Where Will Our Agricultural Researchers Come From?

Why is this considered such an important issue? Here are a few reasons.

• In 1960, one US farmer fed about 25 people. Today, the production from 2.2 million US farms produces enough food to feed 310 million people in the US plus millions more in other countries. This large increase in productivity resulted from breakthroughs in agricultural production technology that was developed in large part by scientists in the public research sector.

A recent Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) report entitled "Investing in a better future through public agricultural research" presents some enlightening statistics to further support this need.

• The US and world populations are expected to grow by approximately 30% by 2050, and world per capita income is expected to grow by 98%. This will translate into rapid growth in the demand for food and livestock feed. This increased demand can only be supplied by a more productive agricultural sector.
• Agricultural productivity growth during the latter part of the twentieth century was built on past investments in agricultural research.
• Advances in science and technology build on earlier advances; thus, the developmental period for new technologies for farmers is long-term.
• Producing additional food through nonconventional inputs (research, technology transfer, and public research facilities) requires organized research and development programs, new and/or upgraded research and computing facilities, and investments in researcher education to provide scientists and skilled laboratory and field technicians and assistants.
• Benefits from research efforts do not last forever. Since new advances are built on earlier advances, any period of disruption in technology development will eventually result in a lag in production increases, or worse, a decline in production.
• Long periods of low investment in research and development cannot be quickly recovered.
• Investments in public agricultural research have slowed since about 1980 because of funding cutbacks and the inability of universities to compete with the private sector to keep qualified faculty. There is general agreement that this will seriously reduce the development of new technology and output of trained scientists by the public sector.
• Private agricultural research and development have been growing faster than public agricultural research.
• Private sector research depends on and benefits from public agricultural research that
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    • trains future agricultural scientists and technologists who will be developing new technology in the private sector
    • develops materials such as germplasm that are used for developing advanced products
    • leads to discoveries in basic science
• A decline in the number of trained scientists to conduct research in both the public and private sectors may be the most important aspect of the decline in support for public agricultural research. Equally important–this trend cannot be reversed in the short-term; i.e., recovery from this reduced training base will take many years.
• Much of the aforementioned training (especially the research part) comes from graduate research projects conducted in public institutions under the guidance of a major professor. These projects are a required component of the student’s graduate degree, and are funded with monies allocated to the student’s advisor through institutional funding and outside grants.  These projects provide the major research training for the student.
• A quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte is “an army marches on its stomach”.  A modification of this quote could be “a society is only as strong and secure as its ability to provide its citizens with a dependable source of safe and affordable food”.  A strong public agricultural sector that teaches and trains future research scientists and provides an unbiased source and assessment of new technologies is a vital and necessary component of providing that food security.
• The Mississippi Soybean Promotion Board is starting a program that supports the continued training of new scientists in the agricultural sector.  They are in the process of creating the T.S. Bufkin Soybean Doctoral Fellowship to fund a qualified Ph.D. candidate who will conduct his/her research project in a soybean-related field under the tutelage of an MSU faculty member who is actively engaged in soybean research.  This is an important first step toward addressing some of the above concerns.
  
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