University of Idaho May Close Renowned Research Center
June 25, 2009 The University of Idaho College of Agricultural and Life Sciences is proposing the closure of the Parma Research and Extension Center by the end of the year, a proposal that has many of the state’s fruit growers hopping mad. The college’s plan is one step in a strategic consolidation of its resources needed to meet an 11.5% budget reduction in the 2010 fiscal year, according to a university press release, which stated that operations at the Parma center will cease on or before Dec. 31.
While the press release states that that the closure is being proposed, it makes it sound like a done deal: “The closure will result in the loss of about 16 employees at Parma. Faculty researchers stationed at the center will move to the Caldwell Research and Extension Center at Caldwell.”
The way the situation was handled has fruit growers such as Ron Mann angry. Mann, who helped found the state’s table grape industry a half-dozen years ago, said that he was invited to a June 16 meeting where he expected to be briefed on how the college was going to cut $3.2 million out of its agricultural research and extension service budget. Instead, the college’s dean, John Hammel, announced the closure. “It’s insane; it’s absolutely insane,” said Mann. “People are absolutely livid over this.”
In a press release, Hammel said the difficult decision was made after a thoughtful process that examined how to address operations, research and service to the state within the new tighter economic reality. The Parma decision reflects input received from a task force of advisers convened by college administrators in April and from state and university budget directives. “We do not take this decision lightly,” Hammel said. “Our goal has been to match the level of expertise and expenditures with the needs of the agricultural community and our budget.”
Further planning and discussions will be required to finalize the closure plan for Parma, he said. A priority will be finding ways to continue research that was conducted through the Parma center, Hammel said. Some popular fruit research, notably table grapes, was conducted near the center on federal land.
But Mann, the former president of the Idaho Table Grape Growers Association, said the Parma station closure “is not a done deal.” He said growers of other crops, as well as the region’s many participants in the Master Gardener program, have begun contacting their state legislators. “And we’re getting a lot of support,” he said. “We’re going to put pressure on that university.”
Mann said that while he recognizes times are tight, that’s part of the reason that closing the Parma station would be a huge mistake. What with water shortages in other western states, notably California, Idaho growers, who face no such shortages, are poised to expand their operations. “Agriculture is the best source of income for the state,” he said, “and to do anything to jeopardize it now is unbelievably stupid.”
The Parma center has world-class researchers such as Essie Fallahi, whose work is well-known to progressive western growers, noted Mann. Fallahi not only helped develop the table grape industry, his extensive trials of stone fruits and such alternative tree fruits as quinces, Asian pears, persimmons, jujube and mulberries are helping Idaho’s fruit growers determine which crops to plant. .
“No experimental station in this state comes close to accomplishing what Parma accomplishes,” said Mann. “Ag is what sustains this state, and to cut the number one ag station is just incredible. They (college officials) have no vision.
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