SAES-422 Multistate Research Activity Accomplishments Report
Sections
Status: Approved
Basic Information
- Project No. and Title: NC1003 : Impact Analysis and Decision Strategies for Agricultural Research
- Period Covered: 01/01/2004 to 12/01/2004
- Date of Report: 05/03/2005
- Annual Meeting Dates: 03/10/2005 to 03/12/2005
Participants
The 2004 annual meeting of the NC1003 committee was held at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO, March 5-6. A one and one-half day conference was held on the topic, Research Impacts and Decision Strategies for Biotechnology. Five scholars from outside of NC1003 were on the program, including a representative from Monsanto. The program also included a tour of the research facilities at the Danforth Plant Science Center and a field trip to Monsantos Plant Research Facility.
A short business meeting was held. Marshall Martin, administrative advisor, indicated that the NC1003 project was scheduled for a midterm-review. He also encouraged NC1003 participants to engage in broad scale collaboration. Roger Beachy, president of the Danforth Center, summarized some of the key issues facing the Danforth Center, including the regulation of agricultural biotechnology. His report provided impetus for the topic of next years program. We settled on the topic, Economics of the Regulation of Agricultural Biotechnology. Julian Alston (CA-D), David Zilberman (CA-B) and Richard Just (MD) agreed to serve as program chairs. We also discussed the possibility of a book and a Farm Foundation Issue Report coming from the program at the 2005 meeting. The location for the 2005 meeting was set for the University of Maryland campus. However, in subsequent negotiations, the symposium and business meeting were moved to Arlington, VA.
The NC1003 Officer Nominating Committee, chaired by George Norton (VA), nominated Wallace Huffman (IA) for Chair and George Frisvold (AZ) as Secretary. These nominations were approved unanimously.
During the summer, the NC1003 project was chosen by ESCOP to be one of the multistate projects to be showcased before the U.S. Congress. Chair Huffman and Advisor Martin prepared this report.
Accomplishments
This has been the third full year following renewal of the NC-1003 project, which has the following three research objectives: (1) To estimate the expected and actual flow of benefits an costs of research for agriculture, rand related areas, including incidence of their distribution; (2) To analyze decision strategies for funding, planning, managing, and evaluating agricultural research by public institutions and private organizations, and (3) To analyze opportunities, risks and net benefits from existing and potential public-private sector linkages, including new institutions, technology transfer mechanisms, and freedom to operate.
This year the project has produced an excellent set of publications, papers, and presentations. See the attached publication list, showing 61 publications (Group I) in refereed journal, books, and chapters in books for 2004 (or earlier), and 56 publications in Group II (forthcoming and miscellaneous publications). See Appendix A for a detailed summary of progress.
Impacts
- Scientists at AESs in Arizona, California, Iowa, Indiana, New Jersey, Virgina, and Wisconsin and the Economic Research service have completed extensive examinations of consumer acceptance and resistance to GM-technologies and food products, farmers acceptance of GM technologies, and ethical issues associated with new technologies. This research is providing important information to public policy officials who are trying to understand the GM-technology/food debate.
- Scientists at Rutgers, the USDA, and California have has shown that GM crops are quite profitable to farmers in China and India, but GM crops are making very little headway in Africa, which was by-passed by the Green Revolution. The resistance by the European Union to GM products has been shown to have a negative effect on the willingness of these countries to move forward on the few GM crops that might be useful to them.
- Scientists at Arizona, California, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia have completed an extensive examination of the effects of public research on the efficient use of natural resources, energy resources and adjustments to climate change. Their proposals have been used in the evaluating the potential of new government programs dealing with paying farmers to sequester carbon in trees, new biomass potential of grasses and other products for ethanol production, and with climate change.
- Scientists at Iowa and Yale in cooperation with the Executive Director, Northeast Experiment Station Directors, and the Director of the Iowa AES to prepare a popular report on formula funding of agricultural research building on the Counterfactual Study, funded two years ago by ESCOP through the University of Maryland. In the fall, 5,000 copies of this 12 page multicolored report, Formula for Success, were printed and distributed to experiment station directors and deans of colleges of agric
- Other copies of Formula for Success, were distributed to key members of Congress, USDA administrators, and private sector interest groups. The inventory was rapidly depleted when President Bush recommended in his January Budget to Congress that formula funds for agricultural research be converted to a competitive grant program for agricultural experiment stations. Five thousand more copies were printed for further distribution.
- Research at Idaho, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia has been undertaken to show how new scientific discoveries have lead to a reduction in the toxicity load on the environment from new agricultural pest control practices. More generally new agricultural technologies have been shown to reduce the environmental foot print of agriculture. Hence, agricultural productivity rates, which are quite high, would be even higher if the impact of the new technologies for a better environment were also included
- A large number of papers have been presented by members of the committee at the American Agricultural Economics Association Meetings, Denver, CO, July 2004: and at the 7th Conference of the International Agricultural Biotechnology Consortium, Ravello, Italy, June 29-July 2, 2003. A smaller but important number of papers were presented by members at the Annual Meetings of the Rural Sociology Society.