Last November, Susan Combs was elected Texas' 10th commissioner of agriculture, the first woman to hold that post. A graduate of Vassar and the University of Texas Law School, she has been in the spotlight as a fourth-generation rancher, a prosecutor in the Dallas district attorney's office and a two-time state legislator who fought for landowners' property rights. Bringing her own type of energies to the Texas Department of Agriculture, Commissioner Combs promises to give Texas agriculture a high profile. She took time recently to answer my questions about what you can expect to hear about Texas' nursery products from her office.

Q Commissioner Combs, what are your particular interests?
A For the next 100-plus days, the Legislature meets. The longer term -- and more important -- is to promote Texas agricultural products. And that covers horticulture, food, fiber -- everything that is grown or raised in this state. That is uppermost in my mind.

Q What kind of marketing program are you talking about?
A I am trying to persuade significant public figures to agree to do free commercials on radio [and] TV to persuade people to 'buy Texas.' We have a very limited budget. It's all going to be free. If I get a public service announcement and the individual's time is free, then I may have to pay for some production, but after that I'm hoping that TV and radio will run them for free. Secondly, [the advertising agency] McCann-Erickson is going to give us the marketing strategy and the promotional program to sweep everything under one idea: a theme. And that, I think, will have a positive effect for all the segments -- horticulture, wine, food, fiber. I think we will get a little more push because we will have one dominant theme.

Q Outside the state?
A I'm starting within the state. And then we'll move it outside. It's obviously cost-driven. I won't be the one on the TV. I'm taking about serious public figures. I'm very excited about the level of public interest we're seeing. Texas is a very good selling tool.

Q Nationwide, intruders have gathered native plants indiscriminately and have caused landowners concern when they have 'discovered' endangered species. You have been an advocate of property rights. What's happening here now?
A There has been a real shift in public access [to private property] over the last 25 years, because the consequences of opening your doors to somebody [after which environmental regulations ensued] have made people shut their gates. From the perspective of science, that's not very good. There has been some legislation that addresses the problem. I've written some, and some others have that addresses the problem. If you give permission to somebody and they come and gather information, there are some very good exceptions to the Open Records Act. So you can keep the information quiet.

Part of it has been that you don't want somebody finding that you've got this Indian mound and everybody comes along and starts lifting arrowheads. I spotted a guy in my pasture with backpacks on whose whole purpose was to collect endangered cacti. That's not good for the species. My goal is to preserve the species, and sometimes limited information is the way to do it. I really think that you will find that most landowners across the state are not only good stewards, but they want to be even better ones.

Q Imported fire ants have truly become a national concern, now that the insects have been found in California. Texas has been looked on as a leader in fire ant research. What are TDA's plans?
A I believe [the Legislature] will [appropriate] $2.5 million a year for fire ants. I think that will be done again this year. There is good support for that. The question is whether there is support for doubling it. Fire ants are a serious problem, causing about $300 million a year in annual losses. We had thought at one time that there would be some federal money. The prediction at one point was $16 million over four years, or $4 million a year for research, and that kind of went away. So basically the burden is on our back.

Q What are your considerations regarding pesticide regulations?
A TDA is very involved with the Texas Pest Management Association and IPM. I think there is a real interest in both maintaining applicability as well as being realistic retrenched. What are our options? I met with a group recently and specifically brought up the question of folks in town -- homeowners. This group wanted to do some data gathering only for farmers and ranchers. If it's important for one, it's important for the other. There's a real unknown effect to folks in towns, and no one's looking at it. And a lot of folks in agriculture think, 'treat us the same.' And there's not been any concerted effort to treat the folks in town the same, and yet the belief is that the use [of pesticides] is widespread as well as enormous -- maybe substantially greater than out in the country. In town, [pesticide use] is essentially unregulated. You never know. People have no idea whether you are using four cans of [a pesticide] or one can. Nobody checks, and there is no way presently to find out.

Q Do you think there will be any investigation to quantify the use of pesticides by homeowners?
A No, I don't think so. I don't think there is a public will. I don't see the collective public sense that, 'Gosh, I want to open my doors to a guy in a white uniform to check my yard for pesticides.'

Q Do you think NAFTA benefited or harmed horticulture?
A I think NAFTA's benefits as well as effects vary by commodity and by region. I think a lot of the big cities like Dallas and Fort Worth are very happy with NAFTA. I think as you get closer to the border there are some concerns about it. Fast track [giving President Clinton the authority to negotiate trade deals] is still up in the air [in Congress]. A lot of people say we're losing jobs, they're all going south. And yet are our benefits balanced by the outflow?

Q What is your thinking on state-supported agricultural research funding?
A Of course, I like ag research. From a producer's perspective, they like very near-term, practical research. And that's because those guys are in a ditch. And they do need near-term, sort of nonacademic [results] instantly, whether it's fire ants or Pierce's disease for the grape people or mohair use. Lots of things are very important.

Long term, I'd like to also see research look at giving us a database from which we can helpfully analyze regulations. There should also be research down the road on things like biotechnology. There is a whole lot of things we should do in ag research, and I hope the public finds it interesting and useful. I think it's interesting and useful. [Applied] research has a real benefit to producers. Ag research for plants that can be grown elsewhere, heat-resistant, drought-tolerant, cold-resistant -- all of those things are very important to long-time agriculture.

But we also need research into such things as water delivery. If we don't have much water, how do we get by? Can we do it differently? What kind of water conservation measures work in various locations? There is a host of issues and everybody is grabbing for dollars. And I just hope our fingers are stickier than theirs.

© 1999 Branch-Smith Publishing