{"id":1490,"date":"2005-07-27T17:05:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-27T17:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainablog.greenoptions.com\/2005\/07\/27\/debating-the-organic-agriculture-college-major\/"},"modified":"2005-07-27T17:05:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-27T17:05:00","slug":"debating-the-organic-agriculture-college-major","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/debating-the-organic-agriculture-college-major\/","title":{"rendered":"Debating the Organic Agriculture College Major"},"content":{"rendered":"
From Portland’s KATU via EnergyBulletin.net<\/a>, news<\/a> of a debate ranging within US colleges of agriculture: should these schools offer majors in organic agriculture? Instructor James Cassidy at Oregon State University says “yes”: “One of the only places to make money in agriculture these days is in this specialized market.” While many ag. schools do offer courses in organics, the idea of a full-fledged major is receiving a tepid response:<\/p>\n …hopping aboard the organics bandwagon could be a tough sell at more traditional land-grant schools, which have turned their focus to research, leaving less appetite for hands-on training.<\/p>\n “For some of the schools that have very conventional agriculture departments, they don’t know what to do with students that want to run an organic farm,” said Laura Sayre, a writer and researcher for newfarm.org, a Web site run by the Rodale Institute, a sustainable food nonprofit. “They can’t really assimilate them.”<\/p>\n In addition, starting up such a major can carry an implicit critique of traditional programs, said Matt Liebman, director of the graduate program in sustainable agriculture at Iowa State University in Ames.<\/p>\n “It implies that everyone else is non-sustainable, and they find that fairly threatening,” Liebman said. “It can imply a critique of traditional agriculture, and its effects on the environment, or farm size.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As is so common these days, community colleges are taking the lead in this area. As a teacher at an 1890 Land Grant<\/a> institution, I can’t imagine a better way to attract more students to the fields of agriculture and agribusiness. The field itself, from my understanding, is in decline, and something a bit more cutting-edge could prove attractive to students sitting on the fence. Also, I know that at my university<\/a> (at least from my own observation), many of our agriculture majors come from Carribean and African nations. Organics could provide a way to make these poor countries much more self-sufficient, and even create more goods for them to sell in the global market. Finally, this gets the concept of organic foods and agricultural products into a larger market of ideas, which can only help the economic market for these commodities.<\/p>\n Technorati tags: organic<\/a>, agriculture<\/a>, colleges and universities<\/a>, land grant<\/a><\/p>\n