PUBLIC 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