Meggs Means Business

Chico State's Other Ball Team

Under the Rock Shelf

Hot New Ag

A train wreck is looming in agriculture, predicts Charles Crabb, new dean of agriculture at CSU, Chico. A collision is imminent as the world's rising population barrels headlong into our ability to produce food. To keep on track, we'll have to substantially increase our production on available land, and that's with a dwindling water supply.

Innovation is the way to avert this calamity, promises an upbeat Crabb, a Cal Poly transplant and expert in crop damage and pest management who's worked one way or another in the industry for over seventeen years. He believes finding creative solutions through our rapidly advancing technology will dramatically change agriculture in the next two decades. What's coming? A hot new agriculture that students need to be ready for.

It used to be, even in California, that table grapes showed up only seasonally in the stores. Now, however, you can buy grapes almost year-round. That's a fact we've already grown accustomed to in the new world of food production.

And what shows up on our plates is merely the final manifestation of the changes affecting the industry, where fast-paced advancements in technology and the global economy are spidering down into all aspects of agriculture, from e-commerce to field fertilization via satellite readouts. What this means for students is they need to be prepared to understand-and to adapt quickly to-what's around the bend.

Helping students move into this technological age is the new dean's primary goal. It's a challenge Crabb will be in a better position to meet thanks to a unique allocation of state funds from the Agricultural Research Initiative Grant.

The idea behind the $5 million grant, said Crabb, which will be distributed yearly to the four CSU campuses that have agriculture programs, is to recognize that these campuses have a role to play in applied research.

Chico State's share is $750,000, an amount the campus is expected to match dollar for dollar. "That means for every dollar of ag research initiative money we spend, we should be bringing in a dollar," said Crabb. "That's not an insignificant challenge, but it's one we're willing to step up to."

Stepping up to the challenge, said the dean, will be a boon to both students and faculty, bringing them in close contact with new industry directions. Where the $1.5 million a year will go depends in large part on where the matching funds come from.

"Having the matching funds requirement," said Crabb, "helps assure that the research is of interest to the industry, as they're likely to be a major source of those funds."

And industry interest is often indicative of public policy. Issues such as waste management of confined animals and non-point (non-specific) source pollution represent areas of emerging public policy. "

Also waste water in general," added Crabb, "including food processing waste and urban waste." These are joint projects already being worked on with the colleges of engineering and natural sciences.

Collaborative efforts being considered are e-commerce with the College of Business, as it relates to perishable ag commodities-a new trend that will help companies better market their products. "It's one thing to market a product on the Internet when the product has a shelf life, another thing when you're dealing with a product that doesn't have a shelf life," said Crabb.

Yet, while industry and public interest are important, research projects will also be determined by faculty interest. In keeping with this, Crabb calls the Chico State farm a cornerstone to the success of the new program.

Some areas already being pursued here include composting rice straw and animal waste and turning rice straw into silage for livestock feed. There's also habitat restoration and a "whole series of areas in terms of animal biotechnology that I think we're well positioned, because of recent hires, to pursue," said Crabb.

Dairy waste management and groundwater contamination have so far created "a lot of speculation and not a lot of science," Crabb added, "so that's another role these funds will help us play."

In the past, talented faculty involved in research have had to struggle with the constraints of a full-time teaching load. With grant money, they'll have more freedom to work with the industry. "It ensures they're on the edge, engaged professionally," said Crabb, "and that is brought back to the classroom."

As with research, the classroom is brought out to the field. First-hand research helps students gain a better understanding of the challenges facing agriculture, noted Crabb. "We're going to see a steep rate of change in the industry over the next twenty years. In order for California to stay competitive, we're going to have to be constantly out on the edge." That's an edge graduates will need-to stay in the game.

Globalization, for example, opens up the world market and alters our ability to compete. Offshore markets, while offering a greater sales potential, are also competition.

"Our water, utility, and labor cost all contribute to what the bottom line is on a particular commodity," said Crabb, adding that while California has unique advantages in climate, soil, water availability, and product diversity, "at the same time we have some constraints, so to remain competitive I think we're going to have to continue to look at applying new technology quickly and capturing the benefits of that technology to stay ahead of the market."

For CSU, Chico, that means producing students who have the tools to respond quickly to change. As Crabb put it, "We have to be able to produce a graduate who has the ability to recognize, adapt, and capture opportunities."

Take a recent announcement from the large growers Tanimura and Antle. They'll now be producing organic vegetables year-round for grocery stores nationwide.

"Well, all of a sudden the market dynamic shifts," said Crabb, "and the opportunity for small producers to compete in this niche market declines. If I were growing organic produce, I'd start thinking about where I'd shift my focus."

Not only is the ability to change important, he added, but equally important is the ability to anticipate, to look ahead to new technologies, and be ready.

We're already using video imaging to color sort tomatoes in the field, dropping the green ones back rather than paying to haul, then sort, them at the factory.

Soon we'll have much greater sophistication with satellite imagery to manage crops in a more specific way. For example, rather than treating an entire field with fertilizer, farmers will treat areas pinpointed through digital imagery and global positioning.

Crabb explained, "And what you can do is go back and let the computer calibrate your fertilizer applicator. Putting the fertilizer only where it needs to be saves time and money, increases efficiency, and reduces production costs and potential for groundwater contamination."

Another potential is in the emerging area of biotechnology. "If you can produce animal organs in a laboratory setting, it seems to me it's only a matter of time before we're producing crops in a different way. And it's not too far of a stretch to imagine we'd be able to produce them in a factory setting without the land demands we currently have."

While Chico State's niche in research is different from that of the University of California, Crabb believes that giving students the opportunity to be engaged in first-hand applied research can nonetheless be an integral part of their learning.

"We'll pick and choose carefully," he said about the future, "those projects that will have a benefit to industry, faculty, and students."

Charles Crabb