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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2015
WSU Extension changes with the times
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Years of recession-related
state and county budget cuts
have forced the Washington
State University Extension to
transform the way it serves the
state’s farmers and ranchers.
The result is a WSU Ex-
tension that looks far different
today compared with a decade
ago.
“County agents are a thing
of the past,” said Rich Koenig,
director of WSU Extension and
associate dean of the College of
Agricultural, Human and Natu-
ral Resource Sciences.
Instead of having generalists
in each county, e xtension has
become more focused. Fewer
faculty members remain but
they leverage their efforts by
using the Internet. Other parts of
e xtension such as 4-H remain in
place, Koenig said.
Extension now concentrates
on major crops such as small
grains, tree fruit, vegetables and
grapes, he said. “Personnel are
now highly educated and ac-
complished faculty and special-
ists, ” he said.
Extension still supports for-
ages, small fruits, small farms
and other crops, but with less
investment and fewer people,
he said.
Extension employees also
rely on technology — including
an array of specialized websites
— to deliver information and
decision-making tools to help
farmers make better, more time-
ly decisions, Koenig said. “De-
cision-support tools represent a
new frontier in e xtension pro-
gramming, and we are investing
heavily in their development.”
The W eb-based tools link
real-time data from WSU’s Ag-
WeatherNet stations, commodity
markets and the WSU Variety
Washington Grain Commis-
sion CEO Glen Squires said
his organization gives funding
directly to e xtension, but there
are also e xtension components
in a lot of other WSU research
it funds.
Squires said there has a
been a “tremendous, positive”
response to the small grains
work done by WSU profes-
sor and endowed chair Drew
Lyon since the restructuring of
e xtension. His work includes
MATTHEW WEAVER — Capital Press
integrated weed management
Washington State University Extension director Rich Koenig in dryland small grain produc-
stands outside Hulbert Hall on the WSU campus in Pullman, tion.
Wash., in this October 2013 file photo. WSU Extension has shift-
A few years ago, the Wash-
ed from the classic organization of 10 years ago to one where ington tree fruit industry gave
e xtension personnel are highly trained specialists who use a $32 million endowment to
technology to convey information to growers, Koenig says.
WSU, including $12 million to
e xtension, $12 to research and
Testing Program to help farm- lion, including $15 million in $8 million to research and e x-
ers to predict disease and insect state funding through WSU, tension centers.
growth and forecast outbreaks, $10 million from counties, $5
The Washington Tree Fruit
estimate wheat yields, calculate million in federal funding and Research Commission expects
fertilizer rates, schedule irrigation $25 million in grants and other most research projects to also
and predict the potential for frost forms of revenue.
have an e xtension component,
or cold damage, Koenig said.
Six years later, the budget is said manager Jim McFerson.
ODUJHUEXWVLJQL¿FDQWO\GLIIHUHQW Research and e xtension projects
Smaller staff
Less money comes from the are often blended to have mean-
Today’s WSU Extension state and counties, but funding ingful outcomes that impact the
Service has fewer employees. from grants and other forms of industry, he said.
Before the recession hit in 2008, revenue has jumped nearly 50
“In the old days, e xtension
WSU Extension had 563 em- percent.
was like a bullhorn blaring out
ployees — 192 faculty mem-
Of e xtension’s total $62 how-to instructions to farmers,
bers, 287 staff members and 74 million 2014 budget, $12 mil- but that model doesn’t work as
students. Last year, e xtension lion was state funding through well anymore,” he said, citing
had 8 percent fewer employ- WSU, $8 million was from the the industry’s shift to electronic
ees overall, with the largest re- counties, $5 million was federal and digital communication. “It
duction in faculty. The number funding, and the remaining $37 doesn’t take away the impor-
of staff and students remained million was grants and revenue, tance of the human interaction
about the same, at 284 and 79, comprising 60 percent of the to- — it’s not just about telling
respectively.
tal budget.
us what to do and how to do it
“We have maintained staff
better, it’s about listening and
Groups’ investments
and student positions, but have
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Koenig said e xtension is portant problems are, where our
VLJQL¿FDQWO\ IHZHU SHUPDQHQW
faculty positions now than in probably not entirely out of the resources are and how to bring
2009,” Koenig said. This is a ZRRGV ¿QDQFLDOO\ EXW KH UH those resources to bear on what-
UHÀHFWLRQRIH[WHQVLRQUHFHLYLQJ mains optimistic, as commodity ever the priority might be.”
more funds through grants for groups such as wheat and tree
Farmers’ reaction
fruit growers have increased
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Farmers have noted the dif-
In 2008, WSU Extension their investments in e xtension
ferences.
had a total budget of $55 mil- and research.
