Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
of their core people that they fund on a regular basis. And that does depend
on the research projects and the proposals you submit—but, you know I'd
have to screw up pretty badly for the Celery Board to say they weren't
gonna give me any money next year. Because they've kind of made a com-
mitment to me as one of the people that they're going to work with.
CRH:
You have like a working relationship with them.
Entomol:
Exactly. So, there are probably half a dozen of us that are in
that category for celery and probably a dozen in the Lettuce Board.
Thus, there is an expectation that advisors will work within the structure
of the commodity board system, and with respect to agricultural science
this makes the Lettuce Board the proverbial 800-pound gorilla of the
Salinas Valley. Paying attention to one or another problem means aligning
oneself with the concerns of those who
have
the problem. These decisions
always represent compromises, and one advisor explicitly framed these
results in terms of the local politics of agricultural research:
CRH:
Would you say that extension advisors have to worry about or deal
with politics in any sense?
Advisor:
Yes, we do—it depends on what you mean by politics. If you
mean political parties, no. But if you mean the reality of politics within
industries, yes, you do. I mean, you can't be totally blind to that. For
example, if I were trying to conduct a program here and not work in
lettuce, per se, and not work within the structure of the Lettuce Board,
that would not be acceptable. It's a major crop, you know, it's where most
of the power base is for the growers. . . . So politically it would not be
acceptable for an advisor to not work with lettuce.
Larger growers also tend to be much more vocal about their research
needs, and their connections to commodity boards and research funding
allows them to get the attention of researchers. Although the commodity
boards are the biggest and most formal source of funding for advisors, more
informal arrangements are often made to deal with problems specifi c to a
minor crop or a special circumstance. By pointing to these problems and
offering money for trials, larger growers can also attract the attention of
the advisors. The plant pathology advisor described one such situation:
PlantPath:
If there's really something going on that you don't know
about already . . . they'll let you know. They'll say, “Have you been follow-
