Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
In each of the previous statements, the advisors strove to balance their
interest in addressing environmental problems with the interests of the
farm industry. This is not to say that these interests can be neatly sorted
out or that there is a consensus among, say, growers, on the defi nition of
environmental problems and the appropriate response. But the overall
defi nition of environmental problems and appropriate solutions called for
an understanding of the larger farm ecology, an integration of local prac-
tice with moderate politics. Further, the advisors' attempts to maintain
a balanced concern were themselves the consequence of a complex set of
interests, perhaps the most important of which was preserving their local
connections with and infl uence within the farm industry. In sum, this
complexity troubles any overly simplistic view of how agricultural scien-
tists conceptualize and respond to environmental problems related to
farming.
Case 1: Nitrate Contamination of Groundwater
Examining some specifi c cases will help to demonstrate how advisors
attempt to perform the kind of balanced leadership I described in the pre-
vious section. The fi rst case concerns nitrate contamination of groundwa-
ter. California's vegetable industry grew up with the fertilizer industry,
especially beginning in the 1930s and 1940s, when synthetic fertilizers
became more widely available. At the time, Cooperative Extension farm
advisors were among the greatest champions of this new technology, using
fi eld-based demonstration trials to show that for a modest cost per acre
(relative to the potential sale price of the crop), growers could boost their
yields and profi ts substantially. Vegetable growers in the Salinas Valley,
whose crops are very expensive to produce but very profi table when com-
modity prices are high, promptly adopted the use of synthetic fertilizers.
Further, as they gained more experience with fertilizers, they learned that
overapplication does not harm vegetable crops but instead acts as a kind
of crop insurance, maximizing yields for a slightly increased cost of inputs.
Therefore, the treatment of vegetable crops with fertilizer, often several
times per cropseason, quickly became a standard practice throughout
the vegetable industry. This practice also became institutionalized in the
fertilizer industry, which offers growers an application service, spraying