WSU Extension funding changes
While total overall funding increased by more than 14 percent in
2014 compared to 2008, state and county funding fell nearly 17
percent. The shift in funding from more stable government sources
to less reliable grant funds affects the way Extension is staffed.
Before state
budget cuts ...
$55 million
... and after cuts
$62 million
Funding
sources
$25 million
$37 million
Grants and revenue
Federal
$5 million
$10 million
Counties
$15 million
$5 million
$8 million
$12 million
State through WSU
2008
2014
Employee makeup: then and now
Employee type
2009
2014
Percent
change
Faculty
Staff
Students
Total
192
287
74
563
155
284
79
518
-19.3%
-1%
6.8%
-8%
Source: Rich Koenig, WSU Extension director
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
“We don’t have as much
hand-holding as we did from
e xtension, but they still are the
conduit for information coming
directly from the researchers,”
said Ron Jirava, a Ritzville,
Wash., wheat farmer. “It’s a
good thing somebody invented
cell phones, because that’s pret-
ty much the way I communicate
with these guys now.”
Extension provides a good
channel for farmers who do not
have established relationships
with WSU breeders or research-
ers, Jirava said.
Extension is a valuable tool
for farmers looking to change
their practices and make the
best decisions, said Tom Kam-
merzell, a Colfax, Wash.,
rancher.
“Nobody wants to start out
with a loss,” Kammerzell said.
“If you’re trying to decide
something that hasn’t been done
before, they can set it up so you
have less of a chance of a fail-
ure.”
Kammerzell has been
working with WSU Extension
to research riparian areas for
livestock. Having e xtension in-
volved as a third party makes
the information more credible,
he said.
Farmers can use technolo-
gy to access research online,
but that only goes so far, Kam-
merzell said. “Somebody in
Ohio isn’t going to give you
the same valid information as
somebody sitting in your own
county.”
Extension: State funding for extension services dropped nearly 16 percent in 2010
Continued from Page 1A
Robin
Rosetta
helped
develop
the new
intelligent
sprayer
technology.
Advising the advis ers
Behind the scenes, though,
these private professionals often
seek advice from e xtension spe-
cialists, West said. “The farmer
doesn’t see that interaction.”
Disseminating information
through private agronomists —
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entities — is a cost-effective way
of keeping university researchers
and e xtension agents relevant,
said Scott Reed, director of the
Oregon State University Exten-
sion Service.
“We don’t have to do the
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ers are doing, but we can help
the CCAs be at the top of their
game,” Reed said.
Likewise, email and social
media have made it easier for the
Extension Service to communi-
cate with farmers, he said. Grow-
ers can also get training through
online learning modules instead
of being instructed one-on-one.
“The more we focus on ac-
cess rather than delivery, the
PRUH HI¿FLHQW ZH EHFRPH´ KH
said.
University representatives are
careful to point out that “human
interface” will always be part of
the Extension Service, but some
say the increased reliance on
technology comes at a price.
“They no longer have the
presence or people on-farm
that they once had. That link
has weakened,” said Tom Peer-
bolt, who runs a crop consulting
company for berry growers and
works closely with e xtension.
The role of university re-
searchers at agricultural experi-
ment stations has also evolved as
they have become more reliant
on outside money for projects,
he said.
More of the researchers’
time is spent applying for grants,
and the studies tend to be more
high-level rather than applied on-
farm research, Peerbolt said.
As farm companies have
grown bigger and more verti-
cally integrated, they have been
investing in proprietary research,
he said. Smaller growers, howev-
er, do not have this option.
“The larger companies
are doing their own research.
They’re using knowledge as part
of their corporate advantage,”
Peerbolt said.
Growers fund research
Growers, through their crop
commissions, are being asked to
fund a larger share of the work
done by university researchers
in recent years, paying not only
for projects but also for salaries,
said Mike Omeg, a cherry farm-
Courtesy of
Oregon State
University
Extension
Services
er near The Dalles and a Capital
Press board member.
As growers become more re-
sponsible for basic funding, the
university system begins to take
on the role of a paid consultant,
he said.
The question then becomes
whether it might be less expen-
sive to conduct research private-
ly, as some cooperatives in Eu-
rope have done, Omeg said.
