Sonny's Observations…

November 3, 2009

From Union, we headed south on Interstate-84 to our Malheur station in Ontario, which sits right on the Oregon-Idaho border.  We knew we had arrived, because of the intense aroma of onions in the air – to me an appetizing smell, and the smell of money, when the market for onions is good.  The area is home to a large number of people of Japanese heritage, and over a dinner of mafa chicken and beverages at a Japanese restaurant, we discussed all of the sights we had seen the previous few days, and what lay ahead.  Our faculty and staff at the Malheur station address issues in the area related to production of onions, potatoes, and sugar beets, along with alternative crops that appear to be promising for this area, such as soybeans, asparagus, native wildflower for seed, including those that have medicinal and anti-cancer properties, poplar, and teff (an east African cereal crop that is used to make injera, the pancake like bread in Ethiopian food).

We had a wonderful conversation with Rep. Cliff Bentz, another tremendously thoughtful supporter of education and our research and Extension efforts.  We discussed the investments needed for education and research, and the ever-decreasing state investments, which are beginning to have a significant impact on our college’s ability to be preeminent.  A “slow death by the thousand cuts” as a result of the budget cuts is hampering us. I pointed out that it is unfortunate we pit K-12 versus higher education; in this very competitive era, what we need is to focus on is K-20 education, and for the state to look at education and research as being what will keep Oregon ahead of the pack.  With representatives like Greg Smith and Cliff Bentz, I think support of our educational and research efforts is in good hands.  I only hope the constituents agree and support their efforts.  If the conversations I had with our stakeholders who serve as advisors to the station is any indication, I think Rep. Bentz’s efforts and those of our station faculty and staff are not unappreciated.

The drive east from Ontario to our experiment station at Burns brought us through vistas very different from what we had seen over the previous few days – this is rolling, range country, scrubby and sage brush covered, with the occasional Piñon juniper, which has become a significant, invasive problem in this section of the state.  Much of the land here is owned by the Federal government.  Over a lunch of thick, juicy steaks at the home of the Doverspikes, Susan and Mark, in Burns, I had a chance to discuss with some cattle ranchers the significant challenges our college faces as a result of the economic downturn and the need to transform our structure into a smaller, state-supported footprint. They appreciated my thoughts and vision for our college; their expectations are that it is critical, as we restructure ourselves, that we cannot forget our fundamental mission of teaching, research, and Extension related to food, agriculture, and natural resource systems. The experiment station at Burns lives up to meeting the mission needs, and is another example of the synergy that results from locating land grant faculty and staff along with USDA Agricultural Research Service personnel – each addressing complementary questions related to cattle, forages, nutrition, range, riparian zones, forests, and other questions of relevance to the area, in collaboration with various other Federal (BLM, NRCS) and state agencies.

Madras – pronounced Mad-Russ in Oregon, and named for the city in southern India, pronounced Mud-Rass – located in central Oregon offers yet another unique ecosystem and habitat for Oregon’s bounty of agriculture. This station is home to research on potatoes, forages and cereal, vegetable seed, grass seed, peppermint, along with other potential new crops. We ate dinner with the stakeholders, many local farmers.

Researcher Steve James

Yet, again, these partners discussed the importance of the work being done by the faculty and staff at the station – for example I was told that research done at the station on carrot seed contributed to a reduction of Nitrogen use by nearly 65%; similarly, research on honey bee responses to aggregation pheromone to increase pollination in carrot seed is being awaited eagerly by the growers, many of whom helped, along with others, to secure extra funding from the legislature for a honey bee faculty position.

The return trip to Corvallis – named for “heart of the valley”, according to history books – from Burns takes one through the Cascades, with its gorgeous passes, snow covered peaks, old growth forests, and beautiful vistas. One sees also places where the forests have been clear cut or have burned in multiple fires over the years.  The switchbacks and winding roads reminded me of sections of the Himalayas, which my son-in-law, Andrew Park, and I rode on Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycles.

In my travels around the state, as I have met with our stakeholders, I have tried to articulate the significant challenges we face as a result of the economic downturn, which is requiring us to reconsider how we organize ourselves in a way that allows us to continue to deliver on our mission.  Well into the early 1980s, 100% of funding for land grant institutions such as OSU has come from state and federal sources; however, the percentage of State and Federal support has been declining, to the extent that it amounts to, for Oregon State University, less than 13% today.  This situation has required land grant universities to seek alternative sources of revenue, including ever increasing levels of tuition on students, fees for Extension programming, grants and contracts for research, licensing and royalties from intellectual property, and sale of commodities.

Thus, the new “business plan” for land grant universities is to seek ever increasing proportions of funding from sources that wax and wane based on whatever is in vogue – a business plan that is not sustainable over the long term. This new business plan is forcing our faculty to seek funds from whatever source they can get to support their programs, including in some cases their salaries, which means they will be addressing issues of interest to the funding organization, which may not necessarily jibe with that of our stakeholders.  This situation puts significant strain on our ability to deliver on the land grant mission.

