From "Notes From a Subterranean Library in Oregon," a compilation of Ray Peat's newspaper letters and columns, compiled by T3Uncoupled (2023). Originally published 1985.

Ray Peat, "Bad partnership", p. 50

Your article of March 15, discussing a conspiracy to promote the use of poison sprays, illuminates a more general problem. There is a trend toward a kind of partnership between some big universities and corporations which use new technologies; the people involved assure us that this trend will benefit the public — the consumers — but there is good reason to doubt their objectivity and their correctness. A Central California farmer who changed from chemical to organic methods, and now sells most of his products competitively to the ordinary supermarkets, has pointed out that the state universities which have spent so much public money to promote the agricultural methods favored by the chemical industry had absolutely no information to offer him to help in his conversion to completely natural methods. By eliminating the use of expensive chemicals, he saved enough to compete effectively in the market, in spite of the large research establishment which works closely with his competitors. How much more cheaply could he produce food if he could have the advantage of research financed largely by the public? If the state universities act as agents of the chemical industry, should they receive public money? Public finance should function as a counter-balance to the private money which buys the research it wants. Entire institutions can be swayed by the financial leverage of their “patrons.” When professors, who are agents of the state, accept any research funds from private industry, and then participate in any government decision which affects the profits of that industry, it certainly doesn’t look good.