Farm science a 'farce'

A former AgResearch head tells PHILIPPA STEVENSON about an unseen disaster.

Agricultural science has abandoned its goal of meeting farmers' needs and its standards are being compromised by the commercialisation of research bodies, says scientist Doug Edmeades.

Dr Edmeades' book Science Friction will be launched this week at the National Agricultural Fieldays, at Mystery Creek, near Hamilton.

In the book's final chapter, he writes: "In my view, the application of the commercial model to science is a farce, and when the politicians wake up, it will be seen as a disaster."

The leading soil scientist and former head of AgResearch's Soils and Fertiliser division at Ruakura Research Centre said he was speaking out because so many of his fellow researchers could not.

Scientists within institutions were muzzled by their need to maintain a flow of funding from Government and commercial sources.

Researchers' standing was compromised every time they promoted commercial products they had helped develop at the expense of giving objective advice, he told the Business Herald. "I see the pathetic face of science at field days and so on. I see scientists overtly or covertly with their begging bowls out," said Dr Edmeades.

He was embarking on what could be a hopeless crusade but "if something comes from the book it will be a real bonus. I just had to write it and get it out there."

Dr Edmeades' book tells his story of the 1987 Maxicrop court case, one of New Zealand's longest running legal battles, in which a liquid fertiliser manufacturer unsuccessfully sued the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and Television New Zealand for $11.5 million over claims made on a Fair Go programme.

He recounts how farmers, faced with rising solid fertiliser prices, were keen to know whether the liquid Maxicrop was a useful alternative.

His analysis of trial work showed it did not work, but when he said so on Fair Go, the Maxicrop distributors, the Bell Booth Group, mounted the legal challenge.

In finding against the Bell Booth Group, the High Court and the Court of Appeal established important precedents for scientists to speak out about products, Dr Edmeades said.

But his ministry bosses did not see it the same way, and forbade him to speak on the issue.

The case and his own muzzling had him questioning his sanity at times but writing the book proved cathartic, he said. It also enabled him to express heartfelt views on the status of institutional science which he believes has been compromised by the political reforms of the 1980s.

The commercial model had not and could not work for science, even though every year Crown Research Institutes said they had made profits.

"But regretfully this is obfuscating nonsense.

"All scientists know that before they get their research grants, 10 to 12 per cent is taken out and set aside as `profit', overheads are then deducted, including the $100,000-plus management salaries, and the poor scientist gets the remainder to conduct his research. If during the year he goes over budget, then science staff are laid off or science activity curtailed."

After he left AgResearch in 1996, Dr Edmeades set up a consultancy and information service.

Many farmers have since told him that Ruakura was now irrelevant.

"They say they haven't had anything out of it for 20 years.

" That's sad and a very good reason to rethink agricultural science before it's too late, before there is nothing left."