lems often involve mixes of disciplines and multi-
disciplinary subjects and so defy stable classification.
There are really no long-run priorities for PS research.
The real priority is to maintain the ability to research
an ever-changing, continuing stream of short-term
problems. The following are examples of sets of prob-
lems faced by farmers, consumers, government officials
and agribusiness persons.
 In Michigan, many dairy farmers, Farm Bureau
 administrators, agribusiness managers, state government
 administrators and legislators, and consumers have had
 to make decisions on a whole series of problems stem-
 ming from an accidental contamination of the food
 chain with polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs). This toxic
 fire-retardant chemical was inadvertently mixed with
 dairy feed, and widespread contamination of the food
 chain occurred before the error was discovered. Solv-
 ing the many practical problems which have arisen has
 required widely differing mixes of chemical, biological,
 medical, economic, legal, political and other kinds of
 knowledge and expertise.
 Soil erosion poses problems specific in time and
 location and to decision makers. The disciplinary dimen-
 sions involve soil physics, economics, political science,
 law, soil chemistry and hydrology. In addition, the
 multidisciplinary subjects of agronomy, animal science,
 agricultural economics, agricultural engineering and
 rural sociology are involved.

 Increased wage rates and reduced supplies of labor
pose problems that are time-, place- and commodity-
specific. They occur across the agribusiness spectrum
from farmers to input suppliers and to consumers via
marketing and processing firms. Some problems can be
solved privately but others require government action.
Labor-saving equipment and supplies have been de-
signed, produced and used. Engineers, economists, plant
breeders and animal scientists have been involved. New
institutional arrangements include work environments,
worker safety, housing, collective bargaining rights and
education of the children of laborers. Agricultural Ex-
periment Station scientists working with USDA adjunct
professors have played important roles in solving such
problems (Stuckman, 1959). Institutional aspects of the
regulation of labor and the creation of labor-saving
technologies in producing and harvesting fruits and vege-
tables are important. Some problems grow out of
counterproductive institutional regulations, while others
exist because there are no regulations. Institutional
research could make a contribution to multidisciplinary
efforts to solve labor problems in the fruit and vegetable
industries.
 We anticipate that the benefit of many prospective
biological/physical technologies will be difficult for their
creators to appropriate in the market place. Unlike


hybrid seed corn, not all of these technologies will be
privately remunerative even if socially advantageous.
Some of them will be difficult to identify for legal action
under the 1978 Plant Variety Protection Act (Schmid,
forthcoming). Numerous specific problems will continue
to arise. These will involve the design of public sector
(Agricultural Experiment Stations and Extension Ser-
vices) programs to introduce certain technologies because
private creators and propagators will not be able to re-
tain enough benefits to cover costs. Other regulatory
problems will arise for still other technologies because
it will prove so easy to appropriate benefits from these
technologies that public regulation will be necessary to
protect farmers and/or consumers from exploitation.

 Practical problems associated with the introduction
of new pesticides, herbicides and biologicals include
problems of food safety and pesticide resistance. Some
of these are private; others are public. Some require
research to generate new and assemble old information.
Entomologists, agronomists (weed scientists), veterinar-
ians, economists, nutritionists, toxicologists and
biochemists are involved in mixes that change as prob-
lems change through time. The solution to some prob-
lers requires the use of Extension Services, advertising
and the communication media to distribute knowledge
to farmers and others. New institutional arrangements
are often needed to reduce pesticide pollution, especially
in mixed farming and in semi-urbanized communities.
Pesticide resistance is also a high priority problem for
growers. Such a problem is often location-, community-
and time-specific and must be researched by local
multidisciplinary teams whose members can interact
repeatedly with local leaders and targeted groups. Many
institutional arrangements exist for regulating the use
of fertilizers and pesticides, tillage practices and runoffs
from cultivated fields. The problems associated with
these alternatives need to be researched carefully by
multidisciplinary groups before laws are enacted and
regulations established. The primary effects treated as
desirable when creating laws and regulations should not
be cancelled out by secondary and tertiary effects. We
need to determine if the secondary and tertiary effects
of such laws and regulations make it advantageous for
private actions to be consistent with social objectives.

 The wasteful cycling of pork, beef and dairy pro-
duction creates problems associated with alternate
surpluses and shortages. These and other subsectors of
agriculture-including corn, wheat, soybeans, and
many fruits and vegetables--periodically overinvest in
land, buildings and machinery. Both individual farmers
and society lose as the value of the overinvestments on
the up side of these cycles is never fully recovered by
either individual farmers or society (Johnson and
Quance, 1972). Forward contracting procedures using
computerized systems could eliminate this waste. The