Colleges of Agriculture at the Land Grant Universities Public Service and Public Policy (1996) / Chapter Skim
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2 A LAND GRANT SYSTEM FOR TOMORROW: OVERARCHING THEMES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
2 A LAND GRANT SYSTEM FOR TOMORROW: OVERARCHING THEMES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Pages 21-45
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Four overarching themes emerged: 1. the need for an expanded and inclusive view of the modern food and agricultural 2.
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Biotechno/ogy's Role Food and agricultural production is increasingly science based, and the food and agricultural system is increasingly able to capitalize on scientists' growing command of 22 LAND GRANT COLLEGES OF AGRICULTURE: PUBLIC SERVICE AND PUBLIC POLICY
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It may also be an important means of reducing reliance on farm chemicals and thereby enhancing farm worker safety, food safety, and environmental quality. This new science has intellectual property protection in the form of patents and thus comes with new incentives for the private sector to engage in agricultural research and development.
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, which solicits and aggregates data about research conducted by experiment station and cooperating institution scientists, the data show that in 1992 "food and nutrition for optimal health" commanded a little more than 3 percent of total scientist years and "social sciences issues" accounted for approximately 12 percent of all scientist years (National Research Council, 1995a)
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...................................................................................................................................................................................... ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: of research projects experiment stations and other cooperating institutions committed 4.7 percent of their research expenditures to "food science and human nutrition" and 3.8 percent to research on "people, communities, and institutions" (U.S.
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The challenge continues to be translating these priority-setting processes into resource allocation decisions at the colleges and experiment stations. Guidance in determining research priorities is provided to experiment stations by the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges' (NASULGC)
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At the state level, a variety of methods to influence the direction of research conducted with state or federal formula funds are used. Methods range from close control by the experiment station director to virtual freedom for college departments or individual researchers to use internally allocated funds to pursue the research issues they deem most important.
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. The diversity of producer groups within the production sector provides a tremendous range of experiences and, thus, also generates a wide array of specialized research and information needs, thereby posing significant challenges to the research, academic, and extension programs in the LGCA system.
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, it must realize organizational efficiencies and strengthen partnerships that have the poten tial to enhance the scope, quality, and relevance of the knowledge base. Although new incentives for private-sector research and extension help to enlarge the entire pool of resources for scientific discovery and technological development, the LGCA system is essentially being asked to address a wider array of issues with current or few new 30 LAND GRANT COLLEGES OF AGRICULTURE: PUBLIC SERVICE AND PUBLIC POLICY
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The original land grant colleges share legislative roots in the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, Hatch Act, and Smith-Lever Act. National- and regional-level research, extension, and academic planning committees link the institutions' agendas in a very general way, as described above.
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In the Profile report, data collected from the LGCAs indicate that for undergraduate degrees in 1992 the LGCAs together offered (as selected examples) 13 programs in poultry science, 92 programs in general and specific fields of animal sciences, 35 programs in agronomy, and 129 programs in general and specific fields of plant science, and 45 degree programs in agricultural economics (a program was included in the FAEIS data base if it granted at least one degree that year)
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resources; and · distance learning and other technologies that expand access, broaden clientele, and enhance multi-institution collaboration in teaching, research, and extension. Regional Research A LAND GRANT SYSTEM FOR TOMORROW Many important research problems are common to many of the experiment stations, for example, weed control in corn or mastitis in dairy cattle.
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Contemporary and future extension services can cross political boundaries and be more attuned to the market in which a product or service of the land grant university can be applied. In the future, one land grant institution may be the administrative base for a regional or market-based extension effort with all, some, or many universities in that market area providing research support.
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L Christenson, University of Massachusetts, personal communication, 1996~; nonetheless, the guiding principle for new and existing consortium extension programs is that they capitalize on the breadth and depth of extension's resources in two or more states.
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The USDA's NRI program has been an important (in fact, the only formal) means of drawing scientists from outside the colleges' experiment stations into agricultural research, broadening the science base, and expanding the opportunities for collaborative research between experiment station and other scientists (National Research Council, 1994a)
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Some colleges of medicine simultaneously run hospital and health service units within states, offer graduate and undergraduate courses, conduct research, and provide public service information; yet their faculty do not divide their time between, for example, an experiment station for research and an extension service for off-campus activity (Meyer, 1968~. When LGCA deans were asked by Meyer (1995)
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, and many extension staff are involved (such as nutrition education and youth, family, and community leadership development) are not the same (National Research Council, 1995a)
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The end result is that a large part of the research base for extension programs in community, family, and youth leadership development, other social science issues, and nutrition, diet, and health (representing more than 50 percent of extension program effort and less than 20 percent of experiment station research effort) is likely to come from outside the experiment station and perhaps from outside the land grant university system.
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(It should be strongly underscored that the intent of this recommendation is not to reduce the importance or destroy the integrity of onefunction or the other but to encourage their integration.) · It should be required that one-half of theformulafundsfor research and extension at each institution be directed tofund programs, projects, and activities that integrate teaching, research, and extension, with a special emphasis on inter- and multidisciplinary programs and projects, and the engagement of students on research teams and in extension programs as interns and aides.
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At the same time, allocating public funds to research and extension programs on the basis of competition and peer review further enhances accountability in two fundamental ways: it provides a generally accessible public record of how and why the project or program funds were allocated, and it provides a quality check via review by professionals with the appropriate technical expertise (National Research Council, 1994a, 1995b; National Science Foundation, 1986~. Currently, neither of these standards is used nationwide for formula or special (congressionally designated)
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, which requires every federal agency to have performance goals and measures for its programs by 1997 for its fiscal 1999 budget submission. The GPRA covers federal science and technology and is therefore applicable to the research, education, and extension grants 42 LAND GRANT COLLEGES OF AGRICULTURE: PUBLIC SERVICE AND PUBLIC POLICY
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Measuring the performance of LGCA educational programs both campus-based and extension is even more challenging (Warner and Christenson, 1984~. For academic and extension programs, many of the simple indicators available for research are lacking.
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For instance, integrative or adaptive research supporting producers or consumers of commodities representing small markets for agricultural input suppliers (many fruit, vegetable, and specialty crops) might not be conducted, despite anticipated benefits, without public support.
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30) , the unique importance of federally funded regional research and extension programs.
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