Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
institutions, but this will not happen without mobilizing the public to
support such efforts. I will close by offering a few suggestions for policy
reform.
First, the public should demand publicly funded land-grant universities
provide the kind of science to support the agro-environmental leadership
that society needs. Latour's model suggests that scientific expertise is crit-
ical, but that scientific experts have to be recruited to participate in but
not dominate agroecological initiatives. Land-grant universities tend
not to reward applied environmental problem solving. They have been
the subject of continuous criticism since Hightower for failing to protect
the common good. In general, LGUs have drifted away from serving the
needs of farmers and rural communities because public officials have
failed to support these kinds of programs with funds, and because pri-
vate industries have stepped up to capture their attention. The criticisms
initiated by Carson and Hightower raised public questions about indus-
trial agriculture, but the inadequacy of response to these questions has
contributed substantially to a loss of public trust in agriculture and in
LGUs.
That only a dozen land-grant universities have sustainable agriculture
centers is absurd in view of the enormous pressures American agriculture
faces on every side, and serves as further indictment of LGU administra-
tors' inability to adequately recognize growers and rural communities as
their primary clients. (Recall figure 2.2 and its “new model” of LGU
research.) Every LGU should have a sustainable agriculture program
capable of organizing agroecological initiatives, and facilitating the
participation of scientific experts. The public—through their elected offi-
cials—should demand this. In reality, only some LGUs will consider
these kinds of initiatives. The LGUs in some states have demonstrated a
willingness to take up this challenge, expressed through alternative agri-
culture centers in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Washington. They continually
have to justify and defend their budgets, but they are models for respon-
siveness, at least relative to the more obdurate example of California.
The leadership of the University of California tried to abolish the
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program in September
2003, and this effort can be traced to decisions at the highest levels of
its administration. Only the outrage of sustainable agriculture organiza-
tions like the Community Alliance with Family Farmers and the