Well into the current fiscal year, we do not have certainty on the budget situation – in part, because of the successful petition drive that has referred the tax increase for a vote in January.  The outcome of that vote will determine the severity of the cuts for our college, which could range from 10% to 20% or even higher.  If it is indeed the latter, it means that potentially of every $5 we will see a reduction of at least $1.  In that scenario, we are looking at a truly significant impact on a college that has been already subjected to a number of budget cuts previously.

The budget cuts, in combination with the new business plan we have to operate under, will require us to do a lot less than we have been able to do, because we will need to have a significantly smaller state-supported footprint.  I have explained the situation to our stakeholders, and said that as we go forward we will need to take a hard and careful look at our college’s organization, including our branch stations, and how we will deliver on our land grant mission.  While our stakeholders understand these truly unusual times require us to be responsive in how we serve our mission, because all issues are local; a few tend to unfortunately take a very local view, rather than a global view. I am gratified, however, that most have said they understand the need for us to be creative at addressing the budget challenges, but hope that we will be creative in meeting their local needs as well.  That is a promise I have made, i.e., we may not have the current organization, nor entities our stakeholders are used to, but we will certainly strive to protect the local interests.  In order to achieve the latter, we will need to rely more and more on our partners and stakeholders, not only for direct support of our programs, but also for their help in articulating to the legislators the local needs in research and Extension, which will make our food and agricultural systems competitive and profitable.

November 2, 2009

Columbia River

Driving east along the Columbia gorge, the beauty of the gorge and the imposing evergreens are a thing of beauty.  Once past Hood River, the imposing Cascades start to flatten out into rolling hills as one enters the Dalles, with its hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River, and the landscape dotted with cherry and pear orchards, along with wind farms that disappear with the hills into the horizon.

Hybrid Poplar Plantation

Further east, one runs into the world’s largest hybrid poplar plantation, which uses state of the art and computerized irrigation and nutrient system through nearly 20,000 miles of irrigation tubing!  The poplars, which were planted for the paper and pulp industry, are now poised to contribute to the renewable energy needs.  Past the town of Boardman with its hybrid poplar plantation, the highway continues to run through the beautiful, rolling hills of the Columbia Basin.  This is “traditional” agricultural country – home to a huge number of wind farms along with an amazing diversity of crops, including wheat, onions, vegetables, specialty seed, potatoes, grass seed, and other species – all of which are being worked on by our faculty and staff at the experiment stations in Hermiston and Pendleton, with significant local support of stakeholders.  The Pendleton station benefits significantly from the presence of an excellent group of USDA Agricultural Research Service scientists who undertake complementary research on soil, carbon and nutrient cycling, and other questions.

Hermiston Cages

What is really cool is that although it is in the eastern part of the state, the station at Hermiston has faculty working on the impact of row crop agricultural practices on salmon.  This latter effort is thanks to the innovative and prescient partnership created by stakeholders such as Bryan Wolfe and others in the Hermiston area along with those that support our experiment station in Newport on the Oregon coast.  South of Interstate-84 in Wasco and Sherman County is the arid, high plains wheat country in the Columbia Basin, uncannily similar to the Kansas countryside where I lived for a few years, including the presence of wind farms with their eerily blinking red lights as we drove through on a beautiful evening lit by a full, China moon!  Rainfall in this part of Oregon ranges from five to 15 inches, and I am told going just a few miles in each direction might mean one less inch of rainfall.  Our partners in Moro support our research efforts with a significant endowment, which is beautifully depicted in a huge mural on the side of the station building.

My wife, Gita, and I participated in the renowned Pendleton Roundup (http://pendletonroundup.com/), which occurs over a few days in September.  Arriving into Pendleton, we saw the town was full of trailers carrying all manner of animals for the rodeo, along with people in their Western gear, huge belt buckles and all.

Speckles and me

I broke down and bought a “Western” belt to go with my orange and black plaid shirt and blue jeans! The OSU dinner at the Hanley was an opportunity for us to meet and greet the large number of our alumni and friends, along with a number of local, state, and federal elected officials. Gita and I had the privilege of meeting OSU basketball Coach Craig Robinson, brother of Michelle Obama, who as the after dinner speaker regaled us with stories of the winning 2008-2009 season. Of course there were the mandatory questions and quips about being the First Brother-in-Law.  The next morning after breakfast, we did a radio show and got ready for the parade.  Riding a horse in the parade was awesome.  I have ridden horses before, but I was apprehensive that my horse might somehow read the motto of the Pendleton Roundup – “Let ‘er Buck” – and start bucking.  Luckily, my horse, Speckles, was a quiet, well behaved, 20-plus year old, and belonged to Kyle, a young son of one of my Extension colleagues, Matt Liscom. The nice thing was Matt stayed with me.  With bravado I was saying to everyone – “well, I ride a Harley-Davidson, and riding a horse is no different” – but deep inside my heart I hoped the horse wouldn’t take off or start bucking!

