Looking Forward:

Challenges and Opportunities for Cooperative Extension

Evan Vlachos

Sociology & Civil and Environmental Engineering

Colorado State University

1. The context of change and transformation

2. The changing world of agriculture and of rural

communities

3. Uncertainty, complexity and interdependence: volatility and vulnerability

4. Implementing action: challenges and

opportunities

Premises of Foresight

1. Trend is not destiny

Premises of Foresight

1. Trend is not destiny

2. Those who live by the crystal ball are bound to eat groundglass

Premises of Foresight

1. Trend is not destiny

2. Those who live by the crystal ball are bound to eat groundglass

3. It is better to be approximately right rather than precisely wrong

The Variety of “Shocks” in Current Society

• Cultural Shock

= technophobes and technophiles

• Future Shock

= “raplexity”

• Information Shock

= data and knowledge

• Geopolitical Shocks

= fragmentation and globalization

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A POST-INDUSTRIAL

SOCIETY

1. From goods to services

tertiary economy

2. Emphasis on knowledge

education, expertise

3. More social planning

new planning techniques

4. Growing Technocracy

skills and education

The Grand Transformation

• Globalization

• Interdependence

• Vulnerability

• Complexity

• Uncertainty

• Turbulence

Complexification

A. Conceptual = shifting paradigms/complexity/

chaos/heterarchization

B. Methodological = multi-/GIS, ES, AI, DSS/ systems/computational prowess

C. Organizational = participatory/anticipatory/

contingency emphasis

D. Substantive = new focus/areas of concern

Complexification

Partial Vocabulary for the 21st Century

• Landscape Ecology• Agroecosystems• Commodification• Industrial agriculture• Genetically engineered crops• Closed system Agriculture• “Rurban”• Boutique farm• Paradigm• Holistic Approaches• Volatility and Vulnerability• “Raplexity”

APROACHING AGRICULTURAL CHANGES

• As crises (. . . and discontinuities)

• As challenges

• As trends and developments

• As strategies and tactics

As “Crises”

• Crises 1: Farm and Ranch Survivability

• Crises 2: Modernization

• Crises 3: Feeding a Growing World

• Crises 4: Safe Food and Drinking Water

• Crises 5: Stewardship and the Environment

• Crises 6: Urbanization and Land Use

• Crises7: Country and Urban Conflicts

Source: D. Hoag, Agricultural Crisis in America

(1999)

. . . and “discontinuities”

a. Long-distance food supply changes [commodity chains]

b. Global neo-liberalization of agriculture

c. The significant transformation in “structural differentiation” of

American farms

d. Extraordinary industrialization and concentration of livestock

production

e. The role of the new class of agricultural technologies (notably GUC)

f. The relocation of agrarian protest outside of mainstream

production agriculture

g. Incipient “environmentalization” and related environmental

criteria and regulators

Source: Frerick H. Buttel; “Continuities and Disjunctures in the Transformation of the U.S. Agro-Food System (in

press, 2003)

As “challenges”Challenges for Public Agricultural Research

• Globalization of the food economy

• Emerging pathogens and other hazards in the food supply chain

• Enhancing human health through nutrition

• Improving environmental stewardship

• Improving quality of life in rural communities

Source: NRC, Frontiers in Agricultural Research

(2003)

As “trends and developments”

= Structural transformations

rurality and urbanization

operation size

= Technological changes

automation, “closed system agriculture”

genetics

= trade and global competition

interdependence and global forces

= Social changes

economic base

“rurban” and botique farms

= Environmental impacts

monoculture and biodiversity

pollution, pesticides, erosion

As “strategies and tactics”

= An agricultural system highly competitive in the global economy

= A safe and secure food and fiber system

= A healthy, well nourished population

= Greater harmony between agriculture and the environment

= Enhanced economic opportunity and quality of life for all

Americans

USDA Stakeholder Symposium

(1997)

The 3 Revolutions

• The Green Revolution = tradition vs. modernization

complex organization

• The “Geek” Revolution = Guttenberg vs. Gates

data and information

• The Gene Revolution = Malthus vs. Mendel

bioengineering

O.T. Solbrig, et al.: Globalization and the Rural Environment (2001)

The farmer and his farm in effect have vanished. He is no longer working as an independent and loyal agent of his pace, his family, and his community, but instead as the agent of an economy that is fundamentally adverse to him and to all that he ought to stand for.

