end of the 1980s. Additionally, research is being directed 

 toward several longer range developments, including al- 

 ternatives to conventional engines that might provide still 

 greater efficiencies; batteries that can store up to 10 times 

 the energy of present lead-acid batteries and thereby 

 provide a basis for increased use of electric vehicles; and 

 the efficient use of alternative fuels produced from coal or 

 biomass (p. 71). 



IMPROVEMENTS IN SAFETY 



The innovative use of radionavigation, radiolocation, ra- 

 dio communication, and computer systems provides op- 

 portunities for improving both the safety and the effi- 

 ciency of air and water transportation . The convergence of 

 computer and communications technologies also provides 

 opportunities for transportation safety improvements 

 through automation in such areas as mass transit and air 

 traffic control (pp. 71-72). In highway traffic safety, most 

 technological efforts to date have focused on postcrash 

 survivability and injury reduction rather than on accident 

 prevention. Such strategies will become more costly and 

 less effective as the United States moves toward the in- 

 creased use of smaller vehicles, suggesting that a large 

 portion of future advances in automotive safety could 

 come from improvements in driving habits, rather than 

 from further technological refinements (p. 72). 



AGRICULTURE 



Each American farmer currently produces enough food 

 for 60 people, a significant increase from 30 in 1970, and 

 7 in 1900. Agricultural products constitute over 20 percent 

 of the total value of U.S. exports, and increases in the 

 world's population are placing new demands on the U.S. 

 food producing system. Yet the rate of increase in agri- 

 cultural productivity has recently begun to slow both in 

 the United States and elsewhere in the world. That trend 

 emphasizes the need to apply advances in science and 

 techology to ensure the continued availability of adequate 

 input resources for agriculture — namely, water, land, and 

 nutrients — and to increase product yields (pp. 72-73). 



INPUT RESOURCES 



Growing urbanization and industrialization in the United 

 States and in much of the rest of the world has led to the 

 use of less productive land for agriculture. But the use of 

 less than prime land requires increased use of other input 

 resources, including supplementary nutrients, water, and, 

 particularly, labor In addition, less than prime land is 

 often subject to more rapid degeneration and erosion. 

 Experiments with multiple cropping, reduced tillage, re- 

 cycling of agricultural wastes, organic farming, and other 



changes in cultivation practice have been somewhat suc- 

 cessful as alternatives to the extensive use of costly syn- 

 thetic fertilizers on less than prime land (p. 73). 



On the microlevel, the factors that determine the effi- 

 ciency of nutrient intake processes in plants are just begin- 

 ning to be understood. Research in progress could provide 

 opportunities for the selective breeding of plants that can 

 absorb and process much greater volumes of nutrients 

 from the same basic source (p. 74). 



New irrigation techniques to improve the efficient use 

 of water show considerable promise. The water avail- 

 ability constraint on agriculture could also be mitigated in 

 the long term by ongoing research aimed both at lowering 

 the cost of desalination processes and at the development 

 of plants that can be grown in high-saline or brackish 

 water (pp. 73-74). 



INCREASING PRODUCT YIELDS 



While selective breeding of agriculturally useful plants is 

 almost as old as human civilization, the current explosion 

 in fundamental knowledge in molecular and developmen- 

 tal biology and genetics, coupled with the development of 

 such new manipulation techniques as recombinant DNA, 

 offers the potential for deliberate engineering of species 

 with a range of desirable characteristics. Advances in 

 genetic engineering and embryology also promise to 

 make substantial contributions to increasing the effective- 

 ness of animal husbandry (pp. 74-75). 



The development of plants that can fix nitrogen from 

 the atmosphere rather than having to rely on fertilizers in 

 the soil, that can tolerate more highly saline water, or that 

 are more resistant to pests and parasites shows considera- 

 ble promise. Research that could yield synthetic versions 

 of the growth regulators that determine the development 

 time of plants is also receiving considerable attention. 

 Such synthetic growth could be used to accelerate crop 

 growth cycles (pp. 74—75). Genetic engineering tech- 

 niques are being used to improve the ability of plants and 

 animals to withstand environmental stresses (variations in 

 rainfall, nutrient supply, and temperature), thereby ex- 

 panding the range of lands where cultivation is possible (p. 

 75). 



Sophisticated analytical methods are also leading to an 

 improved understanding of the nature of biological sus- 

 ceptibility to disease and the spread of disease (p. 75). 



More broadly, there is a critical need to understand the 

 systemic relationships of plants to their total environment. 

 Advances in that understanding have led, for example, to 

 the integrated pest management concept that relies on 

 combining information about the biology of pests, the 

 environment, and the host to obtain maximal results from 

 the application of biological and chemical controls. A 

 better understanding of such systemic relationships is also 



