You're right -- we land-grants don't do much sometimes. We do some,
however.
John Ikerd has a Sustainable Agriculture program that is part of the
base
programming in Univeristy Outreach and Extension here. Bill Heffernan
teaches
a junior level class on alternative agriculutre, and a sophomore level
class on
"Ownership and Control of American Agriculture" that really lays out
what kind
of system we are operating in and how farmers can find new places in
it. We
have a new program that is just starting to be implemented involving
welfare to
work around agriculture. We are hoping to involve state and federal
programs,
NGOs and faith groups in helping rural low-income folks in starting to
produce
for local markets. Missouri also has a recently organized farmer's
group (SPAN
-- Sustaining People through Agriculture Network) that was facilitated
by John
Ikerd and Joan Benjamin, both at UMC.
As far as other land grants -- the SARE program at UC-Davis is pretty
fantastic
from everything I hear. Gail Feenstra and David Campbell are doing
great work
out there. Also, Cornell offers a Farming Alternatives Program through
Extension (Tom Lyson and Duncan Hilchey). Rutgers does a lot of work in
Food
and Nutrition and food security. Univ of Wisconsin-Madison is doing a
lot with
small farmers in both their Program on Agricultural Technology (Doug
Jackson-Smith and Fred Buttel), and their Center of Integrated
Agricultural
Systems (Steve Stevenson and John Hendrickson). I know I have probably
missed
a lot -- particularly in the South, but at least there is some work
going on.
Of course, the budgets of these programs don't begin to match the
budgets
devoted to commodity production and marketing on a large scale.
That of course is the crux of the problem about bias. The question of
objectivity -- any objectivity -- in science is another question, but
the
matter of what gets researched is largely dependent upon what gets
funded. If
you look at the amount of money that USDA puts out in competitive grants
every
year and spends on its own programs, the money going to sustainable
agriculture
is just a drop in the budget. University researchers get a lot of that
money,
and most isn't targeted to small farmer programs or sustainable
agriculture.
Of course, university researchers are also required to generate more and
more
of their funding from whatever sources they can manage. The specific
research
that this money funds is not *compromised* and Dale is right when he
says that
university researchers are mostly a responsible lot. However, rotation
practices will not be funded in agronomy when biotechnology will be even
though
both might accomplish similar outcomes. The funding source determines
what
questions are asked, because you have to fit your grant proposal into
their
guidelines.
If anyone needs the names and addresses of the programs mentioned above,
I can
dig them out from somewhere.
Mary
Cecile Mills wrote:
> Peggy Adams <peggy931@uidaho.edu> wrote:
>
> >How 'bout discussing land grant university's lack of responiveness to
> >small scale and organic farmers.
>
> Good topic, Peggy. I'd just spoken of it to someone at the Farmer's
Market
> and I said the only program I knew of was the Agro-ecology program at
UCSC
> (not a regular part of a degree) but they felt many more were in
> place--couldn't name any places tho. So, I'd love to hear what
universities
> (many were land-grant colleges once) and colleges do offer courses and
> programs for *small scale and organic farmers*. The college I taught
at,
> Hartnell College in Salinas CA, a huge ag center, certainly did not.
>
> To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with "unsubscribe
sanet-mg".
> To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
> "subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
-- Mary Hendrickson, Ph.D. Department of Rural Sociology University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 Tele: 573-882-2873 Fax: 573-882-1473
-- Mary Hendrickson, Ph.D. Department of Rural Sociology University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 Tele: 573-882-2873 Fax: 573-882-1473
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with "unsubscribe sanet-mg". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest".