Does the Ag Research at California Public

Universities Serve the Sustainable Agriculture Community?

By Will Stockwin quotes Claire Cummings

Agrarian Advocate

Spring 2003

When surveyed this spring on whether they felt the agricultural research programs at four of California’s public universities (UC Davis, UC Riverside, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and CSU Fresno) were meeting the needs of the state’s sustainable agriculture community, Community Alliance with Family Farmer’s membership praised programs providing direct services such as the Small Farm Center and Cooperative Extension but severely criticized agricultural research in California as entirely too hidebound and beholden to private interests.

And all of the more than 150 respondents said there needs to be greater public funding for sustainable agriculture research in California.

A report based on the survey was prepared for Richard Rominger, former Secretary of the California Department of Food & Agriculture and former Deputy Secretary of USDA, who is evaluating the research programs of the above named universities. The report was written by Claire Hope Cummings, who also served as chair of the task force that prepared and analyzed the sustainable agricultural research survey.

Survey participants were asked the following three questions:

• Who are you?
• What is your experience with (any of) the four institutions and recommendations for how agricultural research there would better serve your interests?
• What is your vision for sustainable agriculture in California?
• Responses to the survey were broken out into “farmer”(61.5 percent) and “general public” (38.5 percent) categories.

Farmer Responses

The farmers included small and medium sized farms, with a couple large operations, and together produce the full range of fruit, nut and field crops found in the state.

Numerous direct quotes pulled from farmer responses clearly show that the programs now considered most vulnerable to budget cuts (Cooperative Extension, UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Project, Small Farm Center) generated the most consistently positive comments.

Equally consistent negative responses were reserved for overall critiques of the institutions and research priorities. As a group, the negative comments reflect a general sense by farmers that ag research has been “bought” by agribusiness.

“UC projects do not address the ‘whole farm . . . ”

“ It is my impression that Cal Poly is reluctant to endorse sustainable ag for fear of creating a schism between the conventionally minded alumni/support network and the current administration.”

“Current university research is often funded partially by biotech and chemical companies. It is a bargain for them and a drain on small farm research.”

“Under the Land Grant Mandate, public research should not principally benefit private companies.”

“Land grant colleges have failed to sustain farmers, and instead have fostered a cheap food system that not only decimates farmers, but is also a major source of disease in our modern society.”

Others identified the shift to an agribusiness research agenda as being behind the use of actual chemical product names as answers on Cal Poly tests, the overall increasing research emphasis on biotechnology and the barely disguised prejudices against organic methods exhibited by some extension personnel.

Farmer recommendations for future research ranked “more research devoted to sustainable agriculture” that takes a “systems approach” as the top priority, followed by economic viability issues, a return to sourcing more public money for research, increasing funding for cooperative extension, more emphasis on farm worker/labor issues, studying local food systems and increased research into water-use efficiency.

“(Universities) must go beyond increasing production and address the overall viability and profitability of a farming life.”

“Make a list of 100 problems that sustainable ag farmers have and compare it with work done by universities.”

“Research should . . . teach farmers to be a resource themselves, not resource consumers.”

“It is unfeasible to believe sustainability issues can be answered by sites not exclusively dedicated to decades of research.”

“Multi-national corporations do not need the support of university research and extension. Small farms do. Communities do.”

“Local communities need to be the primary focus. Decisions need to be made by coalitions of farmers and consumers, not large economic interests.”

“Given the budget cuts, the four schools should consolidate resources such as experimental fields and teaching facilities and coordinate together so that research priorities are being met.”

Absent a dramatic shift in university research priorities, the farmers’ vision for sustainable agriculture in California was bleak.

“Sustainable ag should be looking hundreds, if not thousands, of years ahead. We are failing at that.”

“My vision . . . is for restoring the biodiversity that starts with the soil food web and irrigation water with non-toxic water supplies . . . natural farming systems will out perform conventional chemical agriculture every time when we quit poisoning the soil, water and air around us. If the university would reverse itself 180 degrees, perhaps we could put off the ecological disaster and destruction caused by our present course.”

“The (research) focus must shift from ‘bigger is better’ to just plain ‘better.’ And organic is better – for the present and for the future.”

“Agriculture will vanish from California before too long. Cheap imports with no duties on them . . . we pay more and more to grow and harvest crops and receive less and less for our product.”

Public Responses

Survey responses from members of the public emphasized a need for more public education and more public benefits from agriculture research. They were both more critical of the current research agenda and more positive about the future.

“I had great expectations (for IPM programs) 30 years ago, but they were dashed by what I saw happening . . . I am not served as a consumer, a consultant, researcher, teacher or farmer.”

“UC is putting way too much emphasis on biotech”

“I am appalled by how much of the ag college budgets are funded by the chemical corporations and “food corporations’ like Archer Daniels Midland. As long as these big bucks are being poured into our universities, the professors will be beholden to the corporate stance and sustainable agriculture research will be tokenism.”

“At UC Davis . . . the individual researchers are on the money grant trail all the time. The mission is not well developed and the research and outreach is very reductionist.”

“When chemical companies need testing for either pesticides or biotechnology they buy the ethics of the researchers. (Biotechnology) will wreck the four percent of organic agriculture in the state through contamination and resistance.”

When it came to making research recommendations, the public gave top priority to social issues, including local agriculture and community food systems, urban farming and community gardens, labor, land use, free trade vs. fair trade, a GMO-food labeling law, nutrition education and diet/eating issues.

Public respondents generally favored research that benefited consumers or the general public.

“Higher productivity and increased productivity to ‘feed the world’ are simplistic ideas that do not hold water . . . overproduction is a problem, not a goal . . . economics, pollution, resource protection and food quality should always be included when designing an ag research program.”

“Research should have a much greater emphasis on systems and how they perform. Many of the research issues are a result of not having a systems perspective.”

“Two issues important to me: the need for publicly available data on the cost of unsustainable/environmentally damaging farm and ranch practices; as a consumer I do not want genetically altered food but feel helpless in finding ways to avoid it.”

The public’s vision for sustainable agriculture emphasized the need for more public funding, while minimizing corporate special interest money seen as restricting the research agenda to issues favorable to business. There was also general support for organic/sustainable/ecological research.

“In order to move toward a sustainable agriculture . . . we need a sense of how the landscape and people should be treated and how the landscape should be used. The problem is that most UC people see other scientists as their clientele and not the people and landscape of California.”

“Chasing the money and prostituting services to get the money instead of doing novel research based on scientific merit and overall benefit to society is a deep problem . . . (that) has to be addressed on the university level and how they accept donations and what is tied to them, similar to politicians.”

“We’ve seen where conventional ag has taken us . . . it is not a road we can continue going down.”

“Considering what a small percentage of the population is now farmers and ranchers, I think it is obvious that agriculture research had better show a positive benefit to taxpayers. Research that does not have public benefit should not be supported by the public.”

Conclusions

Cummings focuses on three main points in making her conclusions.

• She acknowledges the survey’s strong common theme of restoring university research to the purview of public funding, but concludes that a lack of publicly available data on university ag research funding sources will make that difficult. A Web search of the four institutions revealed little as to actual funding sources or how research priorities are set at any particular institution.

“We are left with re-stating the obvious: that the sustainable agriculture community in California wants public funding for research, with all that implies including public accountability and transparency,” Cummings writes.

• Biotechnology and genetically modified organisms in crops pose a grave and imminent threat to California’s agriculture.

“Supporters of sustainable agriculture are justifiably worried,” Cummings says, citing the more than 1,500 field tests of GMO plants being grown in undisclosed locations around the state. “Because of rapidly increasing and uncontrolled contamination rates, GMO agriculture is no longer compatible with any other form of farming. The additional burden of having to deal with GMO contamination would put California’s excellent agricultural reputation, and its economic potential, at risk.”

• It is imperative to find new ways to support the intellectual infrastructure of sustainable agriculture.

“Clinging to the idea that the only source of funding for what we loosely regard as ‘public’ support is the taxpayer, may be a doomed strategy,” Cummings writes. “Sustainable agriculture can be creative about finding other sources of funding for research . . . suggestions include levies on ‘dirty’ industries to create ‘clean’ alternatives, taxes on chemicals to pay for developing low input pest and weed controls and developing cheaper and alternative sources for energy.”

The report closes with three recommendations:

University of California should commission an independent analysis of both the sources and the practices that currently govern agricultural research and make that information publicly and freely available, including adopting a commonly accepted definition of research in the public interest along with standards to evaluate and uphold those values.

UC should create an internet data base of all research results.

The formation of a new program to educate and encourage public engagement in how agriculture research is conducted at public institutions, including a small farmer and community based initiative that would develop ideas, priorities and new sources of support for agricultural research conducted and made available in the public interest.

•••• Front page pull quote – All of the more than 150 survey respondents said there needs to be greater public funding for sustainable agriculture research in California.