Sunday, May 29, 2011

Advocacy strategies for open access to agricultural research

Many thanks to students in my LIBR 559K class this spring (the open access class) for a great discussion on advocacy strategies for open access to the agricultural literature. Following is a summary of the discussion, posted with permission of the class, which will be cross-posted to the course blog.

Advocacy strategies for open access to the agricultural literature - summary of class discussion


Tension between public good and agribusiness - talking points

  • taxpayer funding
  • impacts everyone - whole world - we all eat (are food consumers)
  • food security / avoiding starvation and famine
  • food safety
  • how much funding to research on turf & lawn as compared to food? what's more important?
  • linkages with health and environmental science
  • counter to disinformation (e.g. pesticides)
  • agribusiness - tie conditions to subsidies?

Agriculture as a public good - possible alliances

  • small / family farms
  • rural populations
  • organic farmers
  • farmers' market customers

Strategies for talking with agricultural researchers

  • medicine has prestige and lots of OA / good role model
  • can the farmers who might benefit from this research access your articles?
  • adapting information to local conditions (an argument for re-use?)