NC_old1034: Impact Analyses and Decision Strategies for Agricultural Research (NC1034)

(Multistate Research Project)

Status: Inactive/Terminating

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SAES-422 Reports

Annual/Termination Reports:

[01/11/2018] [09/13/2018] [08/19/2019]

Date of Annual Report: 01/11/2018

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 02/24/2017 - 02/25/2017
Period the Report Covers: 10/01/2016 - 09/30/2017

Participants

Kate Binzen Fuller (Montana State University),
W. J. Florkowski (University of Georgia)
Ariel Ortiz-Bobea (Cornell University)
Keith Meyers (University of Arizona)
David Bullock (University of Illinois)
John Miranowski (Iowa State University)
Brian Wright (University of California, Berkeley)
Gal Hochman (Rutgers University)
Juan Sesmero (Iowa State University)
Yoo-Hwan Lee (Colorado State University)
Greg Graff (Colorado State University)
Wallace E. Huffman (Iowa State University)
Vincent Smith (Montana State University)
Raja Sarkar (University of Arizona)
Richard Perrin (University of Nebraska)
Lilyan Fulginiti (University of Nebraska)
Weide Wang (University of Arizona)
Asumi Saito (University of Arizona)
Troy Schmitz (Arizona State University)
Andrew Schmitz (University of Florida)
George Frisvold (University of Arizona)
Marshal Martin (Purdue University)
Dari Duval (University of Arizona)
Ashley Kerna (University of Arizona)

Brief Summary of Minutes

Minutes Attachment:

