Re: Organic --- extension & land grants

Bargyla Rateaver (brateaver@earthlink.net)
Thu, 21 Oct 1999 21:20:15 -0700

I felt I had a good measure of farm advisors when I went to their bookshelf to
look for a book I could not afford to have myself, and had seen there, but then
found that the WHOLE BOOKSHELF had been thrown away. I'll never get over
regretting that I did not just help myself to those books, since the Ext people
did not value them. I think one was Hunger Signs in Crops, unobtainable now and
that I want so very much.

Byron Simonds wrote:

> WAIT A MINUTE, This is toting the dog hunting isn't it instead of teaching it
> to hunt?
>
> On Oct 21, 3:20pm, Bluestem Associates wrote:
> > Subject: Organic --- extension & land grants
> > Organic and quasi organic farmers should just get on with building
> > their businesses and caring for their land. If you need a grant to do
> > it, it's probably not sustainable anyway. Don't worry about
> > recognition from extension and land grants. If you do a good and
> > sustainable job without always coming to the public teat you might
> > eventually attract their attention anyway.
> >
> > Don't bother trying to imitate the folly of the broader organic
> > industry in the US, much of which sought an ego-boost in the form of
> > government legislation recognising organics. The resulting boondoggle
> > may yet make it into the annals of history as the biggest and most
> > domineering bureaucracy ever developed for such a marginal segment of
> > an industry.
> >
> > Looking for acknowledgement from extension and land grants seemingly
> > repeats the same errors, albeit on a smaller scale. If you've got an
> > interested and cooperative ag rep / extension agent, great. If not,
> > don't waste your time.
> >
> > Darrell Norton, director of the USDA's National Soil Erosion Research
> > Laboratory at Purdue, put it very succinctly --- " A lot of extension
> > people stop learning when they finish their degrees." [Wisconsin
> > Agriculturalist, May 1998]
> >
> > Bart
> >
> >
> >
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> >-- End of excerpt from Bluestem Associates
>
> --
> Byron Simonds
> E-Mail : bsimonds@hertford
> Internet: bsimonds@hertford.ces.ncsu.edu
> Phone : (252) 358-7822
> Fax : (252) 358-7880
>
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