The clientele for its teaching, research, and extension was once mostly farmers, ranchers, and other rural citizens. Today, the audience includes all of society. Similarly, issues facing the land grant institutions are no longer strictly agricultural, for even the smallest of controversies has implications reaching far beyond the farm gate.
Many issues are larger and more complex than ever before.
They're mega-issues because they involve so many different but interrelated factors. Mega-issues call for a new, broad, interdisciplinary approach. This article describes the model for such an approach developed over the past several years at the University of California Agricultural Issues Center. The controversary surrounding growth and change in California's Central Valley offers a textbook case of a mega- issue. California's Central Valley is taking more than its share of the state's burgeoning population growth and economic boom with resulting adverse impacts on the resource base and the valley's agricultural system.