Part III


 Research Priorities


 A vision of priorities for PS, SM and DISC research needs to focus on
the four cutting edges essential for agricultural progress-science and
technological advance, improved institutions, human skills, and an ex-
panded and improved capital (physical and biological) base. This iden-
tifies the roles of the various components in the system; lays the ground-
work for clarifying important budgetary, administrative and coordination
problems; and permits an examination of priorities within each of the three
kinds of research without becoming engaged in sterile debate concerning
the merits of the three.
 Herein are presented examples of PS research emphasizing technology
but with no attempt to develop separate statements for needed PS research
in the areas of technology, institutions, human development and capital
accumulation. The discussion of SM and DISC research follows an outline
that relates research in the subject matter departments of colleges of
agriculture and in the typical disciplinary departments of traditional univer-
sities to our classification of the prime movers in agricultural development.


 Examples of Problem-Solving
 Research for Agriculture
 Problems faced by agriculture's decision makers-
farmers, agribusiness persons, government officials,
scientists and research administrators-are typically
multidisciplinary; consequently, research on such
problems is also multidisciplinary. Practical problems
do not respect the disciplinary departments and bound-
aries found in universities and institutes. The domains
of current practical problems often cross the boundaries
of such multidisciplinary departments in colleges of
agriculture as agronomy, agricultural engineering, rural
sociology and agricultural economics. Still further, they
often cross college boundaries in universities and the
boundaries within the USDA as set by the Agricultural
Research Service, the Economic Research Service, the
Soil Conservation Service, the Forestry Service and the
Foreign Agricultural Service of the USDA. They even
go beyond the boundaries of the USDA or any particular


university. Some are international-hence, the creation
of international agricultural research centers, of which
there are now 13.
 Because agricultural problems are time- and place-
specific, research administrators and research structures
have to be flexible and adaptable. The lines of demar-
cation among research, extension and action agencies
blur at the problem-solving end of the research spec-
trum. In some states, extension "investigations" and
demonstration projects are scarcely distinguishable from
PS research. Investigations in support of USDA opera-
tions likewise are often indistinguishable from PS
research in the Economic and the Agricultural Research
Services.
 The problems of agricultural decision makers are not
amenable to stable classification, including assignment
to either traditional academic disciplines or to the less
traditional subject matter departments found in colleges
of agriculture and experiment stations. Individual prob-