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NC1003: Impact Analysis and Decision Strategies for Agricultural Research

Annual/Termination Reports (SAES-422): [05/15/2002] [03/20/2003] [05/13/2004] [05/03/2005] [05/31/2006]

Date of Annual Report: 05/15/2002

Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 03/30/01 to 03/31/01
  • Period the Report Covers: 01/2001 to 12/2001

    • Participants:
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:
    The 2001 NC-208 meeting was held at Alumni House, University of California, Berkeley, CA in conjunction with a 1< day sponsored, R&D Policies and Impact Assessment. Thirteen papers were presented and discussed. At the NC-208 business meeting, an extensive discussion of the multistate project review process and renewal effort were discussed. The initial report from the North Central Directors‘ Committee was the project lacked sufficient multidisciplinary composition and multistate integration. After discussing alternative responses to the review, it was decided to prepare a revision and addressed the Directors‘ concerns. Cole Gustafson, the advisor, indicated that he would provide feedback on the new revision.

    Plans for the 2001 meeting were formalized. John Miranowski (Iowa), Chair, Richard Just (Maryland), Fred Buttel (Wisconsin), and Robin Shoemaker (USDA-ERS) were appointed to the 2001 Program Committee. The tentative topic of a two-day symposium was chosen: "Effective Funding and Managing Agricultural Research in the 21st Century," and the program is to contain two parts: Interactions with science policymakers and a report of research findings.

    The nominating committee nominated Wallace Huffman (Iowa) for Chair and George Frisvold (Arizona) for Secretary for the upcoming year. The nominations were moved and both were elected unanimously.

    Accomplishments:
    NC-208 has four major research objectives:

    Objective 1. To estimate the expected and actual flow of benefits and costs of research for agriculture and related areas, including the incidence of their distribution.

    Objective 2. To determine and quantify the relationships between research and other public sector policies and programs for agriculture.

    Objective 3. To analyze decision strategies for agricultural research funding by different public institutions and private organizations.

    Objective 4. To continue the development of procedures for facilitating the priority setting process for agricultural research and to implement them in individual states and nationally as requested.

    The progress and accomplishments under the four project objectives for the past year and for the whole five years of the project were excellent. Over the latest five years of the project, a total of 14 books, over 150 journal articles, and many other book chapters and miscellaneous publications on agricultural research impact analysis and science policy have been published by participants in NC-208, and they have been distributed widely.

    Appendix A provides a summary of the progress and principal accomplishments under each of the four objectives for the past year. The output of publications was large in 2001, which was the fifth year of the project, and the publications are reported in the publication list at the end of this report. The project is meeting its projected delivery of products.

    Impact Statements:
    1. Important project impacts occurred during 2001. Specifically, the project has provided an opportunity for expertise on agricultural science policy to be accumulated if NC-208 participates, to provide opportunities for members to form new research groups for collaborative efforts, and for participating project members to successfully pursue external funding for research covered by this project. Other specific impacts for 2001 include: (i) Publications on the impacts of transgenic crop varieties
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    Date of Annual Report: 03/20/2003

    Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 03/14/02 to 03/16/02
  • Period the Report Covers: 01/2002 to 12/2002

    • Participants:

    URL: Copy of participant list
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:
    The 2002 NC-1003 meeting was held at ERS-USDA, Washington, D.C., and featured a two-day symposium entitled, Future Public Research Opportunities and Directions, March 14-16th. In order to better impact agricultural science policy, the program featured USDA research administrators, a CGIAR administrator, and an agricultural college dean.

    The NC-1003 business meeting on March 16th included a report from the administrative advisor, James Venette, South Dakota, plans for the 2003 meeting, state reports, and election of officers. The group decided to hold the 2003 annual meeting at New Brunswick, NJ, in late February and draw upon unique local resourcesRockefeller Foundation, pharmaceutical industry, Columbia University . The suggested topic was to be Intellectual Property and Agricultural Research Implications for Public and Private Sectors. The program committee consisted of Carl Pray (NJ), Chair, Brian Wright (CA), Paul Heisey (ERS), and Phil Pardey (MN).

    The Nominations Committee nominated Wallace Huffman (IA) for Chair and George Frisvold (AZ) for Secretary for the upcoming year. The nominations were moved and both were elected unanimously.


