agriculture will also change with time, technology and
resource availability. Not all socially desirable
technologies will sufficiently benefit the private sector
to cover costs of production and distribution of needed
inputs and capital. Hybrid seed corn permitted pro-
ducers and distributors to appropriate sufficient benefits
to make it advantageous for them to produce and
distribute the seed. The Plant Variety Protection Act of
1978 recognizes the difficulties of patenting and enforc-
ing patents on biological materials (Schmid, forthcom-
ing). It will not always be possible to devise laws that
will permit private firms to recover developmental, pro-
duction and distribution costs, even if the technologies
involved are socially desirable. A specific example is the
"minor use" program of agricultural chemicals for pest
control. Here, the technologies will be more appropri-
ately handled by Agricultural Experiment Stations and
Extension Services. Considerable research is now being
initiated by agricultural economists and sociologists on
the roles of the public and private sectors. This research
is timely. There are those who claim the private sector
can hire the scientists to do the needed DISC, SM and
PS research for developing all new technologies, thereby
eliminating the need for public sector SM and PS
research (Marshall, 1949). This argument presumes that
private firms will benefit in creating, producing and
distributing new technologies and that private firms will
find it unprofitable to degrade the environment and con-
taminate the food chain and to adversely affect the struc-
ture of agriculture and society.

 International trade is becoming increasingly important
for the United States and other nations. Technological
progress will change our needs for fossil energy,
phosphate, potash and other resources from abroad.
Technological changes also influence the extent to which
U.S. agriculture can penetrate foreign markets. The
availability of inputs from international markets and of
markets abroad for U.S. farm products helps determine
the institutions and technologies we should generate.
Thus, there are important interrelationships between in-
ternational trade and both biotechnical and institutional
research. These interrelationships pose a challenge for
multidisciplinary teams of technical and social scientists.
Needed are better long-term projections of the demand
for U.S. farm products, the capacity of U.S. agriculture
to produce in relation to the total U.S. economy and the
world, and the availability of essential inputs from
abroad. Research to maintain and increase the com-
petitive position of U.S. farm products in international
trade is of high priority and vital for the financial welfare
of the nation.
 Issues relating to international trade, however, are
 complex. Trade and markets, at home and abroad, are
 subject to subsidies, protective tariffs, price ceilings and
 decisions of presumed strategic value.


 Models are available for making trade projections, but
they are still relatively primitive. Much of the talent to
build, maintain and improve projection models is in the
universities. The Economic Research Service of the
USDA is the logical operational home for projective
modeling unless a state Agricultural Experiment Station
is prepared to underwrite long-term maintenance costs
and compete in selling outputs of such models in national
and international markets.
 Redesign of capital and fiscal institutions for farms and
range and forest resources is a challenge for multi-
disciplinary SM research. Technological and institutional
advances are so interrelated that changes should be
simultaneously considered by biotechnical and social
scientists, including agricultural economists.
 The public data system is in disarray. The federal data
system for agriculture has deteriorated and become
obsolete since World War II (Bonnen, 1977). State-level
data systems for agriculture are far from uniform and,
in many cases, inadequate. Multidisciplinary institu-
tional research to improve the public data systems and
information institutions for agriculture is critical. Such
research would provide an improved knowledge base for
setting science policy and research priorities for U.S.
agriculture.
 Agricultural sector studies often simulate the operations
 of macroagricultural systems through time. The interest
 may be in a subsector, such as cotton, a national system
 or a global agricultural system. Projections for scenarios
 involving population growth, the availability of land,
 changes in yields and likely changes in real wages are
 useful. They are essential for studying long-term
 agricultural science policies and research priorities and
 for selecting specific projects. Policies are set on the basis
 of projections, ranging from hunches of people too
 specialized to see the whole picture to elaborate, com-
 puterized, formal models. Current procedures for mak-
 ing projections in science policies, in establishing
 priorities and in selecting research projects are not
 satisfactory. SM research by agricultural economists and
 systems scientists cooperating with scholars in agri-
 cultural technology, institutions and rural people is
 recommended (Rossmiller, ed., 1978).

 Rural Sociology Technical changes are being made
 to adjust to increased demand for land, higher water and
 energy costs and increasing real wages. Such changes
 restructure rural America. Other related forces are
 migration, changes in tastes and demography, and shifts
 in the location of off-farm employment associated with
 changing resource bases. The geographic patterns of pro-
 duction agriculture -will also change as computers in-
 crease the ability of farmers and companies to control
 and manage widely dispersed operations. SM research
 by social scientists, as well as biotechnical scientists, will