NC 1034 2017 Meeting Minutes.docx

Accomplishments

Short-term Outcomes Participants authored or were heavily cited in the publication: Shumway, C. Richard, Barbara M. Fraumeni, Lilyan E. Fulginiti, Jon D. Samuels, and Spiro E. Stefanou. "US Agricultural Productivity: A Review of USDA Economic Research Service Methods." Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 38, no. 1 (2016): 1-29. The study is an external review of a committee appointed by ERS and comprised of the authors of this article. The overarching goals of the review were to assess current practices used in assembling the agricultural productivity accounts, and to review how the USDA (a) documents its efforts and facilitates the ability to replicate and ensure comparability, (b) describes how the community of analysts and scholars use the accounts, (c) cooperates with other agencies to reduce duplication, achieve consistency across statistical series, obtain information at the lowest cost, and capitalize on research and expertise, and (d) establishes priorities subject to resource constraints. The USDA Economic Research Service has emerged as an acknowledged intellectual leader in the construction and integration of national and state-level productivity accounts in agriculture. The national and state-level ERS productivity measures are widely referred to and used, and international sectoral comparisons rely on the ERS production accounts for foundation methodology in constructing agricultural productivity accounts in other countries. This leadership role has endured for many decades and accelerated in response to the AAEA-USDA Task Force review of the agricultural productivity accounts. It is against this backdrop of vigorous intellectual leadership that an external review committee has examined the data sources, methodology, ongoing research, documentation, and reporting of the ERS agricultural productivity accounts. Our recommendations are many and some are substantial. Two of the most important recommendations address overarching concerns of documentation and efficiency, two more consider website communication of methods and data, and four focus on the renewal and construction of the state-level accounts.  Priority 1 Recommendations Overarching (1)   Fully document and keep current all procedures followed, from data sources through measurement of productivity change, to enable a non-expert to reproduce the accounts. (2)   Cooperate with other agencies to reduce duplication, achieve consistency across statistical series, obtain information at the lowest cost, and capitalize on research and expertise. Website (1)   Provide detailed documentation online and note ad hoc adjustments to data or deviations from the general procedure (e.g., if fixes were required due to negative implied capital rental rates). (2)   Expand the website to provide timely access to more detailed data and procedural detail underlying the quantity and price aggregate and sub-aggregate national and state-level statistics. State-level (1)   Continue to develop and publish the state-level total productivity measures as well as price and quantity series. (2)   Cooperate with other governmental agencies to achieve the lowest-cost method of collecting data of sufficient quality to enable the state-level accounts to be extended and maintained. (3)   Investigate the possibility of using information in the American Community Survey to update matrix elements in the state labor accounts. (4)   Ensure consistency between the national and state accounts where possible, and explain circumstances that prevent total consistency where it is not possible.   Priority 2 Recommendations  Labor (1)   Investigate the reasons for differences in the labor input calculations from those of Jorgenson, Ho, and Samuels (2014). (2)   Investigate the American Community Survey as an alternative, possibly complementary, data source, potentially in collaboration with BEA/BLS.  Non-land Capital (1)   Examine non-land capital nominal investment data in consultation with BEA researchers. (2)   Consider using one or more asset deflators in the calculation of expected inflation. (3)   Review investment deflators to determine if sources have been updated or revised since the data was last collected. (4)   Review average service lives of assets with BEA and BLS to determine if revisions should be made. (5)   Investigate whether the indexes of capital service flows during the 1975 – 1984 period reflect actual changes in capital service use rather than changes in the behavior of the bonds rate used in calculating the user cost of capital.  Land (1)   Explore ways to include within-county land-type adjustments, as well as quality changes given by, for example, irrigation or other improvements in farmland. (2)   Consistent with the recommendation for non-land capital, replace the GDP deflator used to capture general effects of inflation with a price index for land.  Outputs (1)   To account for the distorting effect of crop insurance when outputs are aggregated, add the insurance indemnity to the insured crop’s price and deduct the farmer’s premium. (2)   Revisit measurement issues related to own-account capital formation, specifically consistency between the output and input sides of the account.  Quality Adjustments (1)   Explore methods for incorporating quality adjustments to seeds and consider whether seed quality change should be treated solely as an input, or both an output and an input.   Cross-country comparisons (1)   Clarify that ERS cross-country comparisons are really research work, and establish whether they are an integral part of the ERS agenda.   Outputs Participants published more than 100 articles in peer-review journals in 2016.   Activities Project participants ·         Organized and contributed to a Choices special issue on herbicide resistant weeds. Choices is the principal outreach vehicle of AAEA (Agricultural and Applied Economics Association). ·         Organized and contributed to a special issue of Environmental Sustainability and Biotechnology: Introduction to AgBioForum Special Issue of the 19th ICABR Conference vol 19 no 2 ·         Contributed to Essays in Honor of Wallace Huffman, AgBioForum  vol 18 no 3 ·         Organized the workshop The Bio-Economy: Technology and Policy Path Forward. September 30 - October 1, 2016:  Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ ·         Organized The International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research 2016 annual conference Financing Innovation for Agriculture, Food, and the Bioeconomy: Business as Usual? June 26–29, 2016 Ravello Amalfi Coast – Italy.   These activities each involved multiple NC-1034 participants.   Milestones  1.      Contributions to Special Issue of AgBioForum on the Impacts of the Bioeconomy on Agricultural Sustainability, the Environment and Human Health. 2.      A full day pre-conference workshop on “Financing Innovation for the Bioeconomy” at the annual meeting of the International Consortium for Bioeconomy Research emphasizing the role for public-private partnerships, at the ICABR 20th annual conference in June 2016. A related agenda, with many of the same participants will be covered at two invited sessions at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association annual conference. 3.      Organization of annual research symposium, Tucson AZ, February 26-27.

Publications

Impact Statements

The USDA Economic Research Service has incorporated recommendations of the AAEA task force to improve measurement and presentation of data in the agency's total factor productivity, input, and output accounts. The AAEA task force was comprised of some NC-1034 members and made extensive use of comments by and research of NC-1034 members. The ERS accounts are the primary data source used to measure US national and state level productivity growth in agriculture.

