The effects of agricultural research and extension expenditures on productivity in the United States are estimated during the period 1949-81 using data for ten production regions. The large time-series cross-sectional data base allows the translog production function to be estimated directly. Results from the translog and Cobb-Douglas production functions are compared. The results indicate that use of the Cobb-Douglas production function would overestimate the internal rate of return of agricultural research and extension expenditures in the United States and eight production regions. The total marginal product and internal rate of return for the United States are $8.11 and 66 percent, respectively.

Since the early 1980s organic agriculture has undergone enormous growth and innovation in the US and throughout the world. Some observers have pointed to the US Department of Agriculture's 1980 Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming as having provided the catalyst for many of these developments. It is important, however, to understand how the evolving character of organic ideology during the 1960s and 1970s helped lay the foundation for moving organic agriculture onto the US governmental agenda in the early 1980s. We explore these and other contextual factors surrounding the USDA Report's release, including its methods, findings and recommendations, and both positive and negative reactions, as well as those factors that led to the Report's declining influence by the decade's end. The need for agricultural sustainability has played an important role in shaping, not only the path of organic agriculture in the US but also the overall politics of American agriculture. Legislative efforts to support organic agriculture have evolved along with this altered policy environment and are considered here within the broader context of the politics of sustainable agriculture. Next, we consider the organic industry's transition from a privately managed enterprise to the pivotal role now played by the federal government in the administration of the National Organic Program. Calls to move ‘beyond organic’ are also examined. Finally, we explore the impact of sustainable agriculture, agricultural research and farm structure upon the future of organic agriculture in the US. The politics within these three interrelated domains of public agricultural policy will likely bear heavily upon the future of organic farming and the organic industry as a whole.

Developing and implementing water management strategies is imperative for achieving food self reliance in Egypt. Key elements of the strategy for increasing total value added from agriculture must be directed at enhancing efficiency of water use for crop production. This should be complemented by measures to ensure the efficient use and improvement of developed and undeveloped land resources. We examine the need to shift from supply management policies to demand management policies to optimize water use by fanners. Key features for sustainable development of agricultural water management include: greater investment; infusion of modern, appropriate technologies; building an adequate physical and institutional infrastructure; development of human resources and expertise; intensified cooperation and linkages; and technology development. Communities should be involved in reversing the trend from supply-driven to demand-oriented policies. This should be compatible with consideration of social dimensions.

Agriculture in Israel is practiced throughout the country from the Arava Valley in the South, where average annual rainfall is less than 40 mm, to the Upper Galilee in the North, where annual rainfall exceeds 700 mm. Less than half the cultivated area used for field crops is irrigated. Much of the output is exponed, primarily to Europe, but some to the United States and Japan. In nonirrigated dry-farming areas, the main crops grown are wheat for grain and silage and several secondary crops, including sunflower, watermelons and hay legumes. Animal production is predominantly intensive dairying (mainly cows, but also sheep and goats), poultry production, and aquaculture, all of which use large quantities of imported feed grains. Beef production is largely from dairy bullocks, but includes an important rangeland beef sector. Problems that face Israeli agriculture in general and dryland agriculture in particular are primarily economic, including low prices for many traditional dryland crops, a small local market, and increasing input costs. The changing socioeconomic scene, reflected by decreasing employment in agriculture, has added to the problems of proper land use. There is an urgent need for more appropriate production systems and associated innovative research and development. This includes management for higher output/input ratios, conservation and enhancement of genetic resources, crop diversification, integration of crop and livestock production, and alternative land use options such as agroforestry, recreation, ecological refuges, and landscape enhancement. These challenges are common to most countries in the Middle East, and offer opportunities for regional and international collaboration to improve the sustainability of agriculture in the region.

The policies influencing the American agricultural research agenda are developed by Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the 58 state agricultural experiment stations of the land-grant university system, with input from various advisory groups. Despite the slow pace of change in the agricultural research agenda, there are no special barriers keeping the research system from adapting to contemporary and alternative agriculture issues. Rather, agricultural researchers have neither appropriate professional incentives nor sufficient financial incentives to shift toward alternative agriculture. Public intervention to alter these incentives has been thwarted because agricultural research institutions set their agendas through obscure processes. Five areas of policy change that could improve the prospects for evolution of a significant alternative agriculture research agenda are: 1) imposing a means test for formula fund payment limitations to states, with saved funds directed toward alternative agriculture research; 2) making priority setting a condition for receiving federalfunds for agricultural research to make the research agenda-setting process clearer to all interested parties; 3) requiring that federally funded research programs be categorized by the specific social goals toward which they are directed, to aid in judgments about the relevance of specific public agricultural research programs; 4) requiring information on research programs to be reported in a way that is specifically relevant to the alternative agriculture agenda; 5) formally involving public citizens and farmers in reviewing agricultural research grants to assure that the usefulness of proposed research is weighed along with scientific merit. These proposals complement current interest in making science generally more responsive to national priorities, and are entirely feasible within current agricultural research policy processes. Their effectiveness, however, is limited by the shrinking influence of federal funding in the state agricultural experiment station system, and they are only incremental changes within the existing system rather than radical reforms toward an alternative research system.

Research on agricultural production has been largely the domain of an institutional system established especially for the purpose. However, the complexities and diverse character of agriculture require diversified modes of research. Such a strategy might be better pursued by a more diversified set of research institutions. Non-land-grant institutions, although lacking the land-grant system's strong experience in agriculture and its close ties with farmers, potentially represent a large pool of scientific expertise in a broad range of fields relevant to agriculture. Also, they are under different institutional constraints, and may be in a better position to do more speculative, long-range research that does not promise immediate practical benefits. Although such research has been criticized by people in the sustainable agriculture movement who believe that research should be more directed at farmers' current problems, a truly sustainable agriculture will require a deeper grasp of how agricultural systems work. Achieving this will demand a breadth of understanding that extends beyond the production-oriented studies that dominate current sustainable agriculture research programs.

Control of agricultural policymaking by the “agricultural establishment” has been challenged by a wide range of interests concerned with the externalities of modern industrialized agriculture. An “externalities/alternatives” or “ex/al” coalition appears to be an emerging force in agricultural policy debates. We surveyed three alternative agriculture groups, three conventional agriculture groups, and a statewide sample of farmers to learn whether each category forms a distinct, unified interest group whose perspectives on agricultural policy diverge substantially from the others'. There is considerable similarity among the alternative agriculture groups and among the conventional agriculture groups, the differences between them being much greater than the differences within each category. The statewide farmer sample is generally intermediate between the two sets of interest groups, but is closer to the conventional perspective on most issues.

The public agricultural research and extension system has provided the foundation for great improvements in U.S. agricultural production. However, our incomparable productivity has brought with it serious problems. These problems have also led to a rapidly changing perception about both agricultural scientists and today's conventional agriculture. Critics are placing high on the agenda of the agricultural research and extension establishment the need for alternative technologies that are more sustainable and less exploitative of our resources. The growing demand for alternative systems offers challenges for every part of the establishment-research and extension administrators, branch station/research center directors, and faculty. These challenges and how they should be met are discussed. Alternative systems will become the conventional agriculture of tomorrow.