Issues of academic disciplines in agricultural research

This essay examines the growing concerns about disciplinary narrowing occurring in agricultural research and the prospects of ameliorating the detrimental effects of disciplinary compartmentalization while capitalizing on its positive effects. The general model for agricultural science is that disciplinary groupings set the logic and standards for research; the disciplinary sciences are set in a hierarchical arrangement which allows communication from the relevant basic sciences through applied research into technology development and use and problem-solving. But agricultural research throughout most of its history has been goal-oriented and, therefore, is subject to ethical judgements of its worth and consequences. Also, strategic aspects of agricultural research have been subject to the evaluations and criticisms of both scientists and critics with differing interests at stake. Goals can change and organizations can be set to enable multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, but both goals and organizations come up against values associated with the disciplinary quality of the research, the social setting of academic science, the competition for resources, and the scientific reward system. However, there are changes underway in the agricultural scientific community which may recast the impacts of disciplinary structuring: (1) changes in the disciplinary components of subject areas and departments, (2) evolution and introductions of integrative and systems sciences into the system, (3) infusion of the same new powerful tools into most of the sciences, and (4) increased networking among scientists of different disciplines. Given that scientists' values and personalities intrude in agricultural science and research strategies, the future of agricultural research may rest on the scientists' intellectual vision and philosophical awareness that go beyond the expected disciplinary limits.H. O. Kunkel is Professor of Life Sciences at the Departments of Animal Science and of Biochemistry and Biophysics of Texas A&M University. He has served as Associate Director and Director of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station and from 1967 to 1988 was Dean of Agriculture. He was jointly responsible for establishing the program in agricultural ethics at Texas A&M and has been a member of the task force on ethics in agricultural and natural resource policy of the National Agriculture and Natural Resources Curriculum Project. Professor Kunkel teaches a graduate course in issues in animal agriculture.     

我国农业部门适应气候变化的措施、障碍与对策分析

中国是一个农业大国,农业生产直接关系到社会稳定和可持续发展。气候变化会对我国农业生产和粮食安全产生重大影响。本文通过文献综述和比较研究,系统分析了气候变化对农业部门可能造成的影响,分区域梳理了不同地区面临的主要气候风险和可以采取的适应措施,并识别了各项适应措施在实施过程中可能遇到的障碍,提出相关对策和政策建议。     

Nobody farms here anymore: Livelihood diversification in the Amazonian community of Carvão,a historical perspective

Over the past 15 years income sources in the Amazonian community of Carvão have diversified to include government salaries, retirement and welfare benefits, and wages from an evolving informal service sector. These non-farm incomes are now more important to household incomes than the sale of agricultural products. Out of 80 households only three families were found to depend almost entirely on the sale of agricultural goods for cash income. Agriculture is still a part of most families’ livelihoods; however, production today is mainly a subsistence activity. Recent changes in Carvão are consistent with trends of livelihood diversification observed in rural societies across the globe. However, current research reveals that Carvão is different from other case studies in a number of ways. A history of livelihoods illustrates that residents in Carvão have always engaged in a range of activities, including farming, extractive activities, and wage labor. New incomes are the result of new jobs in the public sector and social policies benefiting the rural poor. In contrast to the literature on livelihood diversification, the decentralization of the federal government in Brazil has resulted in greater opportunities for rural income and employment. Consistent with recorded trends, research shows that small farmers in Carvão have down-sized agricultural production. Farmers cite low market prices (the result of vertical integration of local markets) as one cause of this decline. Residents, especially small farmers, interested in diversifying agricultural production are limited by inadequate extension services and credit, and younger residents seek public sector employment. Income diversification has increased livelihoods security; however, future livelihoods will depend on new economic growth. Given the stagnating public sector and a weak industrial sector, production geared toward growing urban markets is a viable means for further income generation in Carvão.     

