Impacts of Emerging Technologies on Food and Agricultural Productive Capacity: Discussion

In the last ten years, a virtual explosion of biotechnology research has occurred. Recombinant DNA methodology has become almost commonplace as a tool for both basic and applied research. A major initiative of the Committee on Biotechnology of the Division of Agriculture, National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, was the advent of a USDA Competitive Grants Program for biotechnology which provided substantial new resources for agriculturerelated research. The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health provided even larger funding increases during this period. The Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy (ESCOP) as well as the National Agricultural Research Committee and overall Joint Council have consistently placed biotechnology at the top of the list of priorities for new initiatives for the last several years. The close relationship between the work that is occurring in the base program of the land grant institutions and the proposed new initiatives for which new funds are being sought will continue in the coming decade. While considerable effort will necessarily be devoted to basic methodological development in biotechnology, the research will also encompass the prioritied new initiatives identified for 1986-96 in the ESCOP plan (1987), which include those identified by Phillips and Lu. In addition to the information technologies identified by Phillips and Lu, one of the emerging new opportunities is the application of artificial intelligence in the development of expert systems for decision making in production agriculture and agribusiness. The management of complex agricultural production systems in an uncertain, risky environment requires greater information and more timely co trol than has been typical of agricultural management in the past. The power of modern computers and communications technology is being harnessed to the problems of improving management in all areas of producing a crop. Expert systems is a branch of artificial intelligence that is already paying dividends in applications to crop management systems. Phillips and Lu view the primary impact of adopting these new technologies as an increase in the productive capacity of agriculture through (a) increased yields, (b) increased natural resource base, and (c) increased percentage of planted acreage harvested. The basis for these conclusions is not provided. The yield projections stem primarily from judgments by panels of predominantly biological scientists in each commodity area. The analysis does not focus on reductions in costs of production through substitution of "biotechnology" inputs for capital-intensive industrial inputs, e.g., fertilizers, pesticides, drugs, etc., in the production process. Biological scientists generally are not comfortable in projecting cost decreases due to new technology, and economists have fared little better in ex ante estimations of technologically induced cost changes. Nevertheless, many of the biotechnologies and information technologies are more likely to have a direct impact on the cost structure of production activities. Certainly most cost-reducing technologies are also output increasing in the presence of significant ec nomies-to-size in production and through the adoption process whereby the large-scale producers are the early adopters. However, to fully assess the potential impacts on the competitiveness of U.S. agriculture, changes in the industry cost functions will have to be estimated. Such assessments are more difficult to B. R. Eddleman is a professor and Resident Director for Research, Texas A&M University Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Corpus Christi.