Table Of ContentPUBLIC POLICY AND AGRICULTURAL
TECHNOLOGY
POLICY STUDIES ORGANIZATION SERIES
General Editor: Stuart S. Nagel, Professor of Political Science, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Sheldon H. Danziger and Kent E. Portney (editors)
THE DISTRIBUTIONAL IMP ACTS OF PUBLIC POLICIES
Don F. Hadwiger and William P. Browne (editors)
PUBLIC POLICY AND AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY: Adversity
Despite Achievement
Richard C. Hula (editor)
MARKET-BASED PUBLIC POLICY
Rita Mae Kelly (editor)
PROMOTING PRODUCTIVITY IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR: Problems,
Strategies and Prospects
Fred Lazin, Samuel Aroni and Yehuda Gradus (editors)
DEVELOPING AREAS AND PUBLIC POLICY
J. David Roessner (editor)
GOVERNMENT INNOVATION POLICY: Design, Implementation, Evaluation
Public Policy and
Agricultural
Technology
Adversity Despite Achievement
Edited by
Don F. Hadwiger
Professor of Political Science
Iowa State University
and
William P. Browne
Professor of Political Science
Central Michigan University
in association with the
PALGRAV E MACMILLAN
ISBN 978-1-349-09522-3 ISBN 978-1-349-09520-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-09520-9
©Policy Studies Organization 1987
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1987 978-0-333-44192-3
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly & Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1987
ISBN 978-0-312-00748-5
Library Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Public policy and agricultural technology.
{Policy Studies Organization series)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Agriculture-Research-Government policy
United States. 2. Agriculture-Research-Government
policy. 3. Agriculture-Research-United States.
I. Hadwiger, Don F. II. Browne, William Paul,
1945- . III. Policy Studies Organization.
IV. Series.
S54l.P83 1987 630'.72073 87-4323
ISBN 978-0-312-00748-5
Contents
Preface vii
Notes on the Contributors X
PART I AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH IN A POLICY
SETTING
1 Introduction 3
Don F. Hadwiger and William P. Browne
2 Constituents and Constituencies: An Overview of the
History of Public Agricultural Research Institutions in
America 15
Alan I. Marcus
PART II THINKING ABOUT AGRICULTURAL AND
RESEARCH ALTERNATIVES
3 Inefficiency and Structural Adjustment in American
Agriculture: Who Will Quit and Why? 33
Carlisle Ford Runge
4 Moving from Yesterday's Agricultural Technology:
Alternative Farming Systems in Perspective 53
I. Garth Youngberg
PART III CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES AND
CONFLICT
5 Political Support for National and International Public
Research 67
Hemchandra Gajbhiye and Don F. Hadwiger
6 An Emerging Opposition? Agricultural Interests and
Federal Research Policy 81
William P. Browne
PART IV THE PROSPECTS FOR AGENDA CHANGE
7 Toward a New Covenant for Agricultural Academe 93
J. Patrick Madden
v
Vl Contents
8 Biotechnology and International Development:
Prospects for Overcoming Dependence in the
Information Age 109
Frederick H. Butte! and Martin Kenney
Author Index 122
Subject Index 125
Preface
This book was written at an exceptionally dramatic and paradoxical
time in the history of agricultural research. Nations throughout the
world are on the verge of rapidly expanding food production for
numerous basic commodities. At the same time, however, farmers
and national economics are already being damaged by the problems
of food surplus on an international scale. Agricultural research,
playing center stage in this world food situation, has become both a
miracle worker and villain in the eyes of many.
This relatively short book addresses both the major problems and
major issues of agricultural research and its public policy implica
tions. The editors explain current conditions in the introductory
chapter. We want to point out primarily that agricultural research
produces both political winners and losers and, as a consequence,
supporters and critics. Chapter 2, by Alan I. Marcus, traces the
development of American public research institutions in terms of
support from winners and the benefits winners derived. This analysis
is particularly important because the model for international agricul
tural development comes directly from these research institutions. In
short, US winners have often been duplicated worldwide, a factor
that many find objectionable in a world of pluralistic food needs.
Part II of the book turns to contemporary problems and alternative
agricultural approaches. C. Ford Runge, in Chapter 3, lays out the
need for considering alternatives. He notes that recent financial
problems in agriculture result from investments in high-technology,
capital-intensive farming. Correctives cannot be applied by current
economic/agricultural policy instruments, and the results are liable to
force many of the best educated and most technically proficient
farmers out of business. Will the implications be manageable for
American agriculture in its present condition?
With that question of sustainability in mind, Garth Youngberg
turns to an analysis of alternatives in Chapter 4. Without retreating to
such restrictive practices as organic farming, because such a position
would surely doom alternative agriculture, Youngberg argues for
balance. Specifically, he wants policy-makers to look at the basic
implications of biological research on a widespread basis, much like
Runge did on behalf of one variable, the producer.
Is it likely that policy-makers will respond? The next two chap-
Vll
viii Preface
ters, in Part III, suggest that they might give serious consideration to
issues currently under debate. Chapter 5 by Hemchandra Gajbhiye
and Don Hadwiger examines the present basis of political support for
high technology research. Their focus is both national and interna
tional. Challenges are forthcoming, they predict, if the food benefits
are not clearly articulated as worthwhile in terms of obvious social
costs. In Chapter 6, Bill Browne examines these criticisms more
specifically in terms of American agricultural policy results. He finds
complaints growing in number and importance but, as yet, lacking a
committed constituency for change.
The final part of the book, in light of these criticisms and policy
complaints, turns to the prospects for policy change. J. Patrick
Madden, in Chapter 7, challenges the agricultural academy from
economists to agronomists to address the implications of their work.
They are the ones best equipped to do so and most in place for a
self-policing review. Few others, our other authors suggest, have
either the insights or economic interests to undertake this review.
Chapter 8, by Frederick H. Butte! and Martin Kenney, looks at
facilitating agricultural institutions in developing countries as vehicles
for making biotechnological breakthroughs work where the green
revolution failed earlier. To accomplish meaningful change in those
countries, their governments will actively have to deliver technology
and ensure its proper use. Without the same diligence and resolve
called for earlier by Madden, there will be more failures than suc
cesses in resolving the past and present dilemmas of agricultural
research.
We feel that our authors have brought together eight suggestive
and insightful papers. Their comments and findings should be studied
carefully by those who have either unrestrained enthusiasm for or
great suspicions of the future directions of agricultural research. To
concentrate on the negative and forget the historical benefits of
research would be a mistake of disastrous proportions. To ignore the
agricultural research establishment in its time of greatest controversy
and adversity would be a disservice for all who have and will continue
to benefit from its very real contributions. Nor do we want to ignore
its fallacies, however. This is the conclusion of all of us and the
central reason why we participated in this project.
In addition to thanking our authors, Hadwiger and Browne wish to
acknowledge a few others. Kenneth R. Farrell, Director of the
National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy of Resources for
the Future, supported this project financially and with counsel. So
Preface ix
too did the Economic Research Service of the United States Depart
ment of Agriculture, the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station, and
the Farm Foundation. We owe much to their ongoing institutional
concern for agricultural policy.
DON F. HADWIGER
WILLIAM P. BROWNE