Date of Annual Report: 09/13/2018

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 06/12/2018 - 06/12/2018
Period the Report Covers: 09/30/2016 - 10/01/2017

Participants

See meeting minutes

Participants Attachment:

NC 1034 2018 minutes.docx

Brief Summary of Minutes

Accomplishments

Short-term Outcomes <ul> <li>Research findings of NC-1034 participants was cited in testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture, and Research, March 16, 2017.</li> <li>Research findings of participants was cited in comments regarding the EPA’s Resistance Management Plan for dicamba use on cotton and soybeans (Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OPP-2016-0187, May 2016) submitted by the Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) and its affiliate associations.</li> </ul>   Outputs <ul> <li>Participants had more than 60 publications in peer-review journals in addition to several book chapters in scholarly edited volumes.</li> </ul>     Activities <ul> <li>NC-1034 participants were active in planning both the NC-1034 Pre-Conference and the main ICABR / World Bank Conference Disruptive Innovations, Value Chains, and Rural Development, June 12-15, 2018, Washington, DC.</li> <li>Multiple NC-1034 participants participated in editing and contributing chapters to Khanna, Madhu, and David Zilberman, eds. Handbook of Bioenergy Economics and Policy: Volume II: Modeling Land Use and Greenhouse Gas Implications. 40. Springer, 2017.</li> <li>Multiple NC-1034 participants were involved with organizing and presenting research at an all-day Mini-Symposium on Social and Economic Aspects of IPM as part of the 9th international IPM Symposium, March 19-22, Baltimore Maryland.</li> </ul>   Milestones <ul> <li>NC-1034 participants have collaborated with the USDA Office of Energy Policy and New Uses to develop several fact sheets on bioenergy technologies and products.</li> <li>Participants were active in organizing and presenting research findings at “Bioeconomy in Transition: New Players and New Tools” University of California, Berkeley, May 31 – June 2, 2017</li> </ul>

Publications

Impact Statements

Participant research findings have been cited in Congressional Testimony

Date of Annual Report: 08/19/2019

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 07/20/2019 - 07/21/2019
Period the Report Covers: 10/01/2018 - 09/30/2018

Participants

Meeting participants are listed in the attached 2019 meeting minutes.

Brief Summary of Minutes

Minutes of NC1034 Annual Meeting 7/21/2019

The annual Business Meeting of NC1034 “Impact Analyses and Decision Strategies for Agricultural Research” was held in conjunction with the group’s annual research conference. This year’s conference theme was The Economics of Agricultural Technology & Innovation.

This year the annual conference was held as a special Pre-Conference to the annual meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association held in Atlanta Georgia, July 21-23, 2019.

NC-1034 Pre-Conference Participants

Attendee Name	Institution	NC-1034 Project Participant	NC-1034 Conference Paper Presenter	AAEA Conference Paper Presentation
Barrett, Christopher	Cornell University	x	x	x
Bullock, David	University of Illinois	x	x	x
Cao, Siwei	Beijing Normal University		x
Deng, Haiyan	Beijing Institute of Technology		x
Frisvold, George	University of Arizona	x	x
Florkowski, Wojciech	University of Georgia	x		x
Fuller, Kate	Montana State University	x	x
Graff, Gregory	Colorado State University	x	x	x
Gray, Richard	University of Saskatchewan
Hochman, Gal	Rutgers University	x	x
Huffman, Wallace	Iowa - Iowa State University	x	x	x
Jones, Michael	North Carolina State University		x	x
Lee, Seungki	Iowa - Iowa State University		x
Llewellyn, Rick	CSIRO (Australia)			x
Moschini, Giancarlo	Iowa - Iowa State University	x		x
Martin, Marshall	Purdue University	Administrator
Norton, George	Virginia Tech	x		x
Oehmke, James	USAID		x
Pray, Carl	Rutgers University	x	x
Richards, Peter	USAID			x
Shaik, Saleem	North Dakota State University	x	x
Shoemaker, Robbin	USDA / NIFA
Sun, Zhen	Tsinghua University		x
Wang, Sun Ling	USDA/ERS	x	x
Wright, Brian	University of California, Berkeley	x		x

USDA Multi-state Research Project NC-1034 "Impact Analyses and Decision Strategies for Agricultural Research" annual business meeting research conference on

The Economics of Agricultural Technology & Innovation

July 20-21, 2019

Atlanta, Georgia

Saturday, July 20

7:30 am Breakfast

8:15 am Welcome, George Frisvold

8:30 – 10:00 am

The Data-Intensive Farm Management Project: Background, and an Examination of 2018 Trial Results. David Bullock, University of Illinois

Yield and Protein Response to Nitrogen in the Northern Great Plains.