The loud boom of a canon, which startled all of the horses, but luckily no mishaps, was the signal that the parade had started.  As the group of 4-H riders, OSU President Ed Ray, Extension Director and Vice Provost Scott Reed, and the rest of us on horses, along with the President’s wife, Beth, and Gita riding in a wagon, went along the downtown streets, it was cool to see people yell and acknowledge OSU and the Beavers! Go Beavs – yelled the people lined up and we responded similarly.  The day included attending the rodeo with Virginia Tubbs, the Grand Matriarch of Pendleton, and being her guests at a dinner.  The rodeo itself was pretty awesome – bucking horse and bull riding, roping calves and steers, bareback horse racing by the Native Americans, wild cow milking, and other events.  The Pendleton Roundup lived up to its reputation as a fun event depicting the frontier life of the past.

East of Columbia Basin, one drives through the gorgeous, glaciated Blue Mountains, with its own, very unique alpine trees such as Ponderosa pine, Piñon juniper, Lodgepole pine, Western larch, and others, but not as imposing as the really huge, old growth Douglas fir in the cascades or coastal range mountains – may be in part due to the significantly lower rainfall this section of the state receives, along with fires.  We drive across rivers with names like Snake, John Day, Grande Ronde, Powder, and Malheur.  Our college offers an Agricultural Program at Eastern Oregon University in LaGrande, with a growing number of students in majors of huge relevance to the eastern part of the state – Range Ecology and Management, Agribusiness Management, Crop & Soil Science, Environmental and Economic Policy and Management, and Natural Resources, along with a number of relevant minors.  Speaking to the smart and thoughtful students, I discovered the program is hugely attractive and successful, and includes internship opportunities as part of the educational program, and that the graduates are placed very well.  What was highly gratifying was to discover amongst the students I met, the second generation of students coming into the program, following their parents, and younger siblings following older ones.  The program is also attracting students from neighboring states and overseas; and I met a student from Nepal.

While the OSU Ag Program at EOU is immensely successful and popular, we are losing money.  We are engaged in conversations with the administration of EOU to ensure that the costs of the program are met equitably.  These conversations are critical in light of the significant budget challenges we face.  While at the campus of EOU, I had occasion to inaugurate my colleague, Lynn Ketchum’s, touring exhibit of photographs about food and agriculture from our magazine, Oregon’s Agriculture Progress – Savory Images –  (http://extension.oregonstate.edu/eesc/savoryimages/), and got to meet Rep. Greg Smith, an excellent and thoughtful supporter of education and agriculture.  Greg’s support, along with that of others, to provide for a tax increase have mitigated the significant impact of the budget cuts on our research and Extension efforts.  Unfortunately, this tax increase might be in jeopardy, come January 26.  I hope the local constituents see this sort of support as being important for our state’s well being, and more immediately for the well being of our educational, research and Extension programs that have significant local impact in eastern Oregon.

Red Barn at EOARC, Union

A number of the students in our Agriculture Program at EOU seek experiential opportunities at our experiment station in Union, which was established over 100 years ago and focuses on range, forestry, flora and fauna of wildlands, forages, beef cattle, nutrition, and other issues of relevance to eastern Oregon.  The breadth of research is amazing – everything from beef nutrition to sage brush to range/forest interactions to the birds of the region to wolf predation on cattle to impact of fire to impact of cattle grazing on mountain streams to grazed riparian pastures to the floristics and faunistics of the Great Basin desert, to name just a few.  All of these efforts are having significant impact locally.  Our partners in the Union area, like those at the other locations, are highly supportive of the local efforts, and I hope they will continue to support our efforts at reorganizing our college.

I have noticed an interesting conundrum as I meet and speak with our partners and stakeholders.  While everyone is highly supportive of our efforts, many are also against the tax increase that was passed during the last legislative session. I have stated to the that the tax increase being voted down will seriously and immediately impact our college, but that the long term impact on our educational and research efforts are going to be significantly impaired.  I hope that the voters and our partners and stakeholders think of the potentially devastating impact on our state.

November 1, 2009

Note: Over the last three months since my arrival in Corvallis, I have visited our academic departments and traveled to every one of branch experiment stations around Oregon, some of which I have described in earlier postings.  The actual trips described below occurred over a few separate occasions in different directions, but in these three consecutive posts I have tried to stitch the trips together for the purpose of continuity!

“Go West, young man, and grow up with the country,” said Horace Greeley.  In Oregon, one really has to go east to see the West!

Benny Beaver

Since my arrival at Oregon State University almost three months ago, I have traveled – thanks to my colleagues, Stella, Larry, Betsy, and Todd – several thousand miles within Oregon, learning about our college’s huge presence throughout the state and its food and agricultural enterprise, and along the way met students, alumni, stakeholders, friends, and state and federal legislators.  I have partaken the bounty of our state – from the amazing array of fruit, vegetables, and nuts such as cherries and pears, Marion berries, Purple Pelisse potatoes, and hazelnuts to wines such as pinots, cabs, and syrahs to grain and meat to oyster shooters, mussels, salmon, Albacore tuna to artisan cheeses, and beef steaks to lamb to name just a few. Oregon produces well over two hundred different commodities, many organized under commodity commissions or grower associations.

