Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the Wisconsin Rural Development Center), the network sought to insti-
tutionalize this approach to developing and extending alternative
agricultural knowledge. In 1986, these groups coordinated a successful
grassroots effort to establish a funding stream of state dollars at the
Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection.
The Sustainable Agriculture Program was one of the first in the country
to provide a funding source for local groups to conduct their own
research and extension activities. It lasted only 10 years, but it played a
critical role in spreading the idea of local networks of farmers and
graziers conducting their own research and outreach throughout the
state. Mike Cannell had attended network field days and had been on the
steering committee for the Wisconsin Rural Development Center. When
he and Brown started the Ocooch Grazers Network in 1993, they were
able to draw from successful strategies in organizing rural communities
for positive social and environmental change from the center and the
network. These sustainable agriculture networks were by no means the
first initiatives of their kind. At the beginning of the twentieth century,
public university scientists regularly contributed their expertise to
regional farming groups. Multi-day farmers' institutes were held
throughout rural Wisconsin. The success of these initiatives would later
build support for a national system of agricultural science extension.
The Morrill Act of 1862 had launched the land-grant university sys-
tem, creating what would become the world's largest agricultural science
institution. With the scientific method, researchers addressed practical
agricultural problems and increased yields, “making two blades of grass
where only one had grown before.” One unintended consequence of this
arrangement was that agricultural scientists became “the experts” and
farmers became “the clients,” which conveyed special prestige and
authority on scientists and their institutions.
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These scientists helped
some farmers become extremely successful using industrial strategies,
but most smaller, “economically inefficient” farmers were eventually
squeezed off their farms, and many producers who did remain became
passive recipients of expert knowledge generated by universities.
In reality, farmers have conducted experimentation and exchanged
knowledge since the dawn of agriculture. Across the Mississippi River
from Wisconsin, Dick and Sharon Thompson began farming in
1950 near Ames, Iowa, after Dick received a master's degree in animal
