positively to a higher price. They persisted in maintain-
ing the tax on palm oil (Johnson, 1969).
 On the other side of the world, the Malaysians were
 able to see the opportunity offered by the improved oil
 palm varieties. Their policies and institutional
 arrangements and their soils and climate were such
 that they could grow the improved varieties at a profit.
 Malaysia now has a thriving palm oil industry that
 earns substantial foreign exchange and provides a large
 amount of remunerative employment for Malaysians.
 The lesson is clear. Technological advance alone is not
 sufficient. It must be accompanied by institutions,
 policies and incentives that make it advantageous for
 the technology to be adopted.
 In the United States during World War II, there
 were deficiencies in labor for agriculture, and there
 were other wartime shortages. Rising costs made it dif-
 ficult for farmers to maintain and expand production
 to meet needs. Congress then passed and the president
 signed the so-called "Steagal Amendment" to establish
 and guarantee "necessary prices for three years after
 the cessation of W.W. II hostilities." This wise,
 forward-thinking legislation did much to provide
 incentives for farmers to expand production of com-
 modities necessary for the war effort. Included were
 soybeans, milk products, pork and other basic com-
 modities.
 Another example of an institutional change that
favored productivity was the establishment of the
Farm Credit Administration during the Great Depres-
sion. From the mid-1930s on, this institution has done
much to make credit available to farmers and to
modernize American agriculture. Without this institu-
tional change, American agriculture would not have
developed the productive capacity it now has.
 History is replete with institutional and policy
changes that have increased the productive capacity of
U.S. agriculture. The current danger is that the
reduced political power of farmers may combine with
the concerns of "consumer interest" groups to reverse
past U.S. agricultural policies and programs and move
to a "cheaper food policy" with returns so low to
farmers that they will not be able to generate the
needed increases in production. We have benefited
from past policies that have kept production up and
food prices reasonable for everyone. Our food prices
have probably been lower than they would have been
under a cheap food policy capable of generating
similar levels of output.

Subject-Matter Research on
Institutional and Related Changes
 Emphasis is on institutional and policy research that
undergirds the generation, dissemination and adoption


of technological change. SM research not related to
technological change is omitted. Thus, much SM
research on institutions important for the next half-
century is not covered.
 Agricultural Economics SM research directly rele-
vant to the generation and use of technological change
includes that which should be pursued to accom-
modate to the growing scarcity of land and water,
more expensive energy, increasing real wages, a grow-
ing and increasingly affluent U.S. population with
demands for improved diets, and the need for foreign
exchange. Also included is research on policies, pro-
grams and institutions to facilitate the adoption of and
obtain the best societal results from new technologies;
and finally, research on the economics of developing
the human capital needed to create, distribute and use
new technologies (see later section on research on
human development).
 Regulation of the use and adoption of high-technology
inputs should be reviewed. Public regulations and laws
to protect the environment, food chains and people
may unduly retard the adoption of new technologies.
It is not always clear whether regulations on the use of
chemicals, biologicals and resources for specific pur-
poses are, on balance, beneficial or detrimental.
Economists should contribute to multidisciplinary SM
research to provide assessments of the consequences of
such regulations.
 Overuse of durables and expendables by farmers
generally results in overuse of technology and the
accumulation of government stocks or lower farm
product prices and financial distress (Johnson and
Quance, 1972). Overuse of such durables as machines
reflecting the technology available at one time will
later result in an obsolete agricultural production
plant. Agricultural economists, political scientists,
sociologists and technical agricultural scientists should
design institutional arrangements, policies and pro-
grams to prevent overuse of resources and determine
the need for public expenditures to offset the
undesirable consequences of overuse. Society, as well
as farmers, loses when resources are overcommitted to
agricultural production. The value of these resources
cannot be recovered by either. The 1983 commodity
and payment-in-kind (PIK) programs were designed to
correct overuse. The costs and the short, intermediate
and long-run consequences of the PIK program were
not adequately researched. Thus the program has
proven far more expensive than anticipated.
 Farming systems research (FSR) is too applied and
multidisciplinary to be considered disciplinary, yet too
general to be problem-solving. Agricultural economists
and farm management specialist teams should estimate
the profitability of alternative farming systems. They