    URL: Copy of minutes

    Accomplishments:
    NC-1003 has the following three research objectives:

    (1) To estimate the expected and actual flow of benefits an
    costs of research for agriculture, rand related areas, including incidence of their distribution;

    (2) To analyze decision strategies for funding, planning, managing,
    and evaluating agricultural research by public institutions and private organizations, and

    (3) To analyze opportunities, risks and net benefits from existing and
    potential public-private sector linkages, including new institutions, technology transfer mechanisms, and freedom to operate.

    During the past year, which is the first full year of the project, the project has produced an excellent set of publications and science-policy interactions with outside groups and organizations. See the publication list, Group I for publications in 2002 and Group II for forthcoming and miscellaneous publications.

    Impact Statements:
    1. Four members of NC-1003 helped draft the NRC Report entitled, Frontier in Agricultural Research: Food, Health, Environment, and Communities (National Academy Press 2002), and Laurian Unnevehr (IL) was Chair of the Committee as it completed its work.
    2. Wallace Huffman (IA) with assistance from Robert Evenson (Yale), Mark Rosegrant (IFPRI) and Jay Richie (MS) prepared and presented a one-half day program for the fall 2002 national ESCOP meeting, Baltimore, MD. They were reporting on the Counter Factual Study dealing with how changing the size of federal formula funding impacts individual agricultural experiment station budgets and state total factor productivity and world markets for food and fiber.
    3. Results have been presented to the USDA and FDA dealing with the impact of GM-food labels and biotech information from diverse sources on consumer acceptance of GM foods.
    4. A white paper was prepared by Paul Thompson (IN) on Ethics and Food Safety Policy at a workshop at FAO, Rome, Italy.
    5. Members have published papers in the high-visibly journals Science and Nature (see papers by Pray (NJ) and Zilberman (CA)).
    6. Members have contributed to a Handbook on Plant Biotechnology and plant physiology textbook entitled, Plants, Genes, and Crop Biotechnology.
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    Date of Annual Report: 05/13/2004

    Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 03/05/04 to 03/06/04
  • Period the Report Covers: 01/2003 to 12/2003

    • Participants:

    URL: Copy of participant list
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:
    The 2003 annual meeting of the NC1003 Committee was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, New Brunswick, NJ, Feb. 28-March. A one and one-third day conference was held on the topic, ?Intellectual Property and Agricultural Research: Implications for Public and Private Sectors.? A keynote lecture was given by Professor Richard R. Nelson, the George Blumenthal Professor of International and Public Affairs, Business and Law at Columbia University. His topic was, ?The Market Economy and the Scientific Commons.? Five other scholars from outside the Committee membership were also on the programs. In all, 17 research papers were presented in sessions on (a) Perspectives on Patents and Research from Outside and Inside Agriculture, (b) Technology Prices, Patents, Plant Breeders? Rights and Trade Secrets, (c) Intellectual Property Rights, Productivity of Technology, and Public Sector Research, (d) Mechanisms for Reducing Hold-ups, and (e) IPRs and International Research and Technology Transfer. See the program included in Appendix A. Over 50 participants attended from 17 universities, from USDA agencies, and from other research organizations.

    Principal Investigators on the IFAFS grant "Innovation and Dynamic Efficiency in Agricultural Biotechnology" held a pre-conference meeting in New Brunswick. The project will develop a web-based database of agricultural biotechnology patents, and will use the database to investigate the impact of intellectual property laws and market structure on innovative activity. The project involves NC-1003 members and collaborators from Rutgers, ERS, Auburn, and Cornell.

    At the business meeting on March 1st, the new Administrative Advisor, Professor Marshall Martin, Purdue University, made report on exceptions for multistate committees. He also Marshall spoke briefly about the NIMS system (National Information Management and Support System). The NIMS system is a web-based application that allows participants of Multi-state Research Projects and Activities to submit proposals and reports online. The website is: http://www.lgu.umd.edu/login.cfm. Interested parties, stakeholders and cooperators can query the System for relevant and timely information. Reports, minutes, and information about publications and other activities can be linked to NIMS for others to access and obtain information about NC-1003. It is also a way for NC-1003 members to stay informed about other multi-state projects.

    New Committee members, Jeremy Foltz (Wisconsin), GianCarlo Moschini (Iowa State), Norbert Wilson (Auburn), and Yin Xia, were welcomed to the Project. State research reports were presented.

