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Preface 



The United States was once much richer than the 

 rest of the world and, particularly in agriculture, was 

 more productive. Once, the United States could manu- 

 facture products that the rest of the world lacked the 

 technology to make, and could grow and export farm 

 products in quantities and with a quality that no other 

 country could match. U.S. exports did not compete 

 with products from the rest of the world — rather, the 

 United States was the locomotive of the world econ- 

 omy. 



Now, however, this nation's economic superiority 

 can no longer be assured. The United States is only 

 one of several countries of major industrial and agri- 

 cultural strength. As the United States' almost effort- 

 less economic superiority was replaced by equality, 

 the U.S. share of the world's gross national product 

 fell from more than 50 percent after World War II to 

 about 22 percent in the late 1980s. The products that 

 the rest of the world lacked the technology to make are 

 now made by many countries in a world of increasing 

 technological parity. Advances in agricultural pro- 

 duction in the developed and developing regions have 

 sharply curtailed foreign markets for U.S. farm prod- 

 ucts. Instead of being a major exporter of raw mate- 

 rials, the United States is now a major importer of 

 some products (Thurow, 1989). 



New and complex challenges therefore confront 

 U.S. agriculture — the challenges of responding to 

 aggressive competition on a global scale, ensuring 

 good nutrition and a high-quality food supply for all 

 our people, safeguarding our natural resources, and 

 enhancing our environment But at the same time, we 

 are still leading the world in the biological sciences 

 central to our agricultural sector. It is therefore en- 

 couraging to consider the manifold opportunities for 

 progress. For example, advances in modem genetics 

 can be applied throughout the agricultural, food, and 



environmental system; and new environmental and 

 engineering methods can help maintain both the quan- 

 tity and quality of groundwaters and surface waters. 



The challenges confronting agriculture must be 

 addressed in two stages. First, leadership is required 

 to set and implement new priorities so that the most 

 critical problems can be solved and opportunities 

 exploited. Second, the necessary physical and intel- 

 lectual resources must be allocated. 



In this report, the Board on Agriculture of the 

 National Research Council presents a proposal for a 

 major new funding initiative designed to meet these 

 challenges. The report describes a course of action 

 that will resolve key problems in agriculture, advance 

 the sciences that undergird the nation's agriculture 

 and the quality of U.S. natural resources, and enhance 

 the nation's well-being. The board calls fora substan- 

 tial increase in federal funding for research and recom- 

 mends application of these funds through competitive 

 grants. At the same time, the board recognizes the 

 nation's need to meet federal deficit reduction goals 

 and the need to balance alternative priorities. 



Agriculture, as the Board on Agriculture defines it. 

 encompasses the entirety of the system that grows and 

 processes food and fiber for the nation. It also encom- 

 passes the related natural resouri::es, public policy 

 issues, social systems, and physical and biological 

 environments. TTie term agriculture, food, and the 

 environment is used to communicate the full meaning 

 of agriculture in this broad sense. 



Self-initiated activity of this kind is unusual for the 

 Board on Agriculture, which generally provides de- 

 tailed assessments and analyses of issues only at the 

 request of a federal agency or the U.S. Congress. 

 However, the significance of agriculture for the U.S. 

 economy and the critical role of research in ensuring 

 agricultural progress impelled the board to prepare 



