Agricultural research and education ended 100 years of funding under the Hatch Act with a decade of unprecedented criticism of goals and outcomes. This paper examines the way that planners can accommodate some of these criticisms within a framework for understanding the ethical and social goals of agriculture that is consistent with traditional practice. The paper goes on to state that some criticisms are so fundamental that they cannot be readily incorporated into this framework. They must be regarded as a (...) challenge, both politically and intellectually, to longstanding practices within academic institutions devoted to agriculture. (shrink)