Grapes on the vine

The valleys west of the Cascades, Willamette, Rogue, and Umqua – each with its very own, unique microclimate, varying in the native fauna and flora, home to a bewildering array of agricultural enterprises such as vineyards and wineries, specialty seed, grass seed, fruit orchards, berries, hop trellises, nurseries, artisanal cheeses, beers, and on and on.  It is the unique soils and microclimates, along with elevational differences that make the valleys so productive, and allow all the different kinds of food and agricultural systems to thrive, including organic, sustainable, conventional, etc.  Some of the research efforts are undertaken at our academic departments in Corvallis, and at our branch experiment stations in Aurora and Medford.

Of course, not everything is perfect in the paradise one sees driving down Interstate-5.  The economic downturn has affected many of the agricultural enterprises, and controversies abound: profitability; the grass seed business and nursery business are off almost 50%, imposing significant and immediate stresses on the producers and their families and employees, and more broadly on the state’s economy; environmental concerns, organic versus sustainable versus conventional; GMOs, canola, burning, pesticides, environmental impacts, etc.  Our faculty play a significant role in providing scientific clarity to complex issues, and help focus on outcomes that are in the best interest of the agricultural enterprises themselves and ultimately on society.

East of the Cascades is, as the locals say, God’s Country – rolling hills, high plains desert, huge basins.  It is beautiful country.  Dry to very dry.  Wheat country.  Range country.  Cattle country.  Here, again, controversies abound – mostly about water, federal land, grazing rights. Farmers and ranchers alike face significant challenges, not unlike what is seen in the valleys west of the Cascades. Faculty at our stations play a significant role in providing scientific clarity to complex issues, and undertake the research and Extension efforts needed to help producers, communities, and residents.

Downtown Portland is home to the only urban experiment station in the United States – the Food Innovation Center, which is a partnership between our college and the Oregon Department of Agriculture.  This one-of-a-kind station works very closely with the food processing industry on such areas as market access and development, economics and marketing, consumer sensory testing, packaging and shelf life, processing and packaging, product development, and the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in the food industry. The FIC has state-of-the-art facilities, including a kitchen that the food industry can use to develop and test products with the help of our faculty and staff. A number of products in the market place, such as beverages, chips, and other products, are the result of the unique partnership between our faculty and staff and the food industry.

Chef Eric Jenkins

Astoria, on the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Ocean, is the home to our Seafood Lab and Seafood Consumer Center, which are dedicated to discovering new value added uses of marine organisms, such as surimi from whiting fish, oyster shooters, albacore tuna, to name a few; and researchers are determining how to deal with food safety in seafood, population genetics and origin of salmon. Chef Eric Jenkins who dishes up gourmet dishes and lessons at the seafood school created a wonderful dinner of honey mustard marinated salmon, rice pilaf, and salad, preceded by appetizers that included smoked albacore tuna, mussels, oysters, and barbecued squid.

Tillamook Cheese Factory

Driving south from Astoria enroute to Newport is Tillamook – home of the famous dairies and cheese.  We stopped for Tillamook ice cream and grilled cheese sandwiches.  The drive along the coast is wonderful – the Oregon coast is like no other that I have seen in my travels.  The little towns along the way are picturesque – these are places I need to come back to with my wife.

Oyster Seed

Further south is Newport – home to our Coastal Marine Experiment Station, the Marine Mammal Institute, and the Hatfield Marine Science Center.

Here our faculty undertake research and Extension efforts on various aspects of the biology of various marine species such as whales, salmon, oysters, and others, along with marketing and economic analyses of the seafood industry.

Fish hospital

Newport is also home to an “ornamental fish hospital”.  The economic downturn has had a significant impact in this section of the state, and the fishermen are concerned as well about policies and regulations that place significant burden on their livelihoods.  I had a chance to listen to people like Sen. Betsy Johnson and Rep. Jean Cowan, who are both huge supporters of our college and efforts in Astoria and Newport; at dinner with other stakeholders, which included one on a boat – The Marine Discovery Tours boat operated by Fran and Don Mathews – I heard support for our efforts and concerns about the impact of the budget cuts on our presence.  These are passionate people and truly committed to our college’s efforts.

The return to Corvallis was through the Coastal Range in the dark, in rain.  The little I could see out of the window of the car suggested some mountains with beautiful, old growth Douglas firs or the scar of clear cut or fires.  It’s a trip I will need to do on my motorcycle during the daytime in late spring or summer.

September 27, 2009

Fall!  This is my favorite time of the year – warm days and cool nights that allow the sap of trees to store more sugars and fruit such as grapes to become sweeter; a time when the shadows become longer and the leaves on the hardwood trees are starting to change color indicative of their inevitable senescence; harvest of agricultural commodities is in full swing; and, of course, our campus is full of young people – the lifeblood of our college.

I arrived on campus in late July – Summer – a time when I would run into the occasional graduate student, busy with their dissertation or thesis research, and the occasional undergraduate student engaged in experiential research or holding down a job on campus to earn a living and save money for tuition.  With the arrival of Fall, the campus is bustling with young people.  There are numerous orientation programs for the students, and many are “rushing” for their fraternities and sororities.  Students are meeting with advisors and checking on courses.  Freshmen and transfer students are learning about our college and making new friends; while the senior classmen are renewing old friendships or making new ones.

