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?)