D2B—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 17,1982
Penn State research feeds
UNIVERSITY PARK - "The
No. 1 motivating force for future
agricultural research will come
from a hungry world,” says
Samuel H. Smith, dean of Penn
State’s College of Agriculture.
Smith says that how and where
this research is accomplished will
depend on many factors, including
public and private funding,
climate, and faculties, staff, and
administration of land-grant in
stitutions throughout the United
States.
The Agricultural Experiment
Station is an important part of the
system of public research
organizations serving agricultural
science, he notes. This system
includes some 16,000 scientists
nationwide and consists of 54
agricultural experiment stations
and the research agencies of the
USDA.
“In the U.S. there is no other
significant training ground for a
sizable proportion of the world’s
agricultural scientists,’’ says
Smith. This training is crucial to
the future of industry, commerce,
government and educational m
stititions.
Research, Extension and
teaching go hand-m-hand and
reinforce each other m the process.
The benefits are multiple and
radiate outward when a young
creative student is given the op
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portumty to train under a gifted
researcher, Smith states.
The land-grant system, of which
Penn State is a part, has a proven
track record and along with the
USDA has carried out 95 percent ot
all the publicly supported
agricultural research done in
America during the past century.
However, Smith says that past
successes are no guarantee for the
future. There has been a continual
erosion of base line funding sup
port for agricultural research.
Federal funds for scientific m
strumentsand facilities have tail"/)
by more than 50 percent in real
terms even as the costs of equip
ment and laboratory renovation
have been rising much faster than
the cost of living.
“We have also noted in recent
years a dramatic shift in our
research funding sources,” adds
Smith. Agriculture traditional
sources of federally funded
“formula” programs have tended
to remain static while monies for
competitive grants in specific
areas of research have increased.
A ten-year comparison of
research funding sources for Penn
State’s Agricultural Experiment
Station clearly show a shift to
special funds such as contracts,
grants and agreements both public
and private. The increase in this
type of funding during the period of
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1971-81 was almost 50 percent—
from $1,335,000 to $2,000,000.
During the same period, U.S.
appropriations increased a modest
7 percent. The University support
dropped almost 9 percent. This
decrease reflects reduced support
(in real dollars) from the state
government.
What are the areas of emphasis
in Penn State agricultural
research program 9
‘‘Nearly one-third of our
scientists’ time in our Experiment
Station is devoted to seeking ways
to produce and adequate supply to
farm and forest products and to
reducing real production costs,”
says Smith. This allocation has not
changed much in the past eight to
ten years.
Twenty-two percent of our
scientist’s time is devoted to the
protection of forests, crops, and
livestock from insects, diseases,
and other hazards.
Penn State will be maintaining
this emphasis on agricultural
production and protection of crops,
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a hungry world
forests, and animals. Any sub
stantial increase in these areas,
however, will probably have to
come from external funding.
Two areas where Smith sees a
potential for increased emphasis
are in projects designed to im
prove marketing efficiency and in
developing new and improved
products.
In 1980, Penn State devoted 127
scientific man year equivalents to
agricultural research. In this same
year, New York State had 316 man
years of effort and New Jersey had
99 man years.
When this manpower input is
translated into dollars of product
from agriculture and ag-related
industries per scientist year,
Pennsylvania shows $59,700,000 of
product per scientist; New Jersey
has $36 million of product per
scientist; and New York has $21.6
million of product per scientist
man years.
Since organized research has
been underway in the College of
Agriculture for about 100 years,
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Penn State has had an opportunity
to explore many areas of promise.
“Ours is a task of steadily and
frequently slowly developing the
knowledge needed to make in
cremental gams. Although this is
not dramatic and traditionally
does not receive the media
headlines, our research is ef
fective,” explains Smith.
The most spectacular
“breakthrough” for the land-grant
systems was probably that of corn
hybridization in the late 19305. This
had a tremendous effect on corn
yiekL.but less dramatic findings
have had a much larger effect.
Since 1970, it is estimated that
increases in production five times
that due to corn hybridization have
resulted from application of the
"pedestrian” research that
produced small incremental gams.
Research is a long and tedious
business and the promise of great
returns may be agonizingly slow to
pay off. Dairy Breeding Scientist
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