Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
rooted in the economics of agriculture—that are diffi cult to solve. In fact,
not only are these small growers' problems different, they are usually much
more complex and less likely to be solved through a quick fi x, such as the
addition of a new input or a modest change in practices. Much like the
early days of Cooperative Extension in California, when Crocheron strug-
gled to justify advisors' work toward increased production and effi ciency,
these problems of marketing and distribution are typically beyond the
scope of advisors' expertise. The weed science advisor made some interest-
ing contrasts between his discipline-based work in weed science and the
other component of his position, which was to aid the county's fi eld crop
growers. His observations are especially telling because his own program
represented the two domains of extension work discussed here: research
and advising. This sequence began with the advisor trying to think of
particularly hard problems, and he contrasted his work in weed control
with his attempts to improve the economic situation of fi eld crop growers
during the 1960s:
WeedSci:
I used to always joke with my friends, off to the side, because
we didn't want to let our bosses know but—weed science was actually a
good discipline because it was so dramatic. You either controlled those
weeds or you didn't. And so when you developed something, it really was
such a hero-looking type of concept. . . .
Um . . . I'm trying to think of other, getting back to the question [of hard
problems]. One of our goals was to improve the economic structure of the
dry-land barley growers. In South County we had about 100,000 acres that
was dedicated to what we call summer fallow, where they grow one crop
every two years. . . . So you had two years of moisture theoretically to grow
the crop. Well, the people who grew it also had cattle operations [and]
barley was their cash crop, outside of the livestock. At the best you got 20
sacks [per acre]—in those days you got $5 a sack, $100 an acre gross. It was
pretty marginal. Of course a lot of them owned their land so the rents were
lower. And the inputs were relatively low—mostly soil tillage, tractor work,
et cetera. And most of them were family farms and the son or daughter
were on the tractor. But, my objective was to . . . develop another crop that
would have more revenues, so part of my [objective] was always looking
for new crops. And I'd go down there and look at things that might have
some appeal. We looked at things like canola, saffl ower—some of these
