Montana. However, there are now concerns about how this 

 mission should be accomplished during a time of 

 financial distress in agriculture. 



There are several key concerns that have been 

 expressed regarding the program priorities and function 

 of the university research establishment. These 

 concerns specifically pertain to the Montana 

 Agricultural Experiment Station and the Montana 

 Cooperative Extension Service. 



The first major concern is that the emphasis of 

 state agricultural research has been primarily to serve 

 production maximizing research goals. In other words, 

 it is believed that, by and large, agricultural research 

 tends to concentrate on increased yields, frequently in 

 the name of efficiency, but without regard to the need 

 for profitability. Associated with this concern is a 

 sense that production research has contributed to 

 current financial problems in agriculture, mostly 

 because such research tends to require higher capital 

 inputs, which have resulted in farm debt, and because 

 increased production has resulted in an oversupply of 

 agricultural products that has undercut commodity prices 

 and created other diseconomies. 



According to this concern, increasing net farm 

 income and reducing the capital requirements of farming 

 should be the first priority in agricultural research, 

 and production research should support these purposes. 



Another main concern is that state agricultural 

 research overly emphasizes the modification or control 

 of nature and that research generally promotes reliance 

 upon costly commercial chemicals, fertilizers, and other 

 synthetic inputs. This concern holds that agricultural 



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