Importance of Land Grant Institutions

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

It can be easy to take for granted how much support our agriculture industry gets in this country from our land grant institutions. When you look at the rest of the world, you realize our agricultural research and extension programs truly set us apart. David Doll left California a few years ago to manage a farming operation in Portugal.

Doll… “When you look at countries that have a strong extension service, so pretty much Brazil and the United States for the most part. And you look at the agricultural economies of those countries, you can see it. And it's being driven by the ability to take that research-based information, translate it into something that's bite-sizable, get it into the field, demonstrate the practice, and then wow, behavior changes. And that keeps pushing people forward. You can be the best farmer in the world, but being able to help other people become the best farmer in the world, I think is also a very valuable and successful career point as well.”

Doll appreciates the value of extension as a former farm advisor and now someone who farms in a country who doesn’t provide this type of resource.

Doll… “It's amazing how much information is readily accessible through the land grant institutions in the United States, through the commodity boards, through the extension service. If you want to determine what calcium:magnesium ratio you want to have for your soil. You can find it in the U.S. Good luck finding it here. You can't even find a soil map.”