There are orientations as well for new faculty and staff.  Departments and colleges are holding “retreats” where faculty and staff are undertaking an in depth conversation on the accomplishments of the past year, and the challenges and teaching, research, and Extension needs for the upcoming year.  I have met a number of our new faculty – our seed corn, as they are the future of our college – and the skills they bring in research or teaching or Extension are awesome.

Artist: Jay Noller

Many of them have amazing avocational interests in music, art, painting, sculpting, hiking, cooking, gardening, mountain climbing, etc.  One new faculty member I met plays in a band; another plays medieval music on a lap harp.

Looking for answers

Whether it is faculty in Food Science and Technology who are undertaking research and extending knowledge on adding value to the agricultural commodities by converting to new food products or beverages or better ways of preserving them, or faculty in Environmental and Molecular Toxicology who work on coming up with ways to protect our environment or our health, or faculty in Fisheries and Wildlife discovering new ways of conserving our natural resources – they all exhibit an intensity of commitment to changing the future of our agricultural, food, and natural resources enterprise, making a difference. Right here, right now.

During University Day, President Ed Ray presented awards of excellence to OSU faculty and staff – several in our college were recognized for excellence in advising, research, Extension, or service, including David Williams, Carol Mallory-Smith, Melody Putnam, and Lynda Ciufetti. These faculty, like the many other faculty and staff who have been recognized by their peers at other venues, are changing the future.  Right here, right now.

Gelato Social for Students

The college hosted a gelato social to welcome students back for the Fall term.  I had the pleasure of meeting a number of them – freshmen and upper classmen – majoring in everything from Agricultural Business Management to Range Ecology and Management.  I learned of the many student clubs we have – Alpha Zeta to the Young Cattlemen’s Association.  It was great talking to these young men and women.  Many of them have had wonderful experiences in the summer – working on farms, with fish and wildlife, in wineries, on golf courses, and in other endeavors relevant to their education.

Fall enrollment in our college in general has increased significantly, particularly in Animal Science and in the Pre-Veterinary Option.  As I have traveled around the state, some of our stakeholders have expressed concern that we are not protecting the interests of traditional agriculture.  I have explained to them that while we are indeed seeing significant increases in other majors and options, we continue to recruit and educate students in the traditional agricultural disciplines as well.  In my mind, there is no conflict in catering to the increasingly diverse student body interested in attending our college, while protecting the traditional agricultural interests.  As a matter of fact, a number of students who come into our Animal Science department to study Pre-Vet are exposed to issues related to livestock animals and agriculture as well.  These Pre-Vet students would likely never get exposed to traditional agriculture were they not to come to our college.  I see this as a win-win situation, because we are seeing increased enrollments, which has an impact on state funding which is based on student numbers, and the students from non-traditional backgrounds are getting exposed to agriculture, increasing their appreciation of agriculture and, thus, more likely to understand and support humanity’s need for agriculture, i.e., to grow our crops and livestock, to feed the burgeoning population.

Welcome to a new academic year

In welcoming the students at the gelato social I promised them that our college was about educating them and to equip them with the knowledge and tools to change the future.  Right here, right now.

September 6, 2009

Look up the word “commitment” in the Webster’s Dictionary and you might see the following:
Main Entry: com·mit·ment
Pronunciation: \kə-ˈmit-mənt\
Function: noun
The act of committing, pledging, or engaging oneself; A pledge or promise; Obligation; Engagement; Involvement.

The word “commitment” and all of its various synonyms kept ringing in my head – as I was sharing a meal with our alumni, friends, and stakeholders or having conversations with faculty and staff during department and branch station visits or touring our myriad farms in and around Corvallis or branch stations or visiting the State Fair in Salem.

Commitment is evident in the efforts of faculty who work with undergraduate and graduate students. For example, over the last several weeks, Sujaya Rao, along with several colleagues, hosted approximately a dozen undergraduate students from OSU and from other institutions around the nation on a National Science Foundation grant for Research Experiences for Undergraduates. These bright young women and men were involved in studies at various locations in the state on trying to understand the importance of native bees as pollinators. Similarly, Desiree Tullos engages undergraduate students in her efforts in the area of aquatic ecosystems, ecohydraulics, river morphology and restoration, and bioassessment, helping them develop the skills needed in managing our water resources. These smart, young people epitomize to me the reason why we are a land grant college – i.e., offering access to young people and enabling their success. Listening to the REU student presentations, I am convinced that indeed we are enabling young people to be successful and to be contributing members of society.

Commitment is evident in the research and educational efforts of our faculty and staff in Biological and Ecological Engineering and in Animal Sciences, in such endeavors as to protect our water resources, to obtain bioenergy and biomaterials from plants, or to convert municipal sewage into Hydrogen and “blue” water – imagine that: obtaining water, while also meeting the future energy needs, from sewage; or in endeavors to manage animal wastes or controlling mastitis pathogens, determining the dietary effects of modulating poultry health or poultry reproduction.

