I'd add just one thought, following on from something Ed noted. The
more reprehensible and sinister response here is not simply public
vilification (in the popular press, as well as verbally in public
meetings) but behind the scenes efforts to ensure that said
individual(s) never again see public funding. I say "behind the
scenes", but everyone knows who is pulling whose strings. This has
the intended effect of scaring off anyone who might have
contemplated, in a weak moment, submitting some kind of proposal with
a bearing on organic farming. In one event of fairly recent vintage,
a colleague had the temerity to publish a report concluding that
organic farmers made more money than conventional farmers. Not only
was he subjected to the most explicit and humiliating ridicule from
well placed sources, but there was even a call (by same sources) to
sue him to return the public funding spent on the project, on the
grounds it had not been well spent (the work has since been
published in the refereed journals). Needless to say, that was pretty
well the last time public money was spent in support of meaningful
organic farming research. Ann
ACLARK@crop.uoguelph.ca
Dr. E. Ann Clark
Associate Professor
Crop Science
University of Guelph
Guelph, ON N1G 2W1
Phone: 519-824-4120 Ext. 2508
FAX: 519 763-8933