The Agricultural Scientific Enterprise

The State Agricultural Experiment Stations have played a fundamental role in the development of science and agriculture in the United States. From their inception in 1887, the experiment stations have attempted to wed basic research with practical application and have helped institutionalize a utilitarian approach to agricultural science. Agricultural research and the new technology it helped to generate were major factors in the transformation of U.S. agriculture into a high technology, mechanized, science-based industry. Moreover, the experiment stations, as the first large-scale, publicly supported scientific research institutions in the United States, have also long been models for scientific institutions both here and abroad. Compiled for the 1987 centennial of the State Agricultural Experiment Stations, this volume critically examines past performance, current issues, and future directions for public agricultural research in the United States. Each of the authors, drawn from disciplines as diverse as philosophy and agronomy, focuses on a central concern for the scientific enterprise. Issues include priority setting, maintaining and promoting disciplinary and interdisciplinary effectiveness, supporting higher education for agriculture, and efficacious dissemination of research findings. By setting these issues in their historical and philosophical context, the volume suggests new approaches for meeting the continuing challenge to achieve equity, efficiency, sustainability, flexibility, conservation, and consistency with other objectives of U.S. society.

The State Agricultural Experiment Stations have played a fundamental role in the development of science and agriculture in the United States. From their inception in 1887, the experiment stations have attempted to wed basic research with practical application and have helped institutionalize a utilitarian approach to agricultural science. Agricultural research and the new technology it helped to generate were major factors in the transformation of U.S. agriculture into a high technology, mechanized, science-based industry. Moreover, the experiment stations, as the first large-scale, publicly supported scientific research institutions in the United States, have also long been models for scientific institutions both here and abroad. Compiled for the 1987 centennial of the State Agricultural Experiment Stations, this volume critically examines past performance, current issues, and future directions for public agricultural research in the United States. Each of the authors, drawn from disciplines as diverse as philosophy and agronomy, focuses on a central concern for the scientific enterprise. Issues include priority setting, maintaining and promoting disciplinary and interdisciplinary effectiveness, supporting higher education for agriculture, and efficacious dissemination of research findings. By setting these issues in their historical and philosophical context, the volume suggests new approaches for meeting the continuing challenge to achieve equity, efficiency, sustainability, flexibility, conservation, and consistency with other objectives of U.S. society.

As we look across the 21st century, we see that agriculture faces a series of new challenges that will require a renewed commitment to innovation and advanced technology development. Private industry will play an important role in the research required to meet these challenges, just as it does today in areas directly related to product development. But much of the necessary research is unlikely to result in new products in a time horizon short enough to incent the private sector to shoulder the entire research burden. Moreover, many of these challenges are clearly in the public domain, as they focus on critical public goods, such as long-term water security; integrated pest-management strategies; or the development of new varieties of livestock, cereal, vegetable, and cover crops that commercial enterprises may not have an interest in. In many cases, important benefits of agricultural research cannot be monetized, making them an unlikely focus for the private sector. These challenges require a public commitment to re-imagining agricultural research in this country. The United States requires an agriculture system that (1) meets its population's needs in long-term balance with its natural resource base and (2) fosters a culture of innovation and excellence to address some of the greatest threats to its long-term prosperity and domestic and international security. In this report we explore these emerging challenges to agriculture and examine the roles that public and private investments in agricultural research can contribute to the sustainability of agriculture over the next century. We also examine the structure of the existing Federally supported agricultural research enterprise and discuss possible ways to reshape public investment in agricultural research to best face the challenges ahead.

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For nearly a century, scientific advances have fueled progress in U.S. agriculture to enable American producers to deliver safe and abundant food domestically and provide a trade surplus in bulk and high-value agricultural commodities and foods. Today, the U.S. food and agricultural enterprise faces formidable challenges that will test its long-term sustainability, competitiveness, and resilience. On its current path, future productivity in the U.S. agricultural system is likely to come with trade-offs. The success of agriculture is tied to natural systems, and these systems are showing signs of stress, even more so with the change in climate. More than a third of the food produced is unconsumed, an unacceptable loss of food and nutrients at a time of heightened global food demand. Increased food animal production to meet greater demand will generate more greenhouse gas emissions and excess animal waste. The U.S. food supply is generally secure, but is not immune to the costly and deadly shocks of continuing outbreaks of food-borne illness or to the constant threat of pests and pathogens to crops, livestock, and poultry. U.S. farmers and producers are at the front lines and will need more tools to manage the pressures they face. Science Breakthroughs to Advance Food and Agricultural Research by 2030 identifies innovative, emerging scientific advances for making the U.S. food and agricultural system more efficient, resilient, and sustainable. This report explores the availability of relatively new scientific developments across all disciplines that could accelerate progress toward these goals. It identifies the most promising scientific breakthroughs that could have the greatest positive impact on food and agriculture, and that are possible to achieve in the next decade (by 2030).

Many friends, colleagues, and research staff members have directly and indirectly contributed to this book. It is impossible to acknowledge the contribution of each. Still, we would like to recognize several persons as well as institutions that have been particularly helpful. Research funds were provided by the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station and by the Ford Foundation. John Myers of the Current Research Information System provided us with a computer tape listing current projects. Carolyn Sachs was extremely helpful in coordinating the mail survey of scientists. Christian Ritter, Lisa Slatin, and Bobbie Sparks assisted in coding the data. Ann Stockham developed the index and also organized the data. Janet Baynham, Sue Lewis, and Greg Taylor aided in the voluminous computer programming and statistical analysis. Rosemary Cheek typed most of the manuscript. Marlene Pettit, Michael Claycomb, Deborah Wheeler, and Penny Hogue also assisted in the typing. Janice Taylor aided in the manuscript typing and ran interference on much of the administrative detail.

This book contains new ideas on farming processes, describes new analytical methods that are applicable to a broad range of agricultural systems, and presents new technologies and solutions, which help agricultural systems to function in the modern conditions of digitalization and a changing climate. The results of scientific research presented within the framework of the conference “Fundamental and Applied Scientific Research in the Development of Agriculture in the Far East (AFE-2021)”, which took place in Ussuriysk, Russia are covering the following topics: precision livestock farming, farm management platforms, yield monitoring and estimation, IoTs in farming, water management, smart agriculture machines. These new ideas outlined in the book are future-oriented and are expected to stimulate community debate on determining future directions for advancing agricultural research worldwide. The book is focused on the study of interactions between the components of agricultural systems, between their hierarchical levels, between different types of land use systems, and between agricultural systems and the economic environment. The methods and tools for agricultural systems design, estimation and monitoring are proposed in this book. Studies presented here allow improving the environmental and economic performance of agricultural systems. This book is of particular importance for professionals, scholars, and researchers in the field of agriculture and livestock farming, as well as for the heads and top managers of agricultural enterprises, since materials described in the book will help them in making right decisions.