184 



10 



funding of agricultural research (e.g., special grants, coDipetltlve grants, 

 earmarking funds). 



SAES units have generally been wary of federal attempts to control or 

 guide their research agendas through leadership. They frequently point out 

 that state agricultural problems are primarily local problems, and these local 

 problems must be given highest priority. National research agendas frequently 

 have short lives because of sudden changes in the political climates. State 

 governments do not engage in agricultural commodity program policies to any 

 significant extent. At the national level, however, agricultural research 

 policy and commodity program polices frequently are in conflict. These are 

 some of the main reasons that states tend to see their agricultural research 

 agendas as uniquely different from the national agenda. The national 

 government can, however, point to many examples of duplicative research in 

 SAES units especially in livestock research. 



Third, with reduced real resources for public agricultural research, 

 research administrators tend to focus more Intensely on locating new sources 

 of funds and prioritizing research. This focus frequently leads to tighter 

 control over research projects undertaken. Some new evidence is emerging on 

 the likely effects of alternative management and structural approaches to 

 agricultural research in the states. Huffman and Just (1993) have examined 

 the effects of different organizational and management structures for public 

 agricultural research on state multlf actor productivity. They found that 

 tighter control over research problem choices by directors and department 

 heads may enhance applied research productivity but significantly reduce 

 the productivity of pretechnology science. They, however, show that it is 

 important for public agricultural research in the pretechnology sciences to 

 be oriented to relative external doimstream influences. This is best described 