食用农产品质量安全监管体系存在问题及对策研究

食用农产品安全问题一直以来都是国家政府部门关注的重点,食用农产品安全不仅影响了社会经济的健康发展,也关系着社会群体的自身安全。我国为应对食用农产品安全问题制定了多项管理措施,对于维护食用农产品质量的安全发挥了重要作用,本文主要分析食用农产品监管体系存在的问题与改进。     

Ever Since Hightower: The Politics of Agricultural Research Activism in the Molecular Age

In 1973, Jim Hightower and his associates at the Agribusiness Accountability Project dropped a bombshell – Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times – on the land-grant college and agricultural science establishments. From the early 1970s until roughly 1990, Hightower-style criticism of and activism toward the public agricultural research system focused on a set of closely interrelated themes: the tendencies for the publicly supported research enterprise to be an unwarranted taxpayer subsidy of agribusiness, for agricultural research and extension to favor large farmers and be disadvantageous for family farmers, for public research to stress mechanization while ignoring the concerns and interests of farm workers, and for the research and extension establishment to ignore rural poverty and other rural social problems. By 1990, however, there had been a quite fundamental restructuring of the agricultural technology opposition movement – one that is not often well recognized. Two overarching changes had occurred. First, agricultural-technology activism had shifted from contesting land-grant/public research priorities and practices to contesting private agribusiness technological priorities and practices. Second, the relatively integrated, overarching Hightower-type opposition had undergone bifurcation into two quite distinct social movements: the agricultural sustainability/local food systems movement on one hand, and the anti-GM food/crop and anti-food-system-globalization movement on the other. In this paper I explore the causes and consequences of these restructurings of the agricultural research and technology opposition movement. Chief among the major factors involved was the fact that “Hightowerism' involved an ineffectual representational politics. Hightowerist claims – especially the claim that land-grant research was detrimental to family farmers – generated little support among the groups it claimed to represent (particularly “small' or “family' farmers). The two successor movements, by contrast, have relatively clear and dependable constituents. Further, the progressive molecularization of agricultural research, which proved to be both an antecedent and consequence of corporate involvement in agricultural research in the US, has decisively changed the issues that are contested by technology activists. Since the age of Hightower, the agricultural technology activist movement has shifted its 1970s and early 1980s emphasis from contesting public sector/land-grant research priorities to contesting private sector activities, particularly genetic engineering, GM crops, and globalization of agricultural technologies and regulatory practices. Even the sustainability/localism wing of the new agricultural technology movement configuration has progressively backed away from contesting public research priorities. The efforts of the sustainable agricultural and localism movement have increasingly focused on quasi-private efforts such as community supported agriculture, green/“value-added' labeling and marketing strategies, and community food security. Some implications of this increasingly bifurcated, agricultural technology, activist movement configuration in which there is decreased interest in land-grant/public research priorities are discussed.     

Nanotechnologies,food, and agriculture: next big thing or flash in the pan?

The advent of the new nanotechnologies has been heralded by government, media, and many in the scientific community as the next big thing. Within the agricultural sector research is underway on a wide variety of products ranging from distributed intelligence in orchards, to radio frequency identification devices, to animal diagnostics, to nanofiltered food products. But the nano-revolution (if indeed there is a revolution at all) appears to be taking a turn quite different from the biotechnology revolution of two decades ago. Grappling with these issues will require abandoning both the exuberance of diffusion theory and ex post facto criticism of new technologies as well in favor of a more nuanced and proactive view that cross the fault line between the social and natural sciences.

The legitimacy of the agricultural extension service

Traditionally, the Swedish Agricultural Extension Service has delivered technical information to farmers with the aim of increasing productivity and efficiency in farming. Present problems with overproduction of food and the negative social and environmental consequences of present farm practices has brought this traditional mission in question. In a situation of budgetary constraints it has been suggested that the funding of the governmental Agricultural Extension Service should be cut down or even discontinued altogether The article argues that this would be a mistake. The various negative consequences of modern agriculture indicate that we are far from an ideal mode of agricultural production. Instead, public opinion and new guidelines for agricultural and environmental policies call for substantial changes in Swedish agriculture with respect to pollution, preservation of non-renewable resources, maintaining an open rural landscape, ethical aspects of animal production, rural development etc. This reorientation of Swedish agriculture presumes that decision-makers, farmers, and the public at large get an opportunity to learn more about the complexities of agricultural production. In contributing to this learning process the Agricultural Extension Service would have an important mission. To be able to fulfill this mission, extension professionals must be provided an opportunity to learn a broader concept of productivity and efficiency in agriculture, for instance, how to extend cost-benefit analyses and technical criteria of efficiency to include social, environmental, and ethical aspects. Our present extension staff has not received adequate training for this task. It is suggested that all agricultural colleges need to create departments of Rural Sociology and Agricultural Humanities to provide agricultural students and professionals an opportunity to develop a better understanding of agriculture and make them prepared to take on the challenges and responsibilities they confront in developing our future agriculture.     

