The Tri-State Neighbor reports that SDSU’s new minors in precision agriculture, genetics, and fod manufacturing represent a shift away from a previous focus on helping people eat better to helping Big Ag produce better. Why this shift? Follow the money:
SDSU gets a great amount of support from companies in the dairy industry. Last month, the program awarded $114,000 in scholarship to dairy students. Companies also contributed more than $9 million to the dairy plant that the university opened in 2011.
“There’s a lot of interest and a lot of investment in the industry because there’s a need for dairy,” [SDSU dairy science chief Vikram] Mistry said [Janelle Atyeo, “Job Search Proves Easy for SDSU’s Ag Majors,” Tri-State Neighbor, 2015.05.05].
What Big Ag wants, Big Ag gets. That includes our public (“public”?) universities.
Why does the dairy industry give big bucks to SDSU? This is a country where as many as 50 million people are lactose intolerant, including 90 percent of all Asian-Americans and 75 percent of all African-Americans, Mexican-Americans and Jews. Adult milk drinkers are like cigarette smokers. They need to continually be reinforced, prodded and complimented because milk really isn’t that good for adults. Cheese however is the manna of the Gods! lol
An example of how donations from major corporations affect SDSU policy is shown in how SDSU treats Monsanto with kid gloves. A couple of years ago SDSU came out with the announcement that Roundup resistant kochia had been found in a couple of spots in South Dakota. Farmers have known that kochia had developed resistant fifteen years ago all across the state. I believe that SDSU had known that fifteen years ago also but didn’t want to damage the reputation of one of their major funders. I’m sure that the same thing will happen with regards to the dairy industry.