U.S. Public Agricultural Research: Changes in Funding Sources and Shifts in Emphasis, 1980-2005

Abstract

s d a. go v o o You can find additional information about ERS publications, databases, and other products at our website.

Assessing social–ecological coupling: Agriculture and hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico

“…The deviations run against our expectations for an adaptively coupled system in that they are not spatially targeted. Schimmelpfennig and Heisey (2009) point out a trend of decreasing state discretion in allocation of federal funds in agricultural research, a trend that may be reason for some optimism in the context of this study. At present, existing state discretion built into the public agricultural research and development funding mechanisms has not led to adaptive coupling of the MRB system in terms of nitrogen management.…”

“…Over time, research spending on nitrogen management practices at the level of the MRB increased at the same slow rate as overall national spending reflected in the CRIS (Schimmelpfennig and Heisey, 2009). Patterns of spending for individual practices and practice categories, as well as for the particular geographic regions of interest, deviate widely from this overall trend.…”

“…Beyond publicly funded research and extension, knowledge on farming practices is produced by individual farmers, collaboratives of many varieties, farmer professional organizations, non-profit organizations, farm input suppliers, and various organs of local government (Kloppenburg, 1991). While the linear model of diffusion has been refuted in the innovation literature for decades (Rosenberg, 1982), and while the public research represents approximately half of all agricultural research spending, it is still the dominant mode informing research, extension, and agricultural policy (Wolf and Zilberman, 2001;Schimmelpfennig and Heisey, 2009). Public investments are particularly important in technical domains that are linked to non-commodified inputs: the study of processes that are governed by knowledge rather than material inputs, which are harder to commodify (e.g.…”

A Proposal for Public and Private Partnership in Extension

“…The private sector has been outspending government on agricultural research since the early 1980s ( Fig. 2 , Schimmelpfennig and Heisey 2009 ), and the impact of private agricultural research on overall U.S. agricultural productivity is considered significant ( Wang et al. 2013 ).…”

“…2. Agricultural research funding in the public and private sectors from 1970–2009, adjusted for inflation and expressed in 2006 dollars ( Schimmelpfennig and Heisey 2009 ). …”