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reasonable possibilities,” he said.
“You lose some control when
you hand the funds over.”
Realistically, though, research
and e xtension must diversify its
funding base if it hopes to stay
viable, according to university
leaders.
Government
funding shrinks
The Extension Service has
traditionally been funded by the
federal, state and county govern-
ments, said Sonny Ramaswamy,
director of the U.S. Department
of Agriculture ’s National Insti-
tute of Food and Agriculture,
which oversees and funds the
system.
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and the recession that followed,
states and counties slashed their
budgets for e xtension, which
forced the federal government to
reduce its support, he said.
“If states aren’t able to match
those numbers, we will withhold
our funds as well,” Ramaswamy
said.
In 2010, state funding for ex-
tension services dropped nearly
16 percent, from $977 million
to $823 million, and has still not
recovered, according to USDA
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contribution has decreased about
18 percent, from $567 million to
$465 million.
Due to these cuts, as well as
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of health care and pensions, the
total “footprint” of e xtension s er-
vices across the U.S. has shrunk
by one-third since the recession
began, Ramaswamy said.
Financial pressures are likely
to continue unless Congress and
state legislatures begin directing
more revenue toward the sys-
tem, he said. “Absent that kind of
recognition, farmers are going to
have to bear a bigger part of the
burden, ” he said.
The Heritage Foundation, a
free-market think tank, argues
that a thorough re-examination of
university agricultural research is
preferable to increased funding.
Universities should focus on
studies that serve the public good
but are not likely to be taken up
by private researchers, said Dar-
en Bakst, agricultural policy fel-
low at the foundation.
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this research, and I don’t think
that’s the problem. The question
is whether or not the private sec-
tor would do it,” he said.
Bakst said he is “less sym-
pathetic” toward the Extension
Service’s role in disseminating
information, as this function is
more easily privatized.
“There is a clear way to pro-
vide a service to someone and
make money doing it,” he said.
Impartial research
While Bakst argues that
farmers can best decide for them-
selves whose advice to trust, oth-
ers say the great advantage of the
e xtension s ervice is its reputation
for even-handedness.
University research and
e xtension is unlikely to be dis-
placed by private companies
because growers see the public
system as impartial, said West of
the University of Tennessee.
“I think our role will always
be to provide an unbiased source
of information,” he said.
Extension agents are well-po-
sitioned to guide farmers who are
facing policy predicaments re-
garding species, water, air quality
and pesticides, said Barbara Al-
len-Diaz, director of Cooperative
Extension at the University of
California.
“All of these types of issues,
we have c ooperative e xtension
folks intimately involved in nav-
igating the discourse,” she said.
“That’s what a public university
can bring to the table.”
Particularly in the West, land
grant universities serve niche
regional crops that often are not
lucrative enough for many agri-
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Ryan Davis, Northwest regional
technology specialist with Wil-
bur Ellis, an input supplier whose
agronomists commonly advise
farmers.
“It’s not something the pri-
vate sector will jump on because
it doesn’t appear to have that big
payoff,” he said.
University faculty also con-
duct fundamental research that
does not have an easy return on
investment, he said.
For example, Wilbur Ellis
employees are more likely to
collect soil electroconductivi-
ty data for an individual farm,
while the university system will
draw correlations between that
information and crop yields,
Davis said.
“They do that baseline work
and then we take it to the grow-
er,” he said.
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In situations where the private
and public sectors are rivals, that
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said Jim Peterson, vice president
of research at Limagrain Cereal
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“Everyone needs to appre-
ciate that competition is a good
thing, especially with plant
breeding,” he said.
On the other hand, it is un-
productive for university and
private breeders to be overly
duplicative of each other’s ef-
forts, so in some instances, they
would best serve growers by
joining forces, Peterson said.
Limagrain, for example, is part-
nering with the University of
Idaho on wheat breeding.
It makes sense for universi-
ty researchers to concentrate on
basic research that is more risky
from the market perspective,
such as studying basic genetics
and biochemical pathways, he
said.
“We don’t want to run the
public programs out, we want
to work with them to bring the
best product to market,” Peterson
said.
The university system al-
ready has facilities and scientists
at multiple locations, so it is log-
ical for private companies to use
that “infrastructure” rather than
build it themselves, said Paul
McCawley, association director
of e xtension at the University of
Idaho.
“For them to replicate that
would be far more expensive
than for us to do it,” he said.
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