As I learned this past week, commitment is evident in the efforts as well of faculty and staff in Horticulture or Agricultural and Resource Economics – working to help develop beautiful and sustainable urban landscapes, including “green roofs and green walls”, teaching students to develop skills in these new approaches, in developing better and more healthy vegetables such as purple tomatoes and fruit and more efficient ways of producing horticultural crops, or helping communities manage rural and urban issues, climate change, land and water use, marine fisheries, market structure, the relationships between yields, production and prices of commodities, and other issues with science-based and more effective public policies. Similarly, by their discovery and educational efforts our research and Extension faculty and staff at our Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center and Klamath Basin Research and Extension Center engage local communities and address their unique issues, enabling them to succeed and thrive.

Commitment is evident in Oregon’s producers of crops, livestock, fruit, vegetables, grass, and seed, and other value added products such as wines or blue cheese, using conventional or sustainable or organic approaches. Every one of the producers I have met – in the various valleys that constitute Oregon west of the Cascades such as the Willamette or Rogue or Umpqua, in the Klamath Basin, in the Columbia River Gorge area – is committed to ensuring a safe and secure food supply to the burgeoning population and to mitigate hunger and poverty, while protecting the environmental and economic stability of their communities. There might be different approaches or different philosophies of producing our food. Rather than engage in arguments that one production method or approach is better, my approach is that we focus on outcomes and utilize every tool – organic, conventional, sustainable, or any other approach – in our research and education toolkit to help our producers address the arduous need and responsibility to feed the nine billion humans in just another thirty to forty years. As a land grant college it is our commitment and pledge to help discover ways of growing crops and livestock in an environmentally benign and economically viable manner. I have said to many – we need to help our producers not just survive, but actually thrive in their efforts to feed people in their backyards or miles away on other continents.

Commitment is evident in the alumni and friends I met during the football game against Portland State University – a game we won 34-7. These are individuals who are proud of their heritage of having graduated from our college. These are individuals who have a connection to agriculture because they grow the crops and livestock or process them into value-added commodities. These are individuals who strive for excellence in their daily lives and careers, and who are about enabling the same – of their alma mater, of the current students, and of their communities – by contributing money and time to scholarships, to fellowships, to professorships, to buildings, and to infrastructure. Without such altruism and support, our college would not be able to strive for excellence.

Commitment was evident as well at the State Fair in Salem in the person of Tyson Snider, a young man from Klamath Falls. Tyson is taking the year off to serve as a state officer with the FFA, and next year will be attending our college to get a degree in Agribusiness and as an ROTC cadet. I was impressed with his maturity and commitment to the FFA and to his own career – he runs a small swine operation, wants to be in the Air Force and keep his hands in agribusiness and, therefore, his interest in the Agribusiness degree, which he believes he will need when he retires from the Air Force at age 39 0r 40! Now that is commitment. In turn, we promise him an outstanding education that will enable him to achieve his dream.

That’s what our college is about – our commitment to enable young people like Tyson and the farmers and ranchers and the food processors and the mothers and fathers and citizens to achieve their dreams.

The spouse of one of our alumni said it best after dinner, and which speaks for all – “we’ve got your back”! With commitment like that we are guaranteed to succeed and move forward.

August 23, 2009

To say that it feels like I am drinking out of the proverbial fire hose is an understatement!  I was telling my daughter, Megha, a few days ago that being a dean is the easy part; learning the players and who does what and why and to whom, and the local culture and values is the difficult part.

Whether it’s faculty and staff or various stakeholders, the questions and concerns are the same, albeit from their unique perspectives.

The topic of conversation amongst personnel in our college is the issue of how we are going to deal with the budget – from the immediacy of the 15% cuts for the current biennium, which we call a transitional step, to the approximately 20% smaller state-supported footprint we are looking at for the future, which we call the transformational step.

In contrast, what I hear from our stakeholders and the approaches they wish for me to pursue, depends on the interests or commodities they represent.  Interestingly, cognizant of the breathtaking budgetary challenges we face – some take a more nuanced view.

I spent a few hours with Russ Karow and the Crop and Soil Science department this past week – I was very impressed with the breadth of the department’s mission and the quality of the programs, both in the soils area and in the crops area.  To put it mildly, this department is as diverse in their scientific and disciplinary efforts as in their commodity interests.  Added to this diversity is the faculty, staff, and students are located in multiple buildings, and the quality of the facilities varies every bit as much.  Their questions and comments demonstrated their intense desire to protect the interests of the stakeholders, including the students, their parents, and the diverse scientific and commodity communities they support – which truly was gratifying to me.

Mid-week, I had the privilege of interacting with members of the Wine Board and the Oregon Wine Research Institute Policy Board.  The conversations revolved around the raison d’etre of the Wine Research Institute and a director for the same. We now have a consensus to move forward on this; as I said to them, my dream is to make this institute the best there is – bar none, which would require a strong partnership and stepping up on the part of our college and the industry.  I was pleasantly gratified that there was congruence in our vision.  The industry was concerned that in having to deal with the significant budget challenges, their interests might be compromised, particularly in applied research and Extension for viticulture.  As I said to the groups – the land grant mission is part of our DNA, and that we would be good stewards of the responsibility vested in us; any decisions we make regarding budget issues would ensure that it does not compromise delivering on our mission.  This is something to remind ourselves about constantly – we are, at the end of the day, a land grant college.

