Bred for the world? Agricultural research priorities in the age of biotechnology

Over the last half century, scientists have strived to eradicate hunger. In the 1980s, the emergence of biotechnology provided agricultural researchers with an exciting new weapon in the war against hunger. Coincidentally, the top-down model of diffusion of agricultural innovations came under attack during this same period. The most interesting alternative, Farming Systems Research (FSR), stressed the need for a first-hand multidisciplinary understanding of the farm as an entire system and encouraged close interaction between the agricultural researcher and the farmer. This dissertation examines how biotechnology has altered the conduct of agricultural research in U.S. universities and explores, in particular, how biotechnology has affected the psycho-social distance between researcher and farmer. With over half of all doctorates in the agricultural sciences from U.S. universities awarded to foreign students in 1992, the implications for developing countries are profound. To understand how biotechnology has changed the way research choices are made in the agricultural sciences, the scientists themselves were queried. Thirty-four in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with agricultural researchers. In addition, a mail survey of 312 agricultural researchers (76% response) involved in agricultural biotechnology at U.S. universities was conducted. A number of survey questions from Busch and Lacy's landmark 1979 study of agricultural researchers were repeated. The results strongly suggest that significant shifts have occurred in the ranking of the criteria for research problem choice since the Busch and Lacy study. Science-centered criteria registered significant gains. In contrast, the importance of client-centered criteria dropped precipitously. Increasingly, agricultural scientists are coming from urban, non-farm backgrounds and have received their training in basic science disciplines. Each of these factors erodes the longstanding mission-oriented nature of the land grant universities. The changes that the agricultural research establishment has gone through are not all due to the rise of biotechnology. Universities recognized that a focus on basic science would be necessary to: attract high caliber scientists, capture significant new sources of competitive grants, and appeal to industry. Biotechnology was instrumental in reinforcing many of these underlying trends. These changes have serious implications for developing country scientists. Serious concern must be given to the appropriateness of training developing country scientists in a basic science environment devoid of contact with farmers or extension. Despite biotechnology's promise, the overall impact on developing countries' agricultural development may be negative if it contributes to the creation of disciplinary-based scientists attuned to the global science community rather than farmers' needs.