Farm Advisors the center of partnership activities. Prune growers are
the second ranked users of organophosphate dormant sprays, and indus-
try leaders recognized that growers had to develop a different approach
to pest management. Obenauf describes his partnership as an attempt to
blend the best from BIFS with the best of traditional extension. He per-
suaded participating Farm Advisors to recognize that the scale of change
needed in prune farming could not be done effectively through tradi-
tional, large meetings of growers with slide shows, but they resisted the
idea of legitimating grower-generated knowledge in the BIOS model.
Obenauf has invested most of this partnership's resources in developing
and validating a coherent set of practices. He has tried coaxing Farm
Advisors into allowing growers to give testimonials at field meetings,
with uneven success. Management and field meetings are run by Farm
Advisors for Farm Advisors, and there are few genuine opportunities for