The latter part of the week was time spent off-campus – I rode up with Stella, Jack, and Betsy on Thursday to our Mid-Columbia Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Hood River.  

Along the way we stopped at Multnomah Falls – at 620 feet, the tallest water falls in Oregon.  I learned the water comes mostly from springs, along with snowmelt, and that Multnomah means down river.

During the afternoon, Peter Shearer, superintendent of MCAREC, gave me a tour of the station – you can’t beat the location (self-proclaimed surfing capital of the world on the Columbia Gorge!) and the views of Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams.  I was very impressed with the ongoing innovations in breeding and genetics, entomology, plant pathology, post-harvest issues, packing, plant nutrition, etc., all of which have had a significant impact on promoting local production of various species of tree fruit.  These efforts have been undertaken with the outstanding support of the local growers. 

One innovation that stands out is the “Competitive Orchard Systems” method of training pears to grow on a trellis system.  As we were peering at the rows of the perfectly manicured trellises, I couldn’t but notice the backdrop – Mt. Adams!

I met with the MCAREC advisory group – an amazingly committed group of local producers, fruit packers, and others.  They are contributing directly to a significant portion of the salaries of our faculty at the station.  Their conversation reflected the local concerns, but particularly related to wanting to know what my vision was and how I would deal with the budget challenges, in light of vacancies in faculty positions, the filling of which is very important to their needs.  Again, I pointed out the severity of the challenges we face, and that we would develop a nuanced way to meet their needs.  As we were discussing the various options available, I was very pleasantly gratified of their recognition of the constraints I face, and their offering me suggestions such as sharing positions with other stations or with other universities or having someone from Corvallis addressing their needs as well.  This is a breath of fresh air, and demonstrates the altruistic nature of their approach to dealing with issues. I can tell you that this conversation was very different from some of the comments I have heard in other contexts or in my conversations with stakeholders in other states.

The events at MCAREC included a ribbon cutting ceremony for renovations, additions, and creation of an ADA ramp at the station.  I had the privilege of meeting Rep. Suzanne VanOrman who was instrumental in the station receiving funding from the Go Oregon! Stimulus program.  I discovered that she had worked on John Kennedy’s campaign.  In her comments prior to the ribbon cutting, she pointed out that while Oregon’s funding for higher education puts the state in 49^th position for such support, the competitiveness of the universities, including OSU, ranks the state 5^th in success with extramural grants.

A particularly poignant part of the ceremony was to learn about Don Poole, a local grower, who had lost both limbs in an accident on his farm last spring, and who cut the ribbon.

Adding to the poignancy was the story of Japanese immigrants who were instrumental in establishing fruit production and agriculture in this section of Oregon in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Sadly, all of the Japanese-Americans from the area – nearly 500 men, women and children – were rounded up by the US Government in 1942 after Pearl Harbor, and interned, a shameful period of the history here.  Only in 1993, Pres. Bill Clinton offered an official apology to the Japanese-Americans for this shameful act by the US Government.  

A couple of years ago, the local master gardeners along with our Extension and experiment station staff wanted to honor the Japanese-American heritage of the area, and they created a Japanese Heritage Garden – a tranquil spot on the station.

Todd Bastian and I left for The Dalles in Wasco County, a community on the Columbia River, with a hydroelectric dam and an aluminum processing plant – apparently it’s a blue-collar community.  It is surrounded by beautiful, hilly terrain with few trees, characteristic of Hood River, and is the gateway to eastern Oregon.

Todd drove, and I served as the navigator.  Apparently, I did a lousy job of navigating, and we got lost.  Luckily, I had my iPhone, which has a pretty cool Maps App, in which all one has to do is to punch in an address, and it uses the iPhone’s GPS system to find itself and the route.  Needless to say, it was pretty interesting to navigate using the iPhone to go over rutted dirt trails on the hilly terrain of the orchards, which surprisingly show up in the route created by the App, and we made it to the house, unscathed.  Todd was getting a bit antsy that we were lost and were going to be seriously late.  Thank heavens for the little iPhone – we made it to the Baileys, just a few minutes after the appointed hour!

We joined Bob Bailey, who hosted a dinner for me, and had invited a number of his friends and relatives, mostly OSU graduates.  Bob and his brothers co-own the Orchard View Farms; and he co-owns Dry Hollow Winery with his daughter and son-in-law.  It was a wonderful evening at the home of Barb (who couldn’t be there) and Bob – in the midst of their scenic cherry orchards and vineyards.  The conversation, over wonderful wines, including merlot, syrah, and a cabernet from their winery, and a dinner of salad and lasagna, ranged from agriculture to fruit production to wines and vineyards to the increasing problems of meth production and use in the area to the College of Agricultural Sciences and the budget challenges to Oregon history.  Again, I was so gratified to hear their interest in the well being of our college, in particular, and agriculture, in general.  They trust that I will be a good steward of both.

