Intellectual Property Rights and Agribusiness Research and Development: Implications for the Public Agricultural Research System

The public sector agricultural research system in the United States is currently the subject of intense critical review. In spite of its documented record of success, measured in terms of discovering, developing, and extending new technology over the past century, indications are that public financial support for the system will be sufficient only to maintain research programs at present levels for the next several years.1 Support for the system expressed as a fraction of the value of agricultural product has been declining for the past fifteen years or so, and further declines appear likely. In addition to the decline in its support base, the system has become the subject of a critical debate over its effectiveness. Many of its critics betray little understanding of the distinctive characteristics of the system that have made agricultural research programs among the most successful public research programs in the United States or of the body of economic studies that have documented this success.2 It would not be wise, however, for this writer or for the managers and administrators of the system itself to dwell on the ignorance of the critics. Much of their criticism is valid, and the decline in the funding base for the system is real. The process of criticism and reform is vital to the maintenance of effectiveness of any public sector program not directly subject to the discipline of the market place. Agricultural research institutions in the United States have experienced major reform at least once in the past. In the early part of this century, an intense struggle between the "practical" researchers and the more "scientific" researchers ultimately produced reform in favor of the scientific interests. By the 1930s, modem agricultural science departments and experiment station organizations emerged from this process as the scientific forces won most of the battles. The outcome of this reform process was the development of genuine "daughter" agricultural sciences. That is, each agricultural science drew on one or more basic general mother sciences for methodology and scientific principles. At the same time, most of the agricultural sciences developed a scientific knowledge cumulation process internal to their own disciplines.3 Some contemporary critics would argue that a similar reform process is required today. They note that the agricultural science disciplines have become highly inbred and have lost close ties with the more general mother sciences from which they drew sustenance to develop as bona fide sciences in the earlier period. The failure of the agricultural sciences to be in the forefront of the recent biotechnology boom could be cited in support of this criticism. Other critics see the problems as being primarily a matter of coordination. The The author is a professor, Economic Growth Center, Yale University. This paper was prepared while he was a visiting fellow at the East-West Population Institute. I See Evenson, Waggoner, and Ruttan for a review of the studies of the productivity of the system. Rose-Ackerman and Evenson report estimates of the support base for research conducted in the State Agricultural Experiment Stations and conclude that expenditures will increase less than proportionately with farm output. 2 See Evenson, Waggoner, and Ruttan, and Ruttan for discussions of the mechanics of articulation of client interests and their role in making the system more effective. Among current critics, little concern is expressed over the means by which research systems effectively serve their clients. 3 This, of course, varied a great deal from discipline to discipline. Agricultural economics, for example, developed an internal knowledge cumulation process in its early years by drawing on three mother sciences: agronomy (itself a daughter science), economics, and statistics. This combination enabled it to achieve important early contributions to econometric studies as well as to applied agricultural studies in farm management and policy.