University and Industry Roles in Extension Teaching into the Future

With decreasing extension funding and capacity from traditional university, state, and federal sources, two trends are occurring in floriculture outreach.  These include (a) direct outreach delivery by industry, (b) marketing of extension content, primarily by publishing firms, and (c) university-industry consortia with industry sponsorship.  Direct outreach by industry has obvious potential bias.  However, established allied sectors such as plant breeding/seed or cutting suppliers, media, fertilizer, and chemical companies have PhD-trained technical managers, many of whom have served an “academic internship” as faculty before moving to industry.  Publishing firms provide website resources to market and deliver online and printed content from university and industry content providers.  The Water Education Alliance for Horticulture (watereducationalliance.org) is an example of a consortium led by the University of Florida, with academic collaborators from multiple institutions, and funding by 17 companies. The Alliance aims to help growers conserve irrigation water and manage water quality issues through a website, workshops, webinars, articles, newsletters, and grower tools. University benefits from a consortium approach include: a secure and ongoing funding stream; funding from multiple competitive sources reduces potential bias compared with a few dominant industry sources (“coopetition”); input by motivated stakeholders on extension and research priorities; marketing of the program by sponsors; and participation by industry experts in workshops and extension materials.  Companies benefit from ready access to research priorities and outputs, credibility from association with the university, marketing exposure through sponsor recognition in extension outputs.  There are potential pitfalls for extension such as: conflicts of interest between private interest and the public unbiased, and science-based mission; the need for ongoing entrepreneurial effort to maintain funding; and lack of recognition in tenure and promotion of this funding stream.