Science policy and moral purity: The case of animal biotechnology

Public controversy over animalbiotechnology is analyzed as a case that illustratestwo broad theoretical approaches for linking science,political or ethical theory, and public policy. Moralpurification proceeds by isolating the social,environmental, animal, and human health impacts ofbiotechnology from each other in terms of discretecategories of moral significance. Each of thesecategories can also be isolated from the sense inwhich biotechnology raises religious or metaphysicalissues. Moral purification yields a comprehensive andsystematic account of normative issues raised bycontroversial science. Hybridization proceeds bytaking concern for all these elements to be a mark ofsound moral character. The advocate of hybridizationinfers that those who employ a strategy ofpurification seek to avoid accountability by dividingissues, and hence are not to be trusted. Lack of trustincreases perceived risk and challenges the legitimacyof government regulations to control social,environmental, and human health risks that areestablished under separate mandate, and administeredby separate agencies.The close alignment between government agencies, theiracademic affines, and the categories of purificationplaces the purified analysis in a favored politicalposition. Legitimation of science-based policy inareas like animal biotechnology becomes problematicbecause the concern of those who would take a hybridapproach (arguably the majority of lay persons) tounderstanding controversial science are excluded.Ironically, this exclusion heightens the perception ofrisk from animal biotechnology. The paper concludeswith a call for procedural approaches to incorporatingthe hybrid view of science‘s moral significance.     

农业的公共产品性与农业服务体系建设

正确认识农业的性质是制定科学的农业政策的前提，本文认为农业是具有公共产品性的特殊产业，这主要是由人类对农业产品需求的必须性、农产品消费的非排他性、农产品供给的社会团体性以及农业的多功能性等特性所决定的。因此，政府不能仅仅把农业看作是一个提供食品的产业部门，而应该充分考虑农业的公共产品性。特别是健全农业服务组织，为农民提供生产、技术、销售服务，是农业专业化、规模化、产业化所不可缺少的条件，也是建设现代农业制度的重要方面。     

Biotechnology,ethics, and the structure of agriculture

The “new” agricultural biotechnologies are presently high-priority items on the national research agenda. The promise of increased efficiency and productivity resulting from products and processes derived from biotech is thought to justify the commitment to R&D. Nevertheless, critics challenge the environmental safety as well as political-economic consequences of particular products of biotech, notably, ice-nucleating bacteria and the bovine growth hormone. In this paper the critics' arguments are analyzed in explicitly ethical terms, and assessed as to their relative merits. In some cases, a principle of “do no foreseeable harm” as well as a clear determination of likely harms would force us to conclude that research, development, and diffusion of a product or process derived from biotechnology is ethically wrong. In all cases, one conclusion that can be reached is that everyone involved in research, development, marketing and adoption of biotech products is responsible for the results of their actions; thus, each individual has a responsibility to consider a broader range of values and goals that effect and are effected by the biotechnology effort.     

中国农业专利的质量：基于不同申请时期、申请主体和技术领域的比较

【目的】研究专利数量飞涨背景下不同申请时期、申请主体和技术领域的中国农业专利质量及其变化趋势。【方法】以中国1985-2010年受理的全部农业专利为样本,利用统计和计量经济模型分析发明专利申请率、发明专利授权率、授权发明专利失效率、专利维持时间等质量指标。【结果】中国与国外农业发明专利授权率在统计上没有显著差异,但是国外的平均维持时间显著更长。在0.01置信水平下,中国公共研究部门（大学、科研机构）与企业、个人相比,发明专利授权的概率显著更高,但维持专利的概率却显著低于企业。时间趋势变量的系数估计值表明,中国农业发明专利的授权和维持状况自2001年起有明显改善。【结论】尽管中国农业专利质量总体不如国外,但近年来已有显著提高,尤其以农业生物技术最为突出。大学、科研机构作为中国农业专利的申请主体,申请质量显著高于企业和个人,但“重申请轻维持”的现象比企业严重。中国今后应引导和规范农业科教单位的专利申请动机,鼓励和支持专利技术的转化实施。     

我国转基因作物的研发与安全管理

转基因技术是现代生物技术的核心,可以打破物种间界限,从而实现作物目标性状的定向改造,在缓解资源约束、减少生态环境污染、保障食物安全、改进农产品质量、节水增效、拓展农业功能等方面显示出重要作用和巨大潜力。综述了全球转基因作物产业化进程及目前的发展规模,介绍了我国农业转基因作物的研发现状及安全管理框架,包括法规制度体系和安全评价体系,旨在为推进我国转基因作物的研发、产业化以及农业生物技术的发展提供相关理论指导。     

