797 



-21- 



3-4% per year if significant improvement is to occur by the end of the 

 century. 5 



The U.S. has a unique role to play both because of its agricultural 

 production which has become the most important buffer for many other countries 

 that must rely on imports, and its R&D capability that has been so important 

 in the past and could be enlisted more substantially and effectively to assist 

 increases in productivity in other countries, as well as in the U.S. 



For the reasons cited earlier, much of the necessary R&D and 

 experimentation must be carried out in the countries trying to improve their 

 own agricultural enterprises. This implies building more indigenous 

 capability than now exists, and equally strengthening and expanding the 

 enormously successful international agriculture research centers which have 

 been primarily oriented to, and staffed by, developing countries. The recent 

 move to devote more of their resources to the applied problems of improving 

 agriculture (low-cost technologies, water conservation, etc.) are much to be 

 applauded. The international centers must not be seen as alternatives to 

 individual country capacity, but as necessary complements to allow some 

 economies of scale, to focus resources on generic problems, and to provide an 

 essential psychological tie to a world community for a sometimes isolated 

 scientist in a poor country. 



But, the U.S. R&D community could play a substantial role, larger than is 

 at present likely. One impediment is the budgetary process cited earlier that 

 bars the Department of Agriculture from effectively committing its own funds 

 for agricultural problems not seen as "domestic." 



Swittwer, p. 3. 