Source: Wendell Berry “Renewing Husbandry” Orion 24, 5, September/October 2005, p.43

Shifting Paradigms and the New Context

Require

: the physical and biological production environments

: the genetic potential for increased productivity

: the appropriate socio-economic circumstances in

which the farmer operates

: the maintenance of productive capacity of resources,

while minimizing adverse effects on the environment

UNDERLYING TRANSFORMATIONS

VOLATILITY

TURBULENCE AND UNCERTAINTY

VULNERABILITY

INTERDEPENDENCIES AND RISK

VIGILANCE

ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING AND PREPAREDNESS

VULNERABILITY

[a] Fragile Physical Environment= environmental degradation= lack of ecosystem resilience= history of extreme hydrological events

[b] Fragile Economy= economic inequalities/disparities= inadequate funding

[c] Lack of Local Institutions= lack of social resilience= poor social protection= marginalization= capacity for recuperability

[d] Lack of Preparedness= inadequate warning systems= lack of training= lack of community mobilization

Archetypal Worldviews

Worldview Antecedents Philosophy MottoConventional Worlds Market

Policy Reform

BarbarizationBreakdown

Fortress World

Great TransitionsEco-communalism

New SustainabilityParadigm

Muddling Through

Smith

KeynesBundtland

Malthus

Hobbes

Morris & socialutopiansGhandhi

Your brother-in-law (probably

Market optimism;hidden & enlightenedhand

Policy stewardship

Existential gloom;population/resourcecatastrophe

Social Chaos;nasty nature of manPastoral romance;human goodness;evil of industrialism

Sustainability as progressive globalsocial evolution

No grand philosophies

Don’t worry, be happy

Growth, environment,equity through bettertechnology & management

The end is coming

Order through strongleaders

Small is beautiful

Human solidarity, newvalues, the art of living

Que sera, sera

Mill

Source: Great Transition [SEI, 2002]

ALTERNATIVE WORLD FOOD SITUATION ENVIRONMNENTS

[supply - demand emphasis]

I. TECHNOLOGY INDUCED ABUNDANCE

= technology driven plentiful, low cost food

II. SUPPLY - DEMAND REASONABLE BALANCE

= problem of both abundance and scarcity,

periodic crises, some reasonable management

III. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

= conservation, ZPG, demand-managed future

IV. MALTHUSIAN NIGHTMARES

= starvation, famines, ecocatastrophes, geopolitical,

upheavals, disequilibrium

Requisites for the Transition

• The Need for New Paradigms– Sustainability, heterarchy, co-evolution

• The Understanding of New Contexts– “Raplexity,” interdependence, globalization

• The Emergence of New Methodologies– Cumulative, synergistic, diachronic impacts

– Indicators, DSS, data-information, judgement

– Computational prowess

The Politics of Transformation

Building Data / DSS

Expanding Knowledge / Judgement

Creating Institutions / Capacity Building

Mobilize Resources

Articulate Values

Towards a “Vigilance” Strategy

Environmental Scanning

[Monitor trends and developments]

Organizational Mobilization

[Improve management]

Decision Support Systems

[Intelligence, interpretation, implementation]

Contingency Planning

[Wider range of alternatives and options]

Integrity, dedication, magnanimity, humility, openness,and creativity - or, more succinctly, vision and virtue -are in all of us, however rusty or dormant they may be.Anyone who intends to lead us out of the current sloughwill have to exercise both.

THE ON-GOING CHALLENCE OF RELATING:

Public Desires

Legal Mandates Professional Standards

0

00

0

Prudent

DM

Balanced

GNOSIS[Intelligence][Knowledge]

DOXA[Interpretation]

[Judgement]

PRAXIS[Implementation]

[Action]

I3

The 3 R’s

Rethinking new paradigms

Reorganizing organizational mobilization

Retooling new skills and resources

Economic Principles for Saving the Cooperative Extension Service

Principle 1: CES Provides Public Goods

Principle 2: Focus on Competitive Advantages

Principle 3: Privatize When Appropriate

Principle 4: Manage For the Long Run

Principle 5: Follow Good Business Practices

Principle 6: Beware the Political Economy

Source: Dana Hoag: Presidential Address, 2005. Western Agricultural Economics Association

Emerging Operational Principles

Envisioning

= Share the dream, share the goals

Empowerment

= Joint decision making, power sharing

Enactment

= Implementation, civic engagement

WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO “MAKE IT HAPPEN?”

THE FORCES OF HISTORY FUNDAMENTAL CONFLICTS & EXPERIENCE

1. THE INERTIA OF HABIT A. COGNITIVE CONFLICTS

2. THE INERTIA OF HISTORY B. STAKEHOLDER CONFLICTS

3. THE INERITA OF EQUILIBRIUM C. IDEOLOGICAL CONFLICTS

PAST

Nostalgiavs

History

Reconsidering the Past

THE TRICKS OF MEMORY

PRESENT

Ideologyvs

Modeling

Rediscovering the Present

FUTURE

Utopian Visionvs

Reasonable Approximation

Reinventing the Future

“The future is not result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created --- created first in mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and this activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.”

John Schaar