我国转基因作物的研发与安全管理

转基因技术是现代生物技术的核心,可以打破物种间界限,从而实现作物目标性状的定向改造,在缓解资源约束、减少生态环境污染、保障食物安全、改进农产品质量、节水增效、拓展农业功能等方面显示出重要作用和巨大潜力。综述了全球转基因作物产业化进程及目前的发展规模,介绍了我国农业转基因作物的研发现状及安全管理框架,包括法规制度体系和安全评价体系,旨在为推进我国转基因作物的研发、产业化以及农业生物技术的发展提供相关理论指导。     

Agricultural debt restructuring,accounting, and public policy: A study of the Farmers Home Administration

Federal credit policies toward agriculture reflect the human values of maintaining the farm production sector largely as an industry characterized by small-scale, family farms. The Farmers Home Administration has implemented various credit programs designed to carry out this policy objective. As a result of the prolonged financial crisis in the farm economy, the agricultural community is becoming more aware of the controversies surrounding the mission of FmHA and its debt restructuring program. This paper discusses the debt restructuring program administered by the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), as authorized by the Agricultural Credit Act of 1987, and amended by the recently enacted Farm Bill of 1990. It discusses the key provisions of the Agricultural Credit Act authorizing FmHA to establish a debt restructuring and debt forgiveness program aimed at achieving the public policy objective of keeping financially stressed farmers in business, whenever possible.In the course of reviewing the restructuring program, FmHA officials and congressional committees reviewed the FmHA's mission and its program implementation. This review indicated that several unintended negative consequences resulted from several abuses stemming from inadequate administrative mechanisms and controls and conflicting legislative objectives of debt forgiveness and federal tax policy. In enacting the 1990 Farm Bill, Congress sought to reorient FmHA's mission to a temporary source of credit and to eliminate various abuses associated with the implementation of FmHA's debt restructuring program. The 1990 Farm Bill reflects an effort by Congress to address some the controversies surrounding federal credit policies toward agriculture. Although Congress placed limits on debt restructuring, the overall public policy objective of maintaining a family-farm posture in the agricultural sector continues to be an important social value.     

Cowboys,Indians and deforestation: Ethical and environmental issues associated with pastures research in Amazonia

Agricultural development is an activity with many ethical problems. Nowhere are these problems more evident than in tropical forest regions, like the Amazon. This paper examines ethical issues associated with a particularly controversial activity in the region: pastures research. The paper discusses three general critiques of Amazonian agricultural development: ecological, social equity and cultural survival. A particular pastures research project is then examined. The paper concludes that pastures research can be an ethically sound activity when carried out in a manner that is sensitive to the social, cultural, and ecological context. The paper concludes that ethical decisions regarding agricultural research are context sensitive. A better appreciation of potential ethical dilemmas can be obtained by seeking participation by a variety of social actors in designing and carrying out agricultural research.     

Social and environmental attributes of food products in an emerging mass market: Challenges of signaling and consumer perception, with European illustrations

This paper focuses on the environmental and ethical attributes of food products and their production processes. These two aspects have been recently recognized and are becoming increasingly important in terms of signaling and of consumer perception. There are two relevant thematic domains: environmental and social. Within each domain there are two movements. Hence the paper first presents the four movements that have brought to the fore new aspects of food product quality, to wit: (1) aspects of environmental ethics (organic agriculture and integrated agriculture), and (2) social ethics (fair trade and ethical trade). Next, it describes how the actors in the movements (producers, retailers, NGOs, and governments) are organized and how consumers perceive each of the movements. From the perspective of the actors in the movements themselves, the movements are grouped into two “actors’ philosophies.” The first is a “radical” philosophy (the organic production and fair trade movements that arose in radical opposition to conventional agriculture or unfair trade relations), and the second is a “reformist” philosophy (the integrated agriculture and ethical trade movements that arose as efforts to modify but not radically change conventional agriculture). From the point of view of consumers, the classification of the movements is based on perceptions of the “domain” of the movements. That is, consumers tend to perceive the organic production movement and the integrated agricultural movement as a single group because they both deal with the environment. By contrast, consumers tend to group the fair trade movement and the ethical trade movement together because they both deal essentially with social ethics. Recently, key players such as large retailers and agribusinesses have adopted as part of their overall quality assurance programs both environmental and ethical attributes. Their involvement in and adoption of the goals of the movements have, however, generated tensions and conflicts. This is particularly true within the radical movements, because of concerns of cooptation. Finally, the paper identifies challenges faced by those promoting food products with environmental and social/ethical attributes as they attempt to communicate coherent signals to consumers at this crucial moment in the emergence of a mass market for these products. Jean -Marie Codron is a Senior Researcher at INRA and co-director of MOISA, a public joint research laboratory involved in the social sciences. His research interests focus on three main lines of research: economics of contracts, economics of the firm, and economics of market institutions, with applications to “complex” food sectors, where product quality is difficult to measure and/or to signal to the consumer. Lucie Sirieix is Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at SupAgro Montpellier, France, a national higher education establishment under the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Within the MOISA research unit, her main research topics are variety seeking, risk and trust, environmental and ethical consumer concerns, and sustainable consumption. Her specific research areas include organic products, fair trade, and regional products. Thomas Reardon is Professor of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University. His work focuses on globalization, consolidation in the retail and processing sectors, and their effects on agrifood systems and trade as well as on the economics of private quality and safety standards.     

