developing a new initiative, "global habitability," em-
phasizing global biology and a land-related global
habitability research program (National Aeronautics
and Space Administration, 1983), in which the earth's
total resources will be monitored for effects on life-
supporting systems. Space technology now allows
worldwide agricultural crop forecasting and early
warning of impending disasters resulting from severe
climatic variations and pestilence. The biophysical and
social scientists of the agricultural research community
should be active participants in this effort. Agricultural
engineering research on waste management and
technologies for waste disposal on the land, in water
and in air will become increasingly important.

 Structures and Environments for Plants and Animals
 One focus will be on the design of storage for grain
 and perishable fruits, vegetables, ornamentals and
 potatoes. Another will be on protected environments
 with appropriate sensors for optimizing inputs of all
 growth factors for the intensive production of high-
 valued vegetable, flower, fruit and ornamental crops.
 In this, engineers will work with horticulturists.
 Research relating to improved structures and housing
 for livestock is an important area of agricultural
 engineering that should involve animal scientists.

 Food Engineering Attention will be on the
 handling of commodities from harvest through process-
 ing and distribution to the consumer. Included will be
 research on storage, processing, transportation and
 packaging. Agricultural engineers must relate closely
 to specialists in packaging, food science, agricultural
 economics, horticulture and the animal sciences. They
 will also contribute to systems research on the farm and
 agribusiness sectors.


 Disciplinary Research Relevant
for Agricultural Engineering
 Agricultural engineers often operate in a "design
mode." Their objective is to devise optimal systems,
machines and equipment. Thus, disciplinary advances
in optimization theory in economics are important in
agricultural engineering. This was recognized at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which
developed a superior economics department under the
leadership of Paul Samuelson, a Nobel laureate. SM
research in agricultural engineering depends upon
disciplinary advances of chemists, physicists, mathe-
maticians, metallurgists, hydrologists, economists and
statisticians. The relationship between DISC research
and agricultural engineering has received scant atten-
tion. Agricultural engineers are as dependent upon
advances in the supporting disciplines as are those in
plant and soil departments. -


General Discussion of Technical
Subject-Matter and Disciplinary Research
 Traditional agricultural departments still exist, as
they have for decades, in research institutes, bureaus
and organizations, and as units in universities and col-
leges. Considerable relevant DISC research is done in
the multidisciplinary SM departments of colleges of
agriculture, as well as in disciplinary departments out-
side such colleges.
 Most SM departments of colleges of agriculture were
established to handle the problems of the past. Conse-
quently, they often fail with the problems of the pre-
sent. New technological needs and problems are being
generated by changes not heretofore experienced in
energy, land, water and labor costs; institutions; and
human skills and attitudes. Thus, there is a need to
restructure the organization of the Agricultural
Research Establishment's (ARE's) SM departments and
research programs. This does not mean that SM
research should be abandoned in favor of DISC
research. SM research will be as important in the
future as it has been in the past. The needs are for
reorganization of SM research, not elimination; for
additional support for the DISC research that will be
required to undergird SM research; and for determina-
tion of an optimal distribution of support for DISC
research between the USDA and colleges of agii-
culture, on one hand, and university departments and
agencies both inside and outside the USDA/land-grant
system, on the other.
 Departmental structures vary with states, research
institutes, universities and colleges. Many existing ad-
ministrative structures should be retained, but some
should be eliminated and new ones created. SM
departments can be enlarged or reduced. The animal
departments are sometimes subdivided into dairy
science, poultry science and animal husbandry. Con-
versely, horticulture, field crops, agronomy and
forestry can be grouped together as a plant science
department, as they have been in many institutions.
Going to the other extreme, horticulture departments
can be broken down into the separate units of
pomology, vegetable crops, floriculture and orna-
mental horticulture.

 Within agronomy and horticulture, forestry and
animal science departments, the disciplines of
biochemistry, plant physiology, statistics, genetics,
molecular biology, climatology, environmental
sciences and computer sciences may be represented by
individual departmental faculty members. Conversely,
agricultural research and educational institutions, in-
cluding colleges of agriculture, sometimes have depart-
ments of genetics, statistics, plant pathology and ento-
mology, which may fit best under a listing of technical