Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Director:
The big companies . . . would just hire [the advisors]—if we
weren't here, I really have the feeling that [the big growers] would hire
somebody. If they need it done they'd fi nd somebody. They'd hire
[Entomol] or they'd hire [PlantPath]. [big sigh] Um . . . but then . . . some
people would say . . . OK, let's say the taxpayer says, “Well, why don't you
just let [the growers hire the farm advisors]?” Well . . . [when] Cooperative
Extension was started, the government said it's important strategically
and politically and economically for people to have abundant and secure
food. And, now we've gotten so good at that that people take it for granted.
But if there was only large companies that [were] farming and doing the
research, then they could control the food, too. And we wouldn't want
food to become a monopoly. So, there's reason for the research to be, you
know, unbiased and open to anyone.
The director's intuition that if the UC ended its Cooperative Extension
program altogether, big growers would simply hire the advisors for their
own needs is probably correct. In fact, many of the growers I interviewed
emphasized their companies' research needs and said that they would
fi nd someone to do this work if the UC could not provide it. At the same
time, growers often expressed a preference for advisors and their research
to remain somewhat independent from any one produce or private
consulting company. This grower, for instance, noted that advisors
helped support the credibility of her company's claims in disputes with
customers:
Grower:
We . . . work very closely with [PlantPath], with [Entomol], with
[Soil/Water], you name it—we use them to help us on diagnosis, problems,
et cetera. Because, in a situation where we're selling our plants, it's always
nice to be able to use the farm advisors as an outside, independent,
nonbiased source of information. If we say, “[PlantPath] diagnosed this
[problem] as blah blah,” the [customer] is defi nitely going to believe it,
instead of having an in-house person say, “This is what the problem is.”
Having that outside source is very valuable, in terms of, you know, every-
body trusts the farm advisors and everybody knows that they're very cred-
ible. So, we use 'em a lot for those kinds of things.
Given these preferences, the farm industry will likely lobby very strongly
for continued public funding, and even expansion, of Cooperative Exten-
sion. Along with the substantial savings in cost for the industry, having a
