IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/respol/v41y2012i10p1716-1728.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Grand missions of agricultural innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Wright, Brian D.

Abstract

This paper discusses three related examples of mission-oriented agricultural institutional innovations associated with substantial crop yield increases in the 20th century. It begins with the implementation of the United States Land-Grant System and then discusses in turn the planning and implementation of the two grand missions that led successively to the yield increases in wheat and rice that heralded the onset of the “Green Revolution.” It notes the remarkable role of the Rockefeller Foundation in identifying these two missions, and selecting personnel developed within the land-grant system to execute them with remarkable effectiveness.

Suggested Citation

  • Wright, Brian D., 2012. "Grand missions of agricultural innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(10), pages 1716-1728.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:41:y:2012:i:10:p:1716-1728
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2012.04.021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733312002144
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lele, Uma & Goldsmith, Arthur A, 1989. "The Development of National Agricultural Research Capacity: India's Experience with the Rockefeller Foundation and Its Significance for Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(2), pages 305-343, January.
    2. Wallace E. Huffman & John A. Miranowski, 1981. "An Economic Analysis of Expenditures on Agricultural Experiment Station Research," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 63(1), pages 104-118.
    3. Guttman, Joel M, 1978. "Interest Groups and the Demand for Agricultural Research," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(3), pages 467-484, June.
    4. Richard E. Just & Wallace E. Huffman, 1992. "Economic Principles and Incentives: Structure, Management, and Funding of Agricultural Research in the United States," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(5), pages 1101-1108.
    5. Alston, Julian M. & Pardey, Philip G. & Roseboom, Johannes, 1998. "Financing agricultural research: International investment patterns and policy perspectives," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1057-1071, June.
    6. Herdt, Robert W., 2012. "People, institutions, and technology: A personal view of the role of foundations in international agricultural research and development 1960–2010," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 179-190.
    7. Richard Sutch, 2011. "The Impact of the 1936 Corn Belt Drought on American Farmers' Adoption of Hybrid Corn," NBER Chapters,in: The Economics of Climate Change: Adaptations Past and Present, pages 195-223 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Wallace E. Huffman & Robert E. Evenson, 2006. "Do Formula or Competitive Grant Funds Have Greater Impacts on State Agricultural Productivity?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(4), pages 783-798.
    9. J. Bradford De Long and Barry Eichengreen., 1991. "The Marshall Plan: History's Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program," Economics Working Papers 91-184, University of California at Berkeley.
    10. Pardey, Philip G. & Beintema, Nienke M., 2002. "Slow Magic: Agricultural R&D A Century After Mendel," Working Papers 14364, University of Minnesota, Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy.
    11. Judd, M Ann & Boyce, James K & Evenson, Robert E, 1986. "Investing in Agricultural Supply: The Determinants of Agricultural Research and Extension Investment," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 77-113, October.
    12. Olmstead, Alan L. & Rhode, Paul W., 2008. "Biological Innovation and Productivity Growth in the Antebellum Cotton Economy," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(04), pages 1123-1171, December.
    13. Johnson, D Gale, 1997. "Agriculture and the Wealth of Nations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 1-12, May.
    14. Pardey, Philip G. & Alston, Julian M. & Christian, Jason E. & Fan, Shenggen, 1996. "Summary of a productive partnership: the benefits from U.S. participation in the CGIAR," EPTD discussion papers 18, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    15. Wallace E. Huffman & Just, Richard E., 2010. "Setting Incentives for Scientists Who Engage in Research and Other Activities: An Application of Principal-Agent Theory," Staff General Research Papers Archive 31647, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    16. Fogel, Robert W, 2004. "Health, Nutrition, and Economic Growth," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(3), pages 643-658, April.
    17. T. Swann Harding, 1940. "Henry L. Ellsworth, Commissioner of Patents," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 22(3), pages 621-627.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mariana Mazzucato & Caetano C.R. Penna, 2014. "Beyond Market Failures: The Market Creating and Shaping Roles of State Investment Banks," Working Papers Series 7, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    2. Cavallo, Eugenio & Ferrari, Ester & Bollani, Luigi & Coccia, Mario, 2014. "Attitudes and behaviour of adopters of technological innovations in agricultural tractors: A case study in Italian agricultural system," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 44-54.
    3. Mariana Mazzucato, 2015. "From Market Fixing to Market-Creating: A New Framework for Economic Policy," SPRU Working Paper Series 2015-25, SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex.
    4. Federico Ciliberto & GianCarlo Moschini & Edward D. Perry, 2017. "Valuing Product Innovation: Genetically Engineered Varieties in U.S. Corn and Soybeans," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 17-wp576, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    5. Mariana Mazzucato & Douglas K Robinson, 2016. "Lost in space? NASA and the changing publicprivate eco-system in space," SPRU Working Paper Series 2016-20, SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex.
    6. Ester Ferrari & Luigi Bollani & Mario Coccia & Eugenio Cavallo, 2013. "Technological Innovations in Agricultural Tractors: Adopters’ behaviour towards new technological trajectories and future directions," CERIS Working Paper 201305, Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY -NOW- Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY.
    7. Mowery, David C., 2012. "Defense-related R&D as a model for “Grand Challenges” technology policies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(10), pages 1703-1715.
    8. Dennis Wichelns, 2015. "Achieving Water and Food Security in 2050: Outlook, Policies, and Investments," Agriculture, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 5(2), pages 1-33, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:41:y:2012:i:10:p:1716-1728. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.