Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-fnpn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-30T11:40:08.216Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Making alternative agriculture research policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2009

Katherine Reichelderfer Smith
Katherine Reichelderfer Smith
Affiliation:
Director of the Policy Studies Program, Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture, 9200 Edmonston Road, Suite 117, Greenbelt, MD 20770-1551.
Get access

Abstract

The policies influencing the American agricultural research agenda are developed by Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the 58 state agricultural experiment stations of the land-grant university system, with input from various advisory groups. Despite the slow pace of change in the agricultural research agenda, there are no special barriers keeping the research system from adapting to contemporary and alternative agriculture issues. Rather, agricultural researchers have neither appropriate professional incentives nor sufficient financial incentives to shift toward alternative agriculture. Public intervention to alter these incentives has been thwarted because agricultural research institutions set their agendas through obscure processes. Five areas of policy change that could improve the prospects for evolution of a significant alternative agriculture research agenda are: 1) imposing a means test for formula fund payment limitations to states, with saved funds directed toward alternative agriculture research; 2) making priority setting a condition for receiving federalfunds for agricultural research to make the research agenda-setting process clearer to all interested parties; 3) requiring that federally funded research programs be categorized by the specific social goals toward which they are directed, to aid in judgments about the relevance of specific public agricultural research programs; 4) requiring information on research programs to be reported in a way that is specifically relevant to the alternative agriculture agenda; 5) formally involving public citizens and farmers in reviewing agricultural research grants to assure that the usefulness of proposed research is weighed along with scientific merit. These proposals complement current interest in making science generally more responsive to national priorities, and are entirely feasible within current agricultural research policy processes. Their effectiveness, however, is limited by the shrinking influence of federal funding in the state agricultural experiment station system, and they are only incremental changes within the existing system rather than radical reforms toward an alternative research system.

Keywords

agricultural researchcompetitive grantsCurrent Research Information Systemformula fundingpeer reviewresearch policyscience policystate agricultural experiment stations
Type
Forum on Alternative Agriculture Research Policy
Information
American Journal of Alternative Agriculture , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 10 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Beus, C.E., and Dunlap, R.E.. 1992. The alternative-conventional agriculture debate: Where do agricultural faculty stand? Rural Sociology 57:363–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Bird, G.W. 1993. Transitioning to an age of sustainable development. In Toward the 21st Century: A Multidimensional Transition of the State Agricultural Experiment Stations. ESCOP 93–1. Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy, and U.S. Dept. of Agric, Cooperative State Research Service, College Station, Texas.Google Scholar
3.Bird, E., and Hassebrook, C.. 1992. Report card on USDA research policy. Center for Rural Affairs, Walthill, Nebraska.Google Scholar
4.Brown, G.E. Jr., 1994. Remarks before the NAS Board on Agriculture Committee on Land Grant Colleges of Agriculture at 130. Washington, D.C., and Irvine, California. January.Google Scholar
5.Busch, L., and Lacy, W.B.. 1983. Science, Agriculture, and the Politics of Research. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.Google Scholar
6.Buttel, F.H. 1985. Public agricultural research and education policy and the development of resource-conserving agricultural systems. In Proposed 1985 Farm Bill Changes: Taking the Bias Out of Farm Policy. Institute for Alternative Agric, Greenbelt, Maryland, pp. 19–39.Google Scholar
7.Charles Valentine Riley Memorial Foundation. 1994. Science Communications and Enhanced Agricultural Policy. Proceedings of a Science Communications Round Table, November 16, 1993. Lanham, Maryland.Google Scholar
8.Chubin, D.E. 1993. Peer review, pork, and priorities in agricultural research. In Weaver, R.D. (ed). U.S. Agricultural Research: Strategic Challenges and Options. Agric. Research Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, pp. 255–269.Google Scholar
9.Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education. 1994. Consortium News, Vol. 1, (February). Center for Rural Affairs, Walthill, Nebraska.Google Scholar
10.Glassman, J. 1993. Shaping the research agenda: A faculty perspective. Atthe Crossroads 3(2):1–2, 7–8, Northern Tier Land Grant Accountability Project, St. Paul, Minnesota.Google Scholar
11.Hassebrook, C. 1989. Agricultural research as social planning: Setting agricultural research priorities to advance social goals. In Reform and Innovation of Science and Education: Planning for the 1990 Farm Bill. Committee print, Committee on Agric, Nutrition, and Forestry, U.S. Senate, December. U.S. Govt. Printing Office, Washington, D.C. pp. 207–213.Google Scholar
12.Hightower, J. 1973. Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times. Schenkman Publishing Co., Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
13.Holt, D. 1989. Federal support of adaptive agricultural research and extension. In Reform and Innovation of Science and Education: Planning for the 1990 Farm Bill. Committee print, Committee on Agric, Nutrition, and Forestry, U.S. Senate, December. U.S. Govt. Printing Office, Washington, D.C. pp. 235–245.Google Scholar
14.Huffman, W.E., and Evenson, R.E.. 1993. Science for Agriculture: A Long-Term Perspective. Iowa State Univ. Press, Ames.Google Scholar
15.Meyer, J.H. 1993. The stalemate in food and agricultural research, teaching, and extension. Science 260:881, 1007.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
16.Mikulski, B.A. 1994. Science in the national interest. Science 264:221–222.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
17.National Institutes of Health. 1992. Orientation handbook for members of scientific review groups. Public Health Service, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.Google Scholar
18.National Research Council. 1972. Report on the Committee on Research Advisory to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
19.National Research Council. 1989. Investing in Research: A Proposal to Strengthen the Agricultural, Food, and Environmental System. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
20.Nipp, T. 1993. Challenges of agricultural policy for the new administration. In The Future of Agricultural Research and Extension: Policy Perspectives. Rural Policy Research Institute, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia.Google Scholar
21.Phillips, M.J. 1990. Status of the U.S. agricultural research system: Challenges for the 1990s. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Agric.Research Institute: Strategic Management of Agricultural Research, October 17, Washington, D.C. pp. 14–21.Google Scholar
22.Porter, A.L., and Rossini, F.A.. 1985. Peer review of interdisciplinary research proposals. Science, Technology, and Human Values 10(3):33–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23.Rockefeller Foundation. 1982. Science for Agriculture. New York, N. Y.Google Scholar
24.Rodale, R. 1989. Agricultural sustainability research needs and progress. In Reform and Innovation of Science and Education: Planning for the 1990 Farm Bill. Committee print, Committee on Agric, Nutrition, and Forestry, U.S. Senate, December. U.S. Govt. Printing Office, Washington, D.C. pp. 13–18.Google Scholar
25.Schweikhardt, D.B., and Whims, J.F.. 1993. Trends and issues in agricultural research funding at the state agricultural experiment stations. In Weaver, R.D. (ed). U.S. Agricultural Research: Strategic Challenges and Options. Agric. Research Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, pp. 89–112.Google Scholar