    Plans were made for the 2004 meeting and symposium. The group decided to title the conference, ?Research Impacts and Decisions Strategies for Biotechnology,? to hold the meeting in early March at the relatively new Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO. Also, this location is close the Monsanto research facility and tours of the Danforth Center and Monsanto were planned. George Norton, Greg Traxler, Charles Moss, and Yin Xia were appointed by the Chair to the program Committee.

    George Norton, Chair, of the officers? nominating committee, reported that Wallace Huffman (IA) was nominated one-year terms as Chair and George Frisvold (AZ) was nominated as Secretary. The vote was unanimous.


    URL: Copy of minutes

    Accomplishments:
    Accomplishments and Impacts:

    This has been the second full year following renewal of the NC-1003 project, which has following three research objectives: (1) To estimate the expected and actual flow of benefits an costs of research for agriculture, rand related areas, including incidence of their distribution; (2) To analyze decision strategies for funding, planning, managing, and evaluating agricultural research by public institutions and private organizations, and (3) To analyze opportunities, risks and net benefits from existing and potential public-private sector linkages, including new institutions, technology transfer mechanisms, and freedom to operate.

    This year the project has produced an excellent set of publications, papers, and presentations. See the attached publication list, showing 48 publications (Group I) in refereed journal, books, and chapters in books for 2003, and 46 publications in Group II (forthcoming and miscellaneous publications). See Appendix A for a detailed summary of progress.

    Some especially noteworthy accomplishments over the past year include the following:

    * Scientists at AESs in Arizona, California, Iowa, Indiana, New Jersey, Virgina, and Wisconsin and the Economic Research service have completed extensive examinations of consumer acceptance and resistance to GM-technologies and food products, farmers acceptance of GM technologies, and ethical issues associated with new technologies. This research is providing important information to public policy officials who are trying to understand the GM-technology/food debate.

    * Scientists at Arizona, California, Missouri, Texas, and Virginia have completed an extensive examination of the effects of public research on the efficient use of natural resources and adjustments to climate change. Their proposals include new government programs to pay farmers to sequester carbon in trees and other plants. This research is helping government agencies and state governments make policy to deal with these resource issues.

    * Scientists at Iowa and Yale are working with the Executive Director of the Northeast Experiment Station Directors and ESCOP to prepare a four page bulletin to make the case with Congress for additional formula funding of SAS research.

    * Scientists at Indiana, California, and Minnesota have been working to develop new funding instruments for agricultural research in the International Center System and for poor African countries.

    * A large number of papers have been presented by members of the committee at the American Agricultural Economics Association Meetings, Montreal, July 27-30, 2003: at the Triennial Meetings of the International Association of Agricultural Economists, Durbin, South Africa, August 16-22, 2003; and the 7th Conference of the International Agricultural Biotechnology Consortium, Ravello, Italy, June 29-July 2, 2003. A smaller but important number of papers were presented by members at the Annual Meetings of the Rural Sociology Society.

    * One committee member has been appointed to a National Academy of Sciences Committee on intellectual property in genomics and proteomics.

    Impact Statements:
    Last Modified: unknown

    Date of Annual Report: 05/03/2005

    Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 03/10/05 to 03/12/05
  • Period the Report Covers: 01/2004 to 12/2004

    • Participants:

    URL: Copy of participant list
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:
    The 2004 annual meeting of the NC1003 committee was held at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO, March 5-6. A one and one-half day conference was held on the topic, Research Impacts and Decision Strategies for Biotechnology. Five scholars from outside of NC1003 were on the program, including a representative from Monsanto. The program also included a tour of the research facilities at the Danforth Plant Science Center and a field trip to Monsantos Plant Research Facility.

    A short business meeting was held. Marshall Martin, administrative advisor, indicated that the NC1003 project was scheduled for a midterm-review. He also encouraged NC1003 participants to engage in broad scale collaboration. Roger Beachy, president of the Danforth Center, summarized some of the key issues facing the Danforth Center, including the regulation of agricultural biotechnology. His report provided impetus for the topic of next years program. We settled on the topic, Economics of the Regulation of Agricultural Biotechnology. Julian Alston (CA-D), David Zilberman (CA-B) and Richard Just (MD) agreed to serve as program chairs. We also discussed the possibility of a book and a Farm Foundation Issue Report coming from the program at the 2005 meeting. The location for the 2005 meeting was set for the University of Maryland campus. However, in subsequent negotiations, the symposium and business meeting were moved to Arlington, VA.

