From the Harvester, February 1968

AG’S GOLDEN GOOSE STARVING

Price said Florida’s golden goose is the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida, and it is starving because the 1967 Legislature did not provide adequate funds for operation.

“I know that members of the House and Senate are most anxious to promote more and better payrolls,” he said. “To promote more investment of capital, to promote more purchase of supplies and materials and the payment of more taxes to the state.

“Florida’s fields and ranges produced goods valued at more than $1.4 billion,” the senator said. And this figure doesn’t take in the other phases of agribusiness – seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, food machinery companies, consulting, caretaking and banking firms, etc.

The former senator said agriculture became Florida’s biggest business with a valuable assist from the new procedures, products and methods that came from hard-working personnel of the agencies under the Institute.

Treated like stepchild

Price said the Institute, which helps Florida’s biggest industry to grow and prosper and produce more payrolls and more taxes, is treated like a stepchild. He gave these facts to support the charge.

… In Apopka, the foliage plant laboratory, for which money was provided by the 1965 Legislature, sits empty and padlocked. The director is working in a building that is condemned. This situation exists because the 1967 Legislature did not see fit, after executive veto, to provide the required funds.

… The Board of Regents proposed a realistic budget for the Institute, and submitted it to the Budget Commission prior to the 1967 legislative session. The commission reduced this request by $6,688,000.

… More than 40 organizations such as the Florida Council of 100, Florida State Chamber of Commerce, etc., asked the cabinet members who make up the Budget Commission to change their stand. Six of seven did and acted to restore the cut. The Legislature approved the restoration of 26 percent of the cuts, but the governor vetoed this action.

… A supplemental bill to provide funds for the Apopka and Marianna stations was introduced and passed the Legislature. The governor vetoed this bill also.

Pay Difference

…. Differences in pay for agricultural educators and their counterparts in other fields represent the worst kind of inequity, the senator said. The average salary of Institute personnel was $1,300 below that of their counterparts at the University, he said.

Price told his audience that the best brains would continue to leave the university until this salary differential was rectified and the vacant positions would remain vacant or be filled with mediocre personnel.

The senator urged members of the council to check the relationship of agricultural agencies and businesses in their counties and make up their minds if a lack of adequate research will kill the golden goose.

He said, “Don’t wait until 1969 to adequately provide for the needs of those we must depend upon for research, for education, for protection. I urge you to provide for those needs the next time this Legislature is in any type of session in Tallahassee, and all of Florida agribusiness will support such action.”