| Popis: |
It is proposed that the traditional interdisciplinary nature of the agricultural sciences be extended and integrated with management sciences pertaining to other renewable natural resources. Current conflicts between agriculturalists and environmentalists demonstrate the need for professionals whose educational background gives them an understanding of the issues involved. Policy decisions regarding the activities of renewable resource industries, compatible with sustainable development and the maintenance of environmental quality, demand that those making the decisions be knowledgeable about the industries involved, as well as understand environmental impacts. Similarly, those whose principal concerns are for wilderness and interface areas should be better informed for the optimum management of those areas with an understanding of underlying agricultural principles of animal and plant production. It is for these reasons that there should be a consolidation of faculties of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, together with the units that have developed on most campuses to address such areas as environmental studies, water conservation, wildlife management, waste management, land use planning, landscape architecture, and bioresource engineering. Department of Animal Science, Univ. of British Columbia, Ste. 208, 2357 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Canada. Received 26 Aug. 1993. *Corresponding author. Published in J. Nat. Resour. Life Sci. Educ. 23:136-140 (1994). A INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH has always been understood by faculties and colleges of agricultural sciences to be logical in the study of plants and animals and the related aspects of the environment. The interdisciplinary approach has been recognized as the hallmark of university programs in agricultural sciences and has been an important factor in research resulting in advances in production agriculture. Increases in production and efficiency of production should no longer be viewed as the only criteria for judging the worth of agricultural endeavors. The added dimensions of sustainability of productivity and maintenance of environmental quality are .ittaining prominence for consideration. In accord with '.hese new perceptions of what should be considered as pirt of the responsibility of agriculturalists, the place of agricultural science and agricultural research within universities must be redefined. The knowledge and power of practices that have dealt so successfully with agricultural production in the past can be extended to areas generally designated as environment and natural resource management. The converse application of ways of thinking about the environment and of managing natural resources likewise has a role in production agriculture. Unless there is coordination of effort and objectives among specialists from a variety of disciplines, it is likely that whole sections of agriculturally based or directed research will be pulled away from 736 • J. Nat. Resour. Life Sci. Educ., Vol. 23, no. 2, 1994 faculties of agriculture. The sections most likely to separate themselves are those that can be set up to bear titles that include currently fashionable words such as biotechnology, land-use planning, sustainable, management, environmental, and conservation. These areas are derived, in many cases, from the classical disciplines in agriculture and their separation from the agricultural sciences will result in mutual loss. Their removal from under the agriculture umbrella takes away many of the more contemporary areas for research and teaching, areas that are most attractive to students and faculty. What remains in association with agriculture may not be sufficiently comprehensive to warrant constitution as a faculty or college. In recent years a great deal of thought has been given to ways of facilitating information transfer along the continuum from basic science through developmental technology to industrial application. The present trend of stripping away from faculties of agriculture (and from government departments of agriculture) everything that is not directly concerned with traditional production agriculture will, if continued, operate to the detriment of information transfer among areas that should be closely associated with the agricultural sciences. The increases in efficiency and productivity of agriculture have been such that only 2 to 3 °70 of the population in Canada and the USA is now engaged in on-the-farm agriculture. (Many more people are employed today in other agricultural industries and para-agricultural industries than in actual farming.) As a result, only a small proportion of the population has any knowledge, or even an awareness, of agricultural practices and the scientific basis for those practices, despite the fact that the activities associated with high technology agriculture are interwoven with all aspects of life on earth. It is regrettable that government policy decisions that affect production agriculture are being made today by thoroughly urbanized people who lack understanding of the techniques and requirements of food production and handling. A recent paper by Brown and Coffey (1992) describes an attempt to address this problem by a course at Western Kentucky University entitled The Science of Agriculture. This course is offered as part of a general education in science requirement for nonagriculture majors. The course is intended to give a broad view of agriculture and the role of science in it. Gradually, during the past 50 yr, the image of agriculture for the increasing urban population has split so that, on the one side there is the nostalgic view of agriculture as an idyllic way of life, and on the other, of production systems dominated by chemicals, genetic engineering, factory farms, and enormous machines. Neither of these perceptions of agriculture is persuasive of bright, young people to educate themselves for careers in agriculture. Potential students have no way of knowing that agricultural sciences represent the integration of many disciplines including the basis sciences. They find it difficult to be excited about a discipline that appears to be directed only toward increased food production when they read about the problems of disposal of surplus products and payments to farmers for holding agricultural land out of production. They are not being informed about the exciting opportunities that exist for the management and integration of agriculture within the total ecological framework and the opportunities that exist for application of agricultural techniques to the management of the larger environment. James H. Meyer, chancellor emeritus of the University of California at Davis, recently (1992) observed that the land-grant colleges of agriculture in the USA are "baffled" to identify and address the challenges they confront. He suggests that the original land-grant college model be altered to meet today’s need for interdisciplinary, interdepartmental, and multidisciplinary research. Agriculturalists, having been so successful in achieving productive systems for food and fiber, should now be applying their knowledge and techniques to assure sustainability of agricultural production. Not only that, but knowledge gained regarding management of agricultural systems needs to be further developed and applied to the management of the larger ecosystems constituting the entire environment. Instead of assuming a leading and expanding role for the disciplines of agriculture in research, teaching, and management of natural resources, agriculturists have been slow to respond to these new opportunities. In fact, there seems to have been a notable lack of enthusiasm and imagination. As a result of the failure of agriculturalists in academia and in government agencies to expand their mandates, the scope of professional agriculturalists has been narrowing. Reflecting this phenomenon is a warning from Rep. Pat Roberts (1993) from Kansas and a member of the House Agriculture Committee. Roberts states that there is a danger that other agencies and departments will peel off functions now vested in the USDA for their own jurisdictions and that USDA may be restructured out of existence. (The following discusses background considerations for a consolidation of academic disciplines dealing with the understanding and management of global and local ecosystems to achieve the sustainability of productivity and environmental quality.) |
Plný text