August 10, 2009

It has now been a week since I arrived in Corvallis, and I am settling in to my new role as dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences. It has been my privilege already to meet many people on and off campus. Each person I have met has generously sought to help me make sense of what the College and the University are all about. There is also an intense interest among our faculty, staff, students, and external stakeholders in the welfare of the College and its future. To a person, they wish only the best for our College and for our State.

Whether from conversations or electronic mail messages, it has become clear that almost everyone is interested in–and concerned about–the next steps in relation to how we will deal with the significant budget constraints we face.  Reductions in the State’s appropriations for the Statewide Public Service Programs (Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station, OSU Extension, and OSU Forest Research Laboratory) may be as high as 20 percent or more. This is of great significance because the Experiment Station and the Extension Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources programs constitute a predominant portion of our College’s budget.

Beyond our directing unit leaders to propose budget reductions in their units for this fiscal year, no decisions have been made about program or staff reductions or about a longer-range transformation of the College. Such important decisions cannot be made in a hurry, or without a deliberate and purposeful approach that involves and seeks counsel from internal and external stakeholders. Unit leaders and College administration initiated conversations earlier this year and I expect to expand them. Underpinning such conversations is the reality that our College will have a State-supported “footprint” that is significantly smaller than in the past.

As stewards of the taxpayers’ investment and trust, we will be mindful of how we approach and deal with the budget situation, while ensuring that we deliver on our research, Extension, and teaching missions.

As we move forward, there will be opportunities for faculty, staff, students, and stakeholders to share their best thinking. That is a promise.

—

Ciao,

Sonny Ramaswamy
Dean and Reub Long Professor
College of Agricultural Sciences
Oregon State University

August 7, 2009

Yesterday, I had the privilege of spending the evening with Karla and Bill Chambers, owners/operators of the Stahlbush Island Farms (http://www.stahlbush.com/), and their children.

To me they epitomize the modern farm family running a large family-owned
business, committed to Quality, Sustainability, Innovation, and People, as
it says in their Mission and Vision statement on their website.

The conversation on their back deck, which ranged from alternative energy to
sustainability to education to research and Extension to Canadian geese as
pests to taxes, and the wonderful wine -Elizabeth’s Reserve from Bill’s
mother’s winery – were equally refreshing and enjoyable.

Bill offered to take me on a tour of their processing plant, which I gladly
accepted. The innovations they have incorporated in not only the production
of various vegetable crops using sustainable approaches, but also in the
processing and the use of the plant waste to generate Methane in a
biogas digester to produce electricity, is very impressive.

The best part
is that they are able to follow sustainable practices in their production
and processing, while mitigating their ecological footprint and saving
money. In the classic definition of Extension, these are the Innovators and
Early Adopters.

Following the tour, we ate brats and potato salad. The conversation, which included their children, turned to our college, including the teaching, research, and Extension efforts.

At one point, Karla made the observation that Extension was not really
needed. I was surprised by that statement, but we engaged in a spirited
discussion of today’s Extension.

I truly believe that Extension is even more relevant today because of the
incredible need we have to feed an ever burgeoning population, and to make
sure that the food is safe and secure. Additionally, whether it’s
production systems or meeting the food, feed, fuel, and fiber needs, it
is becoming ever more complicated and technically more demanding, requiring
a more sophisticated and transformative Extension effort that relies on
reaching the end users via different touch points and modes of
communication.

But when I went home and thought about Karla’s statement, it gave me pause.
Here’s a person who really is the proverbial ‘choir’ and she questioned the
relevance of Extension. I think our work is cut out, and will require
serious thought. We truly have to become more relevant and bring value.

—

August 1, 2009

I arrived in Corvallis last Thursday – it was hot, but luckily not humid, and so bearable.

On Saturday, my first exposure to Oregon Agriculture was the Benton County Fair – this was the last evening of the Fair.  This is quintessential Norman Rockwell Americana.

The aroma of the livestock stalls, kids eating warm elephant ears, popcorn, and sweaty people.  I could breathe it all in.  It was nice to speak to some of the kids – Ashley and Vicky with their Angus steers.  I suggested they might consider going to college at OSU.

I had a chance to take in the livestock auction.  The staccato voice of the auctioneer was totally mesmerizing. And, the young men/boys strutting around in their jeans with huge belt buckles and shirts with the club logos emblazoned on the breast pocket, showing their hogs.  The hogs averaged about $3.25 – all being purchased for a good cause.  A couple of the young women I discovered will be at OSU for the Fall term. The camaraderie was just so wonderful to see.

Then I walked over to see the rabbits, cavies, poultry, etc.  What was very interesting was the mix of people – including many Hispanics.  I asked one of the Hispanic families what they thought and if they wanted their six-year-old to participate in 4-H – they just smiled and kept going.  I think there is a tremendous opportunity to engage Hispanics in 4-H and other activities.

I ended the evening listening to Johnny Limbo and The Lugnuts – wow , wonderful 60s and 70s music!

A nice introduction to Oregon, indeed.

Ciao,