Undue influence in your public education, and then some good news

© 2010 Joshua Stark

The Fresno Bee reports on an issue that won't die, the appearance of improper pressure by Harris Ranch on Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

It appears that the managers of Harris Ranch think that their additional funds entitle them to pressure faculty through the administration, and to influence (or decide) who gets to speak at the campus and under what format.
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Last year, the company sent the university a letter in which it threatened to withdraw its $500k grant when it heard that renowned author (and UC professor) Michael Pollan was going to speak. Pollan's attacks on grain-fed CAFO (centralized animal feeding operations) models for agriculture are well-known, as is his support for small, multicrop farms over large, monoculture ranches (and if you haven't read "Omnivore's Dilemma", please do!).

It's no surprise that Harris Ranch would be mad about these topics and perspectives, and so it's no real surprise that they also criticized a Cal Poly faculty member, Prof. Rutherford, for his similar views.

Yeah, none of it is a surprise. But, contrary to what news media might want you to believe, you shouldn't have to be surprised to be outraged or disgusted.

Had this happened to a private university, I'd still be mad, but I wouldn't feel a personal affront. However, my taxes go to pay for this university, and I'm willing to bet that many Californians pay the same percentage of total income as Harris Ranch to our public institutions.

On a related note, and having received no funding from Harris Ranch (or you all, for that matter), I'd like to link to a great article in this month's Mother Earth Magazine (they haven't paid me, either) on the benefits and potential for grass-fed beef. Here's the quotation that stood out to me:

"Churchill says that on properly recovered land, he can finish about two steers per acre. That is almost precisely the acreage it takes to grow the grain to finish those same steers in a feedlot. This whole system makes economic sense, acre by acre."

What?! That's tremendous news, a happy surprise, and flies in the face of what we've been told in recent decades about the efficiencies of feedlots. And, when you add to this concept the idea that grass requires lower feed costs, far fewer antibiotics and vet. care, and much less transportation and processing, plus native habitat restoration, there really is no reason to stay on the grain-fed path.

And you can now add to the costs of feedlots the undue pressure that they put on our universities.