disciplines instead of SM departments. Few
agricultural colleges now have energy, environmental
quality, aquaculture or farm labor departments,
though such departments may be more relevant than
some existing ones. The need for multidisciplinary SM
departments depends on the time, place, problems and
issues. All of these aberrations of the historical
organization of departments in agricultural colleges
and institutes pose administrative problems for
organizing SM food and agricultural research into pat-
terns appropriate for the needs of today and for the
future.

 There is a need for expanding technical SM and PS
research for agriculture. Some biophysical technologies
for agriculture deteriorate rapidly. For example, insect
pests and disease organisms have substantial ability to
mutate and become immune to pesticides, overcome
immunities and counteract antibiotics. Thus,
maintenance expenditures on SM research are increas-
ingly important, though not spectacular, attention-
getting or productive of Nobel prizes or approbation
from disciplinary peers. As agricultural technologies
become increasingly complex, proportionally more SM
research must be done to maintain current levels of
technology. Society cannot risk losing the capacity it
has developed for agricultural production by failing to
maintain its SM agricultural technology. Further, an
increasing amount of technical SM research will be
needed by public decision makers responsible for en-
vironmental quality, structural changes in agriculture
and rural life, and the purity, safety and whole-
someness of food.

 Part II of this report focused on the ARE's critics, in-
cluding the biological and physical scientists outside
the USDA/land-grant system. That section of this
report deals with the important administrative
problems involving the interrelationship between the
SM research done in the multidisciplinary departments
of the land-grant colleges and the USDA, on one hand,
and that done by biological and physical science
disciplinarians, on the other, who are outside of the
USDA/land-grant system. This latter group is also con-
cerned with food and agriculture research and is trying
valiantly to do DISC research of relevance to food pro-
duction and the reduction of world hunger. Clearly
both SM and DISC research are needed, and it is im-
portant that there be a close working relationship be-
tween PS and SM researchers, on one hand, and the
relevant DISC researchers, on the other. This relation-
ship is almost automatic when DISC research is done
within the various multidisciplinary departments and
agencies of the USDA/land-grant system. The difficul-
ty, however, is that pressure to do PS and SM research
leaves little time and few resources in such departments
and agencies for the necessary DISC research. ARE ad-


ministrators find it hard to make a case before
practical-minded congressional committees or state
legislators for DISC research, however important it
may seem to scientists aware that agriculture needs
more relevant DISC research than the ARE can pro-
duce on its own. The deficit can be made up, in part,
by the biological, physical and social scientists outside
the USDA/land-grant system if destructive competition
between and within the two groups is avoided.


Research (Both Subject-Matter
and Disciplinary) on Institutional
and Related Changes of Importance for the
Use and Generation of Technology
 Agriculturists and consumers in the United States
and other countries that have reasonably good agri-
cultural policies and institutions may forget that in-
stitutional and social science research is essential for
successful creation and utilization of new technologies.
Technological advance requires institutions and
policies that make it advantageous for scientists to
generate technological change, for suppliers to produce
and distribute the inputs in which advanced
technologies are imbedded, and for farmers and agri-
business peQple to adopt and use high-technology
inputs.
 There are many examples of excellent technological
 advances that were never utilized because of poor in-
 stitutions. One of the most dramatic involved the im-
 proved oil palm varieties which were developed at the
 West African Institute for Oilpalm Research
 (WAIFOR) in Nigeria. Superior varieties created at
 this institute outproduced wild oil palm varieties six-
 fold under experimental conditions and threefold
 under farm conditions. After these varieties were
 developed, the government spent large amounts of
 money on its extension service to make knowledge of
 these new varieties available to farmers. It also set up
 mechanisms for reproducing the improved varieties for
 ready availability. Nigeria's federal and state govern-
 ments, however, depended on export taxes on palm oil
 for substantial amounts of revenue. These govern-
 ments, anxious for the additional revenue, extracted up
 to 50 percent of the export price of palm oil from the
 farmers. This high taxation by the Palm Oil Marketing
 Board reduced returns to farmers to a level where they
 could barely "make wages" harvesting the fruit from
 either wild or improved varieties. The consequence
 was that the farmers did not take care of the improved
 varieties, even though they sometimes planted them to
 get a planting subsidy. Governmental officials and ad-
 ministrators of the Palm Oil Marketing Board argued
 that Nigerian farmers were primitive people who
 would not respond either negatively to a low price or