Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
WeedSci:
So it was from grower pressure from the industry if you will.
And so, we feel we had a great team that had built up.
Like the retired advisor quoted previously, the weed science advisor
emphasized the ineffi cacy of the older commodity-based assignments for
satisfying the needs of the niche market industry growers. He also noted
the industry's motivations for this change: “specifi c timely information”
tailored for the conditions of continuous statewide vegetable production.
His characterization of the industry as progressive was meant to emphasize
not only the interests these growers showed in research results but also the
advanced state of the industry vis-à-vis the advisors' own knowledge and
expertise. Given this progressivism, advisors themselves needed to be pro-
gressive as well, matching the industry in specialization and advanced
techniques, in order to maintain Cooperative Extension's utility to growers.
Other advisors also noted the intentions of the vegetable industry and their
research needs, and suggested that advisors could never hope to give
general advice to such a progressive industry:
Retired Advisor:
We have progressive growers here. The managers of
these companies are college graduates, they're sharp. They know a lot more
about the marketing and the business aspects than any of us . . . farm advi-
sors. [CRH laughs.] Where we really performed a function, was that we
knew more about diseases and insects and soils than most of them did.
But in a business sense, we didn't try to advise 'em too much [both
laugh]. . . . I think that would be vastly different in other areas. But here,
they're a specialized industry.
CRH:
It's because it's so much of an industry then that makes it different?
Retired Advisor:
Yes, it's very intense.
PlantPath:
In terms of our offi ce, as you know our offi ce is fairly unique.
I guess not absolutely unique but, fairly unique in that our staffi ng is based
on disciplines not commodities. . . . I think it's a good match, because we
have a very progressive, uh, advanced mature industry, so, in some ways
they don't need a lettuce farm advisor here. Because, what would a lettuce
farm advisor tell a lettuce grower—how to grow lettuce? I mean, we learn
from them. And they're so much ahead of us that, [the] university cannot
hope to offer that. . . . Our positions are more specialized—you know [I'm]
just doing plant pathology and it's real narrow but specialized. [The
