Professor Rick Roush Australian Council of Deans of Agriculture

Melbourne School of Land and EnvironmentUniversity of Melbourne

ACDA

The Future of Agricultural Extension by Australian

Universities

http://www.csu.edu.au/special/acda/index.html

“Traditionally”, expert authorities passing along facts, knowledge, wisdom

More recently, knowledge partnerships based on joint inquiry

Relatively low contributions by Universities currently and why

Plausible lessons from the US Land Grant University System

Possible actions

Source: ABS

% expenditure

1996/97$1099m

2006/07$1716m

There are long lags between research discovery and take-up

by farmers

Source: D’Emden et al. (2006) Technological forecasting and Social Change, 73: 630-47

No-till inSouthernAustralia

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Percentage

GE corn

Hybrid corn

19 years

13 yrs

Even good ideas take time, even with strong evidence of performance

Typically, there are “champions” in the research or farm organisations who develop over years a close working relationship with the farming community and continue to promote the idea(s)

Risk is the lost opportunity cost of delays in adoption or failure to adopt at all

Universities lose money on research!

Cutler Review (2008) of the National Innovation System: “Adopt the principle of fully funding the costs of university research activities”

University of Melbourne: About $700M invested in Research from $400M funded

ACDA

Staff and administrative focus has to be on teaching; most university promotion based on research and teaching (some on knowledge transfer now at U of Melbourne)

Once the grant runs out, not only is there little incentive for extension, there is no funding even for costs like travel

ACDA

Source: ABS

% expenditure

1996/97$1099m

2006/07$1716m

State Govt

Other CSIRO Univer-sity

Total

19(53%)

10(28%)

5 (14%)

2 (6%)

36

“a significant contribution to communicating the outcomes of research”.

Not quite moribund, but not obviously reaching the potential implied by the roughly 20% of research funding and unique expertise

University staff are especially aligned with teaching and establishing a rapport with much of the next generation of agriculturalists

Asset and opportunity lost, especially with decline of state activity??

ACDA

From 1862 (Hatch Act), state grants of land

Smith-Lever Act of 1914 established Cooperative Extension Service (Federal and State authorities cooperating)

Many academics have joint Extension/Research/Teaching Appointments, even across USDA and state agencies

Very successful; relationships established with students often continue for decades, linking Unis to the field adoption

Funded in part by USDA at about $1 Billion annually, mostly on statutory formula with mandatory and public reporting

Funds typically used for base operating support, including travel, etc.

Scaled to Australia at 1/15 the size, about $67M; would likely offer modest budget surplus to ag schools across Australia

Typically also some state govt $$ support

Declining graduate numbers

ACDA

Universities under-performing compared to research grant success and knowledge capital

US Land Grant University System much more effective; linked in to funding, research and future land managers

Reinvest in Universities to help fill the gap of

knowledge partnerships: allow public and ag industry

to reap full benefits of agricultural research investment

by all parties, but probably especially in the “public

good”

Fund by formula directly to Ag Faculties and Schools

based on numbers of academics on continuing

appointments with ag focus, from public funds

committed to RDCs

rroush@unimelb.edu.au