Kate Binzen Fuller and Clain Jones, Montana State University

Estimating the Value of Innovation and Extension Information: The Case of SCN-Resistant Soybean Varieties. Seungki Lee and GianCarlo Moschini, Iowa State University

10:00 – 10:30 am Coffee Break

10:30 am – noon

What Determines Patent Grant and Value? In 4D, Clear Insights from Pre-Grant Citations. Zhen Sun, Tsinghua University, and Brian Wright, University of California, Berkeley

Venture Capital and the Transformation of Private R&D for Agriculture. Felipe de Figueiredo Silva, Clemson University, Gregory Graff, Colorado State University, and David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley

Patentees’ Chinese choices, Patent Value Flow Dynamics, and Implications for U.S. Patent Value Proxies. Siwei Cao, Beijing Normal University, Zhen Lei, Pennsylvania State University, and Brian Wright, University of California, Berkeley

Noon – 1:30 pm Lunch (on your own)

1:30 – 3:00 pm

Does Variability in Traditional (Title I) and Crop Insurance (Title X) Programs Affect Efficiency and Productivity? Saleem Shaik, North Dakota State University

Public R&D and the Effects on Research Output and Total Factor Productivity in Chinese Agriculture. Haiyan Deng, Beijing Institute of Technology and Carl Pray, Rutgers University

Bioenergy and Its Implications to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Regions. Gal Hochman and Vijay Appasamy, Rutgers University

Saturday, July 20 (continued)

3:00 – 3:30 pm Coffee Break

3:30 – 5:00

Inputs, Outputs, and Total Factor Productivity in the U.S. Farm Sector: A State-level Analysis. Sun Ling Wang, Eldon Ball, Richard Nehring, and Roberto Mosheim, USDA Economic Research Service

Accounting for Climatic Effects in Measuring U.S. Field Crop Farm Productivity. Sun Ling Wang, Nicholas Rada, and Ryan Williams, USDA Economic Research Service

How Informed are U.S. Consumers about New Biotech Foods? A Potential Role for New Information. Katherine Lacy, University of Nevada, Reno, Wallace Huffman, Iowa State University, and Jonathan McFadden, USDA Economic Research Service

Sunday, July 21

8:30 – 9:30 am

Using Biotechnology for Regional Pest Eradication. George Frisvold, Ashley Kerna Bickel, and Dari Duval, University of Arizona

Bio-economic Modeling of Yield Effects of Genetically Modified Diamondback Moth (Plutella xylostella) Releases to Mitigate Resistance to Bt crops. Michael S. Jones, Jennifer Baltzegar, and Nicole Gutzmann, North Carolina State University

9:30 – 10:00 am Coffee Break

10:00 – 11:00 am

The Effects of Exposure Intensity on Technology Adoption and Gains: Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh on the System of Rice Intensification.

Christopher Barrett, Cornell University, Asad Islam, Monash University, Abdul Malek, BRAC University, Debayan Pakrashi, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and Ummul Ruthbah, Dhaka University

Do Chinese Restrictions on Trade and Foreign Direct Investment Reduce Profits of Foreign Firms and Increase the Competitiveness of Chinese Private and State-Owned Firms? A Case Study of Agricultural Input Industries.

Carl Pray, Yanhong Jin and Tongpeng Deng, Rutgers University, Haiyan Deng and Changxin Yu, Beijing Institute of Technology

11:00 am – noon NC-1034 Business Meeting

Noon Meeting Adjourns

Business Meeting, Atlanta Georgia, July 21, Commenced 11 a.m.

Report from Marshall Martin (Purdue) (project AA).

NC-1034 is approved from 10/01/2016 to 09/30/2021

So, the renewal process will begin in earnest September, 2020

The 2020 NC-1034 meeting would be a good time to discuss what will need to get done and how the group wants to proceed regarding a project renewal

For NC committees, the Directors are looking for evidence of coordinated research, not just the sharing of separate research findings annually. In the past NC-1034 has had book projects or other more coordinating activities.

