The Value of Veggies

My friend Bobby has started an indoor vegetable garden in his dorm room. He's growing chives, tomatoes, radishes, and arugula to save some money and hopefully develop a liking for vegetables. Sounds like a good investment if it works out.

The state makes a similar investment each year, only on a much larger scale: around $87 million. That is the state contribution to the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) at the University of Georgia. To be clear, this is separate from the $46.7 million in state funds for the Department of Agriculture. Today I only want to talk about CAES.

Let me set aside my Georgia Tech bias against anything UGA-related as I consider this investment. I'll admit that the 1816 CAES students, with their 1216 average SAT score and 3.86 average gpa, seem a bright bunch. About 79% are in-state students, and 95% of the in-state freshmen are on the HOPE Scholarship. Of the state funds for CAES, $12.6 million are used for instruction, so the state is subsidizing these students' education nearly $7000 per student per year, above and beyond their HOPE funding.

Instruction is the smallest chunk of the funding. The remainder is split between research ($40.5 million) and Cooperative Extension ($33.6 million). Cooperative Extension refers to community outreach, dissemination of information, testing and diagnostics, and trainings for farmers, ranchers, producers, and the general public. If Bobby wanted advice about his vegetable garden, for instance, he could call 1-800-ASK-UGA1. Or he could take 40 hours of horticulture courses for home gardeners through the Georgia Master Gardener Program.

Education, research, and outreach are theoretically some of the best forward-thinking investments. But often it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of spending in these areas, and more money doesn't necessarily mean better results. But CAES is making a tremendous effort to demonstrate their impact. They have a searchable database of hundreds of Impact Statements. Writing from Atlanta, it's easy to forget that 29% of Georgia's land is devoted to agriculture. I really had no idea why so much continued agricultural research would be needed. But these impact statements, with titles like "Biorational Nematicides," "Blueberry Replant Fumigation Trials," and "Pecan Root Borer Trapping Made Easy" showed me how little I know.

Interested in undergraduate or graduate studies at CAES? Check out their scholarships or make a campus visit.