We couldn't have said it better ourselves. An article posted yesterday on the AgAlert Web site, titled "Farmers and UC  researchers make a great team," outlines the working relationships that UC Cooperative Extension farm advisors have forged with the state's farmers.

Writer Ching Lee, the assistant editor at AgAlert, begins the story with the Mellano farm family in San Diego County. Michael Mellano and his wife Valerie are both UC Riverside-educated plant pathologists. Valerie Mellano is an environmental issues advisor for the UCCE in San Diego County.

"The impact that the university has on agricultural production is very significant," said Michael Mellano, whose grandfather founded the family-owned and operated business in 1925, according to the AgAlert article. "The reason our farm has developed the way it has is because of the Cooperative Extension and the things that they've done over the years."

Ching writes that farmers and researchers have long depended on each other. Farmers look to researchers for advice on everything from fighting bugs and diseases in their crops to finding new technologies and practices that could help their farms be more efficient, cost effective and competitive in the world market.

The articles continues: "By the same token, researchers rely on the expertise and acumen of farmers to tell them about the latest pest that's decimating their crops or help them with an experiment that requires the farmer's cooperation."

The article also quotes UC Davis Cooperative Extension specialist Michael Reid, UC Davis plant sciences researcher Susanne Klose, UC Davis specialist Husein Ajwa, UC Riverside plant pathologist Don Cooksey and staff reseacher associate for UCCE in San Diego County James Bethke.