Points of order George Frisvold (Arizona), Outgoing NC-1034 President

Working backwards from the last renewal
- We were notified that NC-1034 was renewed for 10/01/2016 to 9/30/2021 on June 30, 2016
- The final renewal proposal was submitted June 1, 2016
- We received comments and a request for minor revisions of the initial (due June 1, 2016) by the NCRA MRC on April 8, 2016
- The initial renewal proposal was submitted October 28, 2015
- The first renewal deadline was September 15, 2105 for the "Request to Write a Proposal" step in NIMSS.

To recap from last year’s meeting
- George Frisvold is stepping down as NC-1034 as of this meeting
- Gregory Graff agreed to serve as the new president
- This change was approved by vote of participants at last year’s Washington, DC business meeting.

Report from outgoing NIFA representative Robbin Shoemaker

Robbin announced that, in the wake of the move of NIFA to somewhere (as yet to be determined) in the Kansas City area, he will be retiring.

He had been the only social scientist, let alone economist, serving as a NIFA national program leader.

In the face of this loss in economics expertise at NIFA he expressed concerns about what this meant for USDA guidance and support for economics research in the future.

He thought that the move to the Kansas City area was a done deal and that damage to NIFA could not be avoided. He suggested that the lack of social science expertise at NIFA would be an ongoing problem and suggested that NC-1034 participants might want to communicate that concern.

Sun Ling Wang, the economist at USDA, Economic Research Service leading the program to measure U.S. and state-level productivity expressed concern about what would happen with the move of ERS to Kansas City. She was unsure of who would remain with the agency and how the agency’s productivity measurement program would continue. ERS had been making great strides if following recommendations of the Association of Agricultural and Economics Association to improve productivity measurement. The most recent national productivity accounts are for the year 2015. National estimates up to the year 2017 were originally planned for release at the end of 2019. But, with the move, this is now uncertain. ERS had also been working to update state-level productivity measures, but this may also be delayed.

The other NC-1034 participants express deep appreciation to both Robbin and Sun Ling for the very important work they have done to serve agricultural economics research on productivity, technology, and innovation at land grant universities throughout the country. Participants asked if there was anything we could do to help ERS. Sun Ling suggested that a more orderly and less abrupt transition would be less harmful.

Participants discussed writing a letter to the pertinent USDA officials to (a) note the importance of ERS work on the economics of agricultural R&D and productivity and (b) suggest positive steps to lessen damage to data, expertise, and institutional memory.

Discussion, then shifted to the 2020 NC-1034 conference and business meeting. Gregory Graff offered to host the meeting in Colorado, perhaps Denver, perhaps Fort Collins. There was general approval of this offer, followed by discussion of activities that might be organized in conjunction with a meeting. Some noted that a past NC-1034 was hosted by and included a tour at the Danforth Center. One possibility might be to tour USDA National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins. Another possibility would be Colorado biotechnology firm facilities. There was general agreement that a time around university spring breaks would be a good time for meetings. No specific dates were agreed upon, but there was general agreement that sometime in mid-to-late March would be good.

Meeting adjourned noon.

Minutes Attachment:

NC-1034 2019 Minutes.docx

Accomplishments

Short-term Outcomes <ul> <li>Research findings of NC-1034 participants were cited extensively in the National Academy of Science Sciences 2019 consensus report Breakthroughs to Advance Food and Agricultural Research by 2030. </li> </ul>  Outputs <ul> <li>Participants had more than 50 publications in peer-review journals in addition to several book chapters in scholarly edited volumes.</li> </ul>   Activities <ul> <li>NC-1034 participants were active in planning both a Pre-Conference and the main conference of the International Consortium on Bioeconomy Research (ICABR), on Regulation and Finance of Innovations for a Sustainable Economy, Ravello, Italy | June 4-7, 2019.</li> <li>Participants were active in organizing and presenting research findings at “Innovation in Agrifood Supply Chains: People-Planet-Profitability” the third annual training workshop sponsored by the College of Natural Resources, at the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with Solidaridad North America, April 18-19, Berkeley, California</li> </ul> Milestones <ul> <li>Several research articles of NC-1034 participants will be appearing in a Special Issue on "Sustainable Economics of Biotechnology" to be published in the journal Sustainability in 2019</li> </ul>