Earlier this year I noted with concern that Penn State had closed one of its Cooperative Extension county offices. Since then, in the midst of the worse recession in 80 years, the situation has grown much worse, with further cutbacks in Pennsylvania as well as severe cutbacks in a number of other states. This is affecting both county and regionally-based Cooperative Extension programs as well as Extension faculty based at state universities.
I worry about this short-term since where are farmers going to get unbiased technical advice? Ask a chemical company rep what herbicide you should use and he/she will certainly mention one of that company’s products. Ask a fertilizer salesman if you can cut starter fertilizer rates to the bone in high-fertility fields and you might get a slightly different answer than you would from an Extension agronomist. But I also worry about this long-term, since capable people will be less likely to choose a profession with such crummy job security. And even if they start out in Extension, seeing what’s happening around them would seem to make job offers from agribusiness a lot more attractive. Just when they’re starting to accumulate the experience that only comes with time, they leave for greener pastures, so to speak.
This last issue is one that really troubles me, because in agriculture–as in many other fields–there’s tremendous value in the experience gained simply from sticking around year after year, watching and learning from others as well as (especially for agronomists) noting the effects of weather conditions on field and forage crops.
Last winter at a farmer meeting where we were guest speakers, the University of Wisconsin’s Extension Agronomist Dan Undersander and I were commiserating about the state of our industry. Dan is an immensely popular speaker on a wide variety of forage topics, has been for a generation or more. (In fact, I think it’s been at least that long since he’s needed a comb!) He’s an invited speaker at forage meetings near and far, as am I. Since he’s been on many regional and national Extension and State University-related committees and “knows the players”, to coin a phrase, I asked Dan: “How many are there of folks like you and me, who speak on a wide range of field and forage topics?” He thought for no more than a few seconds and said: “Well, there’s you and there’s me. That’s about it.” I don’t know if that’s completely true, but if not it’s probably close, because while I’m “mostly retired” I still speak at two dozen or so farm meetings per year, both in the Northeast and just about anywhere else in North America where they have dairy cows and grow corn or alfalfa. At dairy meetings I’m usually the only crop-oriented speaker, while at meetings with a forage focus the other speakers (almost all university faculty) are very capable in their area of specialization but don’t ask the “weed guy” about alfalfa weevils or corn hybrids or the proper time to harvest second cut alfalfa.
I know, I know…perhaps I’m just an old f….. uh, fellow, longing for the past and worrying about the future. But as Hobbes once said (Calvin and Hobbes): The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.