Add It Up

From developing disease-resistant crop varieties to addressing day-to-day questions and crises for agricultural producers, faculty, researchers and extension experts with the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences provide both real-time support and long-term strategies that contribute to the success of Georgia’s No. 1 industry.

Andy Harrison (BSA – Animal Science, ’75), commodities commission manager with the Georgia Department of Agriculture, said Georgia’s agriculture industry has wide-ranging needs, and access to the latest knowledge and expertise from the university is of incalculable value.

“Agriculture in Georgia is very diverse, from poultry to row crops to vegetables and produce to timber and fruit and tree nuts. We also have a diverse climate and challenges in different regions and having a resource like the University of Georgia is really important because of that,” Harrison said. When unexpected problems arise — whether it is herbicide-resistant pigweed threatening cotton crops or spotted wing drosophila attacking the state’s burgeoning blueberry industry — having CAES researchers available in all corners of the state can mean the difference between losing a crop or saving it.

“If there is a pest or a disease showing up on the radar that producers don’t know a lot about, we can depend on UGA researchers to get on top of it and to find out what the threat is and how to combat it,” Harrison said.

From UGA Cooperative Extension specialists to specialty research and management teams for all of the state’s major commodities, CAES provides tangible value to producers.

“They’re not sitting in offices — their shoes have dirt on them,” Harrison said. “These researchers have great working relationships with the farms and our producers want to know what the latest news is coming from UGA.”

The true value the college’s applied research is proven by the willingness of producers to fund research projects at UGA.

“(CAES) and Extension offer a lot of services in Georgia that a lot of other states don’t have and those producers have to rely on industry to provide support. There are certain things a university can and will do that industry will not do if it does not meet their financial objectives,” Harrison said. “It is a strong statement that the farmers in our state are willing to invest their own money in this research through our commodity commissions.”

In addition to the applied research being done at CAES, Harrison said the basic science being done in the labs is just as important to the future of agriculture in the state.

“There are a number of projects going on with nutrition and developing new plant varieties that are really fascinating and, hopefully, will put more money into the pockets of farmers and help them become better producers,” Harrison said.

While producers and industry professionals understand the value to the agriculture industry, quantifying the impact of work done at CAES on the state is a mammoth undertaking.

Formerly led by agriculture and applied economics Professor Jeffrey Dorfman, a team within CAES gathers information from throughout the college’s many endeavors to calculate the economic impact of the college to the state.

“We collect a lot of data from the university, looking at things that bring extra money into the state and that increase human capital in the state by creating new jobs or improving efficiency or productivity. We crunch those numbers to show the impact of our teaching programs and the value of our degrees, our research functions and our public service and outreach programs based on the value they create for Georgia’s citizens,” said Dorfman, who also serves as Georgia’s state fiscal economist. “This shows the state legislature and the taxpayers that the university does a lot of good for the economy of the state beyond educating students.”

In 2018, Dorfman’s report estimated that, overall, UGA has an economic impact of $6.3 billion annually on the Georgia economy through a combination of its teaching, research and public service and outreach programs. Of that total, CAES was responsible for $628 million in impact to the state including $236 million in teaching, $143 million in research, and $249 million in public service and outreach.

“This economic impact is a reflection only of truly new impacts, jobs and spending that would not exist in Georgia without the presence of UGA,” Dorfman wrote in the 2018 report. “While this report has documented the large economic impact that the University of Georgia has on the state economy, it is also important to remember that many university programs — such as Georgia 4-H — likely create economic impacts that we have not been able to estimate. Leadership formation and the increase of civic capital, both things that UGA helps produce, have large social impacts that complement economic impact, as well as likely creating economic impact in ways that are too complex to document.”

Adam Rabinowitz, assistant professor of agricultural and applied economics at the UGA Tifton campus, has helped spearhead a pilot program over the past year to calculate the economic impact specifically for Extension programs.

“We have started a pilot program to measure some common questions we can use to get information from stakeholders on the adoption of information being provided to them from our programs and self-reported information on what financial benefit they may be getting in addition to that knowledge gain,” Rabinowitz said.

Data was gathered from commodity-specific agriculture meetings held throughout the year, as well as from Extension, 4-H and environmental education programs held in every county.

“We hope this information will show that what we do has an impact on our producers in Georgia but will allow us to talk about the impact beyond agriculture as well,” he said. “Our 4-H programs benefit young children who go off to college and who are potentially getting higher paying jobs. On the family and consumer sciences side, we are supporting working families who need help with nutrition and budgeting. This complements the information we are gathering on the impact of research and teaching to dig deeper into the impact of Extension on our population.”