Part IV


What Is Required?


 The United States should have the capacity to double
agricultural production by 2030. This capacity will be
required because of trends and uncertainties about U.S.
and world population levels, rising affluency of people
both at home and abroad and demands for improved
diets, U.S. foreign exchange needs to buy fossil fuels and
other inputs, the need for an increase in the competitive
position of U.S. agricultural products in world markets,
a decrease in availability of petroleum as a source of fuel
and industrial feedstocks and the possible need to replace
them with agricultural products, and possible interna-
tional conflicts.
 The authors attached substantial value to safety
margins in agricultural productive capacity in develop-
ing the recommended levels and sequences of funding
for research. There is no certainty that U.S. and world
agriculture will have access to adequate fossil energy
resources for the next 50 years. There is similar uncer-
tainty about the possibilities of exploiting solar and
nuclear fusion energy. Serious environmental problems
and water shortages for irrigation may accompany ex-
panded reliance on coal and oil-shale gasification and
liquefaction.

 Of particular importance is our lack of knowledge and
-uncertainties about war, peace, the conquests of natural
resources by the various powers of the world, and
natural but calamitous events such as droughts, floods,
earthquakes, volcanoes and climate changes. Further,
substantial military or political change could drastical-
ly affect our need for agricultural products.
 Doubling our productive capacity by 2030 implies that
 our target should be a 50 to 60 percent increase in capaci-
 ty to produce by 2010 and 100 percent by 2030 A.D.
 (Fig. 1, p. 1). Our target translates into a capacity to
 increase yields by 50 percent, cropped acreage by 10 per-
 cent and intensity of cropping by 10 percent by 2010
 A.D. This calls for average national yields of 150
 bushels/acre for corn, 50 for wheat, 40 for soybeans,
 more than 500 bushels/acre for potatoes and 75 for grain


sorghum, with other crop yields increasing propor-
tionately by 2010. It also means increased capacity to
make private investments to produce crops and improv-
ed forages on lands now largely in unimproved pastures
and to keep a higher proportion of land cropped in grain,
vegetables and fruits than we do now. Such capacity im-
plies the ability to more than double the amount of skill-
ed labor now used in agriculture. If the productive
capacity we advocate were actually used, unskilled labor
would be eliminated except for part-time and hobby far-
ming, which could be regarded as recreational. The use
of fossil energy would not have to be increased and might
be decreased. Extra capacity to produce grain would
make grain available for exports to pay for fossil fuels
or for use as industrial feedstocks.
 A 60 percent increase in yields in 30 years is possible
 from a combination of traditional and modern biological
 methods and technologies (discussed under DISC and
 SM research in the departments of land-grant colleges,
 other institutions and the USDA).
 Beyond 2010, Fig. 2 plots concomitant, correspond-
 ing, feasible, reasonable and safe targets for the year
 2030 in terms of yields, capacity to produce, acreages
 and cropping intensity. To do this, current research pro-
 grams must be expanded to the year 2010 to produce
 the DISC research for conversion into "high-tech"
 biophysical capital, improved institutions and human
 skills to come "on line" between 2010 and 2030. Addi-
 tional research will be needed in the disciplines supply-
 ing PS and SM research on livestock, soils and
 agricultural engineering-these are now neglected in
 favor of DISC research in support of the plant sciences.

 Increasing attention will have to be given to social
 science research and ecological impacts. Side effects of
 new technologies, both good and bad, will occur, and
 some will require regulation. To shape the influence of
 technological advance on the structure of our society,
 we must increase the research base for the social sciences.
 We need better theory and more empirical knowledge