Exploration of the University-Community Relationship in the Field of Organic Production in Argentina

Abstract

The growing demand of organic production at a world-wide level is seen as an opportunity for organic producers from developing countries. Although organic agriculture is seen as the sector with the biggest growth, it is widely accepted that the lack of institutional support in research and development, as well as in the training of agricultural assessors, constitutes a serious limitation to the expansion of this activity. The conditions in universities that tend to prioritize activities connected with research and development (R&D) and aimed at innovation, are determined increasingly by the advance of private financing; this constitutes an important limitation to the expansion of activities that respond to interests of medium and long term of a part of the wide spectrum that constitutes the farming sector. In this context, this work aims at exploring the current status of the university-business relation in the area of organic production in Argentina. Using two opinion surveys directed to faculties of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine og local public and private universities, it was verified that R&D activities, as was well as the capacities acquired by the professionals during their undergraduate education, do not completely satisfy the demands of the productive sector.