    The NC1003 Officer Nominating Committee, chaired by George Norton (VA), nominated Wallace Huffman (IA) for Chair and George Frisvold (AZ) as Secretary. These nominations were approved unanimously.

    During the summer, the NC1003 project was chosen by ESCOP to be one of the multistate projects to be showcased before the U.S. Congress. Chair Huffman and Advisor Martin prepared this report.

    Accomplishments:
    This has been the third full year following renewal of the NC-1003 project, which has the following three research objectives: (1) To estimate the expected and actual flow of benefits an costs of research for agriculture, rand related areas, including incidence of their distribution; (2) To analyze decision strategies for funding, planning, managing, and evaluating agricultural research by public institutions and private organizations, and (3) To analyze opportunities, risks and net benefits from existing and potential public-private sector linkages, including new institutions, technology transfer mechanisms, and freedom to operate.

    This year the project has produced an excellent set of publications, papers, and presentations. See the attached publication list, showing 61 publications (Group I) in refereed journal, books, and chapters in books for 2004 (or earlier), and 56 publications in Group II (forthcoming and miscellaneous publications). See Appendix A for a detailed summary of progress.

    Impact Statements:
    1. Scientists at AESs in Arizona, California, Iowa, Indiana, New Jersey, Virgina, and Wisconsin and the Economic Research service have completed extensive examinations of consumer acceptance and resistance to GM-technologies and food products, farmers acceptance of GM technologies, and ethical issues associated with new technologies. This research is providing important information to public policy officials who are trying to understand the GM-technology/food debate.
    2. Scientists at Rutgers, the USDA, and California have has shown that GM crops are quite profitable to farmers in China and India, but GM crops are making very little headway in Africa, which was by-passed by the Green Revolution. The resistance by the European Union to GM products has been shown to have a negative effect on the willingness of these countries to move forward on the few GM crops that might be useful to them.
    3. Scientists at Arizona, California, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia have completed an extensive examination of the effects of public research on the efficient use of natural resources, energy resources and adjustments to climate change. Their proposals have been used in the evaluating the potential of new government programs dealing with paying farmers to sequester carbon in trees, new biomass potential of grasses and other products for ethanol production, and with climate change.
    4. Scientists at Iowa and Yale in cooperation with the Executive Director, Northeast Experiment Station Directors, and the Director of the Iowa AES to prepare a popular report on formula funding of agricultural research building on the Counterfactual Study, funded two years ago by ESCOP through the University of Maryland. In the fall, 5,000 copies of this 12 page multicolored report, Formula for Success, were printed and distributed to experiment station directors and deans of colleges of agric
    5. Other copies of Formula for Success, were distributed to key members of Congress, USDA administrators, and private sector interest groups. The inventory was rapidly depleted when President Bush recommended in his January Budget to Congress that formula funds for agricultural research be converted to a competitive grant program for agricultural experiment stations. Five thousand more copies were printed for further distribution.
    6. Research at Idaho, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia has been undertaken to show how new scientific discoveries have lead to a reduction in the toxicity load on the environment from new agricultural pest control practices. More generally new agricultural technologies have been shown to reduce the environmental foot print of agriculture. Hence, agricultural productivity rates, which are quite high, would be even higher if the impact of the new technologies for a better environment were also included
    7. A large number of papers have been presented by members of the committee at the American Agricultural Economics Association Meetings, Denver, CO, July 2004: and at the 7th Conference of the International Agricultural Biotechnology Consortium, Ravello, Italy, June 29-July 2, 2003. A smaller but important number of papers were presented by members at the Annual Meetings of the Rural Sociology Society.
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    Date of Annual Report: 05/31/2006

    Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 03/24/06 to 03/24/06
  • Period the Report Covers: 01/2005 to 12/2005

    • Participants:

    URL: Copy of participant list
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:
    The 2006 annual meeting of the NC1003 committee was held at Jekyll Island, Georgia, March 24-25. A one and one-half day conference was held on the topic, Funding Agricultural Research: Evolving Institutional Frameworks. There were 15 presentations by NC-1003 members and invited speakers. Invitees included Per Pinstrup-Andersen (Cornell University) the current President of the American Association of Agricultural Economists who spoke on Changes in International Funding of Agricultural Research and Kurt A. Zuelke, National Science and Technology Council, Executive Office of the President who spoke on Competitive Grants and SAES Research: An Administration Perspective. There were also two featured presentations by rural sociologists.

