IDENTITY CRISIS: LAND GRANT RESEARCH IN THE BIOTECHNOLOGY ERA

Abstract

"It is further the policy of the Congress to promote the efficient production, marketing, distribution, and utilization of products of the farm as essential to the health and welfare of our peoples and to promote a sound and prosperous agriculture and rural life...It shall be the object and duty of the State agricultural experiment stations...to conduct original and other researches, investigations, and experiments...including researches basic to the problems of agriculture in its broadest aspects, and such investigations as have for their purpose and development and improvement of the rural home and rural life and the maximum contribution by agriculture to the welfare of the consumer..." (The Hatch Act) Land Grant Colleges and Universities (LGCUs) are experiencing an identity crisis. This identity crisis is most evident in agricultural research, where privatization is raising questions about the public-good nature of agricultural research, where the delivery of product to the consumer as originally stated in the Hatch Act of 1887 is hampered by increasing protection of intellectual property, and where is there is no clear vision