Bailouts. Credit crunches. Layoffs, foreclosures and market crashes. Happy New Year!

2009 will be a year of scrimping and saving for everyone. We’re all making tough choices, trying to balance what comes in with what goes out. It’s happening at kitchen tables and board rooms across the state. And it’s happening at the Statehouse.

Gov. Ted Strickland and the legislature are about to write a new two-year budget. They’re facing the same challenges as Ohio’s families and businesses, except with a lot more zeros. The next biennial budget projects a deficit as high as $7,300,000,000.

$7.3 billion is a deep hole. How deep? The governor asked for $5 billion in federal aid. Without it, he said, “We will see the disintegration of our state.”

With almost half the state’s budget going for things like Medicaid and debt service that are considered untouchable, there’s not a lot left for roads, schools, jails, parks and the thousands of other things we expect from our government. Budgeting is never easy; this year it will be a nightmare. Advocates and average citizens will be in the ears of policymakers, making their case for a piece of a severely shrunken pie. Farm Bureau will be there too, with a recipe to elevate Ohio beyond just a fight over crumbs.

Our belief is that wise investment now will assure a more prosperous future with better paying jobs, people with more money to spend and ultimately adequate tax revenues. Farm Bureau’s advice to budgeters: be judicious when choosing what to keep and what to cut.

Two keepers are the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) and Ohio State University Extension. These two institutions deliver knowledge and skills to our entire food chain. And they deliver jobs.

Those jobs are in research, manufacturing, finance, transportation, marketing, farming and a variety of other industries. They are jobs that turn farm grown crops and livestock into fuel, plastics, medicines, lubricants, clean energy and hundreds of other valuable goods. Scientists, factory workers, farmers, technicians, secretaries, bankers, waitresses, lawyers, truck drivers and clerks are employed in this bio-based industry. But without OARDC and Extension, we stand to limit this industry’s potential.

These two functions of Ohio State University are the foundation of an effective public-private partnership. OARDC and Extension do basic science, develop new technologies and then deliver that knowledge into the private sector where businesses, entrepreneurs and farmers end up writing paychecks, making some profit and paying taxes. So far, this time-proven system has helped build the agbioresource industry into an $96 billion contributor to Ohio. And this emerging industry can contribute even more economically, environmentally and socially, if we support it politically.

 

During the budget battle, all of us need to make the argument that OARDC and Extension are crucial investments in Ohio’s future. We should remind policymakers that of the state’s current $27 billion annual budget, these two line items are around $60 million.

That’s about 22 cents out of every $100 of state spending.

That relatively small amount of money buys Ohio safe and affordable food, clean air and water, homegrown renewable energy, open space, better health, better nutrition, young leaders and stronger communities. And it provides Ohioans with a whole lot of good jobs. We’re not asking for a bailout, just some wise choices.