    A business meeting was held at the end of the conference. Wallace Huffman, outgoing president, welcomed us and welcomed new members: Leland Glenna (Penn State U.), Dana Hoag (Colorado State), and Guanming Shi (U. of Wisconsin). Members who had not presented in the conference session were then given a chance to update the group on their recent research. Loren Tauer (Cornell) and Timothy Dalton (U. of Maine) both update us on their research work.

    Marshall Martin, administrative advisor to the group, spoke about the meeting and progress of the group. Marshall complemented us on a strong program and an interesting set of research. He encouraged us to do more outreach of our research results to the Land Grant system and policy makers.

    Bruce McWilliams (USDA-CSREES) spoke to the group, commending our work and reiterating the importance of disseminating it outside the NC  1003 committee. He encouraged us to produce short summaries of what our work does for the American public.

    Wallace Huffman reported on the edited volume from last years conference which should be out soon. He also reported that an issue report has been produced by the Farm Foundation based on last years conference.

    The NC1003 Officer Nominating Committee, chaired by George Norton (VA), nominated George Frisvold (AZ) for Chair and Jeremy Foltz (WI) as Secretary. These nominations were approved unanimously.

    We initiated plans for next years conference which will be hosted by UC Berkeley and held in conjunction with a conference in honor of Jeannie Lanjouw. Brian Wright volunteered to take charge of the organization with help from David Zilberman and Carl Pray.

    Finally, NC-1003 members took time to thank Wally Huffman and note our great appreciation for his excellent service as Chair of the project for so many years.

    Accomplishments:
    This year the project has produced 44 peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters in books (see attached publications list). Of these publications, 9 were co-authored by two or more NC-1003 participants from different institutions, working collaboratively.

    Along with increased collaboration between agricultural economists and rural sociologists, NC1003 participants have collaborated with scientists in the following fields on project-related research: agronomy, animal science, biochemistry, biotechnology, crop science, entomology, forestry, plant biology, plant breeding, plant pathology, plant science, psychology, range science, and weed science.

    This years annual conference also witnessed increase participation from rural sociologists as well as agricultural economists, with presentations by rural sociologists fro AESs in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

    Revised papers from last years conference will be published later this year in the edited volume Just, R.E., J.M. Alston, and D. Zilberman (eds). The Economics of Regulation of Agricultural Biotechnologies. Springer-Verlag publishers, 2006 (forthcoming). Regular edited volumes published by NC-1003 participants, focusing on particular themes is a key way to stimulate member collaboration, obtain peer responses and suggestions and focus research on specific problem areas.

    Last years conference papers served as a basis for Economics of Regulation of Agricultural Biotechnology: Consumer preferences, industry structure and economic forces shape the regulatory process. Farm Foundation Issue Report | Issue Five, August 2005.

    In addition members prepared papers and conference sessions for the 2005 meetings of the American Association of Agricultural Economists, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, the New Zealand Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, and the 26th Conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) .

    Impact Statements:
    1. The research by scientists at the Iowa AES and Yale University on the differential impact of federal formula funding of SAES research under Hatch and competitive grant funding has shown that formula funds have a larger impact on state agricultural productivity than competitive grant funding. This information has been used by ESCOP to inform members of Congress of impacts of federal formula funding.
    2. Work at the Indiana AES working with donors to establish a new funding mechanism, whereby foreign aid agencies and philanthropic donors could pay innovators in proportion to measured social welfare gains from technology adoption. Such "prizes rewards" would compensate innovators for spillovers to adopters and consumers, beyond what can be captured through the sale of inputs or technology licenses. The initiative has gained attention through scholarly and outreach presentations and has received coverage on national television news. NC-1003 participants from the following AESs serve on the initiative advisory board: Minnesota, New Jersey, and California-Berkeley.
    3. Participants of NC1003 and its predecessor NC208 have pioneered methods of estimating economic impacts of agricultural research. Participant publications are among the most widely cited in scholarly literature in this area. Economic impact assessment methods have been adopted by USDA agencies (primarily ERS) as well as institutions within the CGIAR system.
    Last Modified: unknown
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