Extension-Industry-Consumer Interaction

Extension agricultural programs face new challenges in building and sustaining relationships with agricultural industry groups. Industry groups now have access to better research facilities and programs than many universities offer. Many traditional Extension roles are no longer viable. As an example, the California Turkey industry has more expertise in and research facilities for the traditional Extension areas of animal health and housing than does Extension. Housing innovations including ventilation, insulation, heating, and cooling are generated by industry. The challenge is to find ways of assuring that university research and education programs meet current needs of our clientele.

One successful strategy for reintegrating university programs with a commodity group is to revitalize and reorganize a commodity association. One turkey specialist was able to maintain and strengthen the alliance with the turkey industry by becoming executive secretary for an existing organization called the California Turkey Forum at a time of rapid change in the Extension-industry interaction. The result has been a strong Extension program for the turkey industry, including monthly programs, seminars, annual conferences, and liaison between university researchers and the turkey industry. The Extension professional gave the organization continuity and a broadened perspective that changed a local industry clique to broader representation of all industry facets.

Extension educators will find that supplying programs to the industry by direct participation in the commodity association will forge an important link between the university and the industry. The net result can be an improved relationship between industry and the university with continuing benefits for agricultural producers and consumers.

One nontraditional need of the agricultural industry is participating in the public policy process. Under pressure from a citizenry organized and experienced in county legal procedures, California livestock-related commodity policy is undergoing a drastic change. The siting (placement in areas of compatible land use) of poultry facilities has become the major problem in the poultry industry, even overshadowing disease control. One way of assuring these industries have access to sites is being involved in establishing policy for siting. This involves Extension in helping create guidelines of facilities acceptable to industry and to the public. They protect the public from nuisances and keep the industry from siting in legal, but irresponsible, locations.

Working in the area of policy can include political involvement. Extension-industry experience with several nuisance complaints within a particular county indicate the extent of the politics involved. The challenge to Extension is to serve the industry and the public without bias. When politics are an industry's greatest challenge, helping it become politically aware is serving that industry. Through this involvement, the Extension professional is in a unique position to bring university expertise to the policy-making process. Extension's knowledge of the needs and desires of all sides gives Extension the opportunity to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.

Some Extension critics say that Extension shouldn't become involved with politics and we shouldn't be political advocates. However, we can help commodity groups become politically aware and active without advocating one political position over another. This can be done by exposing the membership to the politicians who have an impact on the industry without interjecting personal bias.

Some critics may also perceive the Extension professional as an unpaid advocate for a particular commodity group. However, the mission statement for Extension includes "helping people improve their lives through an educational process that uses scientific knowledge focused on issues and needs." Agricultural producers are a historic, and important continuing, clientele group for Extension programs.

Education and promotion are often two sides of the same coin. An Extension educator who teaches turkey deboning for Title One, EFENP, Master Food Shoppers, Headstart, and other audiences is educating and promoting. We're teaching information extenders how to take a wholesome, inexpensive product and convert it into value-added cuts of meat that would ordinarily be uneconomical for that clientele.

The commodity association is a vehicle allowing Extension to successfully interrelate with industry. The rapport developed between Extension and industry allows Extension input into the organization of seminars, conferences, and the sharing of management and production innovations that fit the needs of the industry. The liaison between university researchers and industry leaders leads to sharing concepts about nutrition, food preparation, food safety, and animal health.

But, is there the danger Extension is supporting an exclusive club, since not all producers belong to the commodity association? No, not if the Extension specialist helps develop a positive relationship within the poultry industry (including non- association members), with the public, and local politicians that:

1. Leads to the development of public guidelines.
2. Improves the industry image and rapport with the public.
3. Increases promotion of product.
4. Provides educational opportunities for underprivileged people.
5. Increases benefits to consumers, including homemakers seeking inexpensive protein.
6. Initiates youth programs that combine the expertise of Extension and the experience and resources of industry.
7. Leads to a more positive relationship with university researchers.

The need for an innovative approach to encourage positive interaction between the Extension professional and this particular commodity is well-documented. The question is: Can an Extension professional become directly involved in a commodity association without becoming entangled in conflicts of interest? The answer is: Yes. This approach allows more direct input into the industry as a whole than would ever be possible with the usual indirect approach. The exchange of service for indepth involvement yields positive dividends like those listed above. Editor's Introduction: This article addresses the controversial issue of the relationship between Extension and industry given potential conflicts of interest between producers and consumers- with Extension in the middle (or on one side or the other). This Forum is relevant to the issues raised on page 5 in the To the Point article by ECOP Chair Richard Fowler.