The rural social sciences: An overview of research institutions,tools, and knowledge for addressing problems and issues

This paper seeks to provide a broad overview of the historical, contemporary, and future roles of the rural social sciences. This overview is preceded by a brief elaboration of a model of the social, political, and economic structure of experiment station research organizations which is helpful in identifying the particular types of agricultural and social sciences research that have tended to be conducted in land-grant institutions. Agricultural economics and rural sociology are given particular emphasis in the next section of the paper which discusses the history and current state of the rural social sciences as disciplines. The prospective roles of five “nontraditional” rural social sciences—history, anthropology, political science, geography, and philosophy—in land-grant research programs are also discussed. The final sections of the paper assess major problems in, and recommended solutions for bolstering, the role of the social sciences in the land-grant system.     

Gene technology,food production,and public opinion: A UK study

In this paper, dimensions of the debate surrounding the application of gene technology to food production are discussed and a study assessing perceptions of the technology among a sample of the UK public (n = 1499) is reported. The general picture that emerges from the study is one of people expressing low familiarity with the technology, with more people associating it with high risks than with low risks, and more people expecting it to provide low benefits than high benefits. Attitudes towards different applications vary significantly, as does trust in different potential sources of information about the technology. It is also shown that attitudes can be predicted not only by estimates of risks and benefits but also by perceptions of the involvement of ethical issues, by the perceived need for the technology, and by the perceived likelihood of improvements it is likely to bring to the quality of life in the UK. The results are discussed in the context of the need for greater public information about the technology and the realization that communication of risks takes place within a complex network of societal relationships.Paul Sparks is a social psychologist at the Institute of Food Research, Reading, UK. He has studied at the Universities of Kent (BA) and Oxford (DPhil). His research interests include attitude theory, social influences on food choice, and social and moral dimensions of attitudes towards food consumption and food production methods.     

Technology transfer: Institutions,models, and impacts on agriculture and rural life in the developing world

Technology transfer is a multi-level process of communication involving a variety of senders and receivers of ideas and materials. As a response to market failure, or as an effort to accelerate market-driven social change, technology transfer may combine public and private aparatus or rely solely on public institutional mechanisms to identify, develop, and deliver innovations and information. Technology transfer institutions include universities, government ministries, research institutes, and what may be termed the ‘project sector’. Four farm- and village-level change models are considered: traditional community development, adoption-diffusion, training and Visit Extension, and Farming Systems Research. The challenges to technology transfer efforts center on developing indigenous capacity to generate and adapt agricultural technology to local conditions. This is the primary objective of technology transfer in agriculture and the basis for advancing rural development.     

宝兴县经济社会发展战略研究

宝兴县是我省不发达山区,以农业为主,其他行业缺乏活力,阻碍了农业的发展,而农业又限制了整个县的发展。本文提出,应该承认本地需要有一个整体发展。这就是说需要建设、改进和维护公共设施(特别是能使本地区打破孤立状态的)、公共服务业以及开拓其他行业,诸如交通(即使仅仅只有较方便的通路)、工业、手工业、旅游业和林业等。农业仍然是重要的。地方政府应该致力于稳定农业生产并增加食品供应的可靠性。宝兴县的农业具有两种功能:为地方农业生产作出贡献的经济功能和保护自然环境的社会功能。作者强调对农民提供职业训练、信息和技术及经济咨询服务的重要性。