Agriculture’s loss
programme, and the greatest number of job losses in agriculture research since World War II do not help, McNatty says.
The scientists believe AgResearch is the obvious organisation to carry out most research.
The universities cannot be expected to take over the burden because they are focused on teaching and have short term horizons.
‘‘For long term research you need large flocks of sheep or herds of cattle, and farms, and that makes for high infrastructure costs. You need a governmentfunded institution and that’s exactly what AgResearch is,’’ McNatty says.
Pfeffer says the CRIs are in a difficult situation because some of their research budgets rely on private funding.
‘‘Eventually funding ran out for our unit, and bang we lost everyone. Then a couple of years later they found some more again but the people weren’t around anymore. It takes extremely long to re-establish a scientific corps that can produce research at the cutting edge – it’s not something you can switch on and off,’’ Pfeffer says.
Richardson agrees that it is difficult to strike a balance between long and short term research, and says staff turnover at AgResearch is in line with other CRIs.
Allison, who last year was denied entry to the campus he used to head when he visited the site to film a video arguing against job cuts, agrees there has to be rationalisation, but not by sacrificing capability.
He dismisses AgResearch’s ‘‘key growth’’ areas and says some of the science – especially social science – is ‘‘absolute rubbish’’ which will produce very little for farmers.
‘‘The simple fact about why farmers don’t adopt some technology is because they can’t make any money out of it. You come up with a technical development such as a vaccine for parasites from which farmers can make money and they’ll adopt it. They are very good adopters but there’s bugger all from AgResearch to adopt,’’ Allison says.
Richardson rejects this. If the science is not relevant, why are funders paying for it? Farmers do not always adopt technology, even if there is money to be made from it, and that explains the social science research which investigates the barriers to taking up technology.