The Positive Sum Strategy Harnessing Technology for Economic Growth (1986) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Technical Change and Innovation in Agriculture
Technical Change and Innovation in Agriculture
Pages 333-356
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 333... ...
New technologies in agriculture are, with the exception of some mechanical technologies, largely He product of research and development by public sector research institutions and private sector suppliers of technical inputs to agriculture. These new technologies reach the farmer embodied in inputs that are purchased from the fann-supply industries and in He form of disembodied knowledge provided by the private suppliers of technology, private consultants, and public sector educational institutions.
|
From page 334... ...
reviews the changing role of the public and private sector in agricultural research, (c) discusses the dominant role of factor prices in directing productivity growth, and (d)
|
From page 335... ...
Public sector agricultural research instimtions were established during the nineteenth centur, . But financial support was niggardly and research capacity remained rudimentar, until Me closing of the frontier induced a demand for land-saving or yield-increasing technical change Productivity growth in U.S.
|
From page 336... ...
The answer must be found in very substantial undennvestment. The total investment in agricultural research is so small relative to agricultural production that even investments that generate very high rates of return exert only a modest impact on the rate of grown of agricultural output and productivity Among the factors that have not been adequately studied in recent research is the impact on productivity growth of private sector research, technology development, and technology-transfer activities.
|
From page 337... ...
The primary rationale for public sector investment has been that in many areas incentives for private sector research have been inadequate to induce an optimum level of research investment that is, the social rate of return exceeds the private rate of return because a large share of the gains from research accrue to other firms, to producers, and to consumers rather than to the innovating fimn. A second criterion for public sector investment in agricultural research is its complementarily with education.
|
From page 338... ...
and the state agricultural experiment stations, amounted to approximately $1.2 billion in 1979. Since the late 1970s private sector research in the service-based biological and chemical technologies in support of animal heals, plant protection, and plant breeding
|
From page 339... ...
Public sector research is much more heavily concentrated in the biological sciences and technology. At the state agricultural experiment stations, approximately ~ree-quarters of the research is in the biological science and technology area.
|
From page 340... ...
If the public sector were to confine itself to basic research and abandon technology development, the result would be a slowing of the rate of productivity growth in agriculture. Mechanization Research The appropriate boundary between private and public sector research on mechanization has been a continuing area of concem.
|
From page 341... ...
For both Me tomato and die cucumber harvester, Me demand-side impetus for commercial development associated with Be ending of the bracero program appeared to be more important than the supply-side public sector research effort. The social rate of return provides a weak rationale for substantial federal support for research and development of mechanical equipment for agnculture.
|
From page 342... ...
Individual variations exist from state to state but the general features are similar. When the performance of a new public variety of soybeans developed by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station warrants seed muluplication, breeder seed is released by the station to the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association for multiplication.
|
From page 343... ...
The private seed companies continue to make only limited investments in the supporting sciences, such as genetics, plant pathology, and plant physiology. Perspective In the two areas examined in this chapter R&D on mechanization and plant varieties the appropriate balance between public and private sector research and development is being subjected to intensive scrutiny.
|
From page 344... ...
INDUCED TECHNICAL CHANGE IN AGRICULTURE The previous section presented cases that illustrate the complex interaction between public and private sector research that has led to advances in mechanical and biological technology in U.S. agriculture.
|
From page 345... ...
that has focused attention on the influence of growth in product demand on the rate of technical change.6 Let us turn now to an illustration of He role of relative factor endowments and prices in the evolution of alternative paths of technical change in agriculture in the United States and Japan Japan and the United States are characterized by extreme differences in relative endowments of land and labor (Table 51. In 1880, total agricultural land area per male worker was more than 60 times as large in the United States as in Japan, and arable land area per worker was about 20 times as large in the United States as in Japan.
|
From page 346... ...
Art84) -' ,,.~\ Idiom .,.~00 ~ \` 'a;-' AGRICULTURAL OUTPUT PER MALE WORKER l LOG SCALE )
|
From page 347... ...
347 U3 en C~ C)
|
From page 348... ...
It is remarkable that the overall growth rates in output and productivity were so similar despite the extremely different factor proportions and absolute productivity levels Mat characterize the two countries.7 Although there is a resemblance in the overall rates of growth in production and productivity, the timung of the relatively fast-growing phases and Me relatively stagnant phases differs between the two countnes. In Me United States agricultural output grew rapidly up to 1900; then the grown rate decelerated (Table I)
|
From page 349... ...
is illustrated for biological technology in Figure 2: U.S. and Japanese data on the relationship between fertilizer input per hectare of arable land and the fertilizer:land price ratio are plotted for the period 1880 to 1980.
|
From page 350... ...
These responses to differences in resource endowments among countries and to changes in resource endowments over time by agricultural research institutions, by the farm supply industries, and by farmers, have been remarkably similar despite differences in cultures and traditions. The results of these comparative analyses can be summarized as follows: Agricultural grown in We United States and Japan during the period 18801980 can best be understood when viewed as a dynamic factor-subst~tution process.
|
From page 351... ...
, the United States and Japan, quinquennial observations for 188~1980. NOTE: Number of male workers = US and J3; power = U7 ~ Us and J7 ~ J8; land price = Ul9 and Jl9; power price = average retail puce of tractor per horsepower extrapolated by U21 from the 1976-1980 average of $216 for the United States, and extrapolated by J21 from the average of 65,170 yen for Japan.
|
From page 352... ...
Much of modem biological technology is the product of the insight, skill, and energy of a group of scientific entrepreneurs who have been employed in public sector institutions primarily the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state agricultural experiment stations.
|
From page 353... ...
A third lesson that we should have learned from the history of agricultural research is that any sector of the economy that is to achieve or maintain "world class"—that is, to remain competitive in the world economy must be sustained by a carefully articulated program of public and private sector support for and performance of research and development. In framing this appropriate mix of public and private sector research, it is important that we avoid simplistic decision rules.
|
From page 354... ...
Prior to the mid- and late-1960s, it could be armed that, given the differences m land prices and wage rates between the two countries, Japanese agriculture was relatively "efficient." With rapid growth in nonfarm labor demand and rising wage rates, Japanese agriculture has, since the late 1960s, become increasingly "inefficient" in comparanve teens. For a discussion of adjustment problems in Japanese agriculture see Hayami (1982)
|
From page 355... ...
10. The view that technical change is largely induced by growth in demand has been Articled by Mowery and Rosenberg (1979)
|
From page 356... ...
1 982b. The changing role of the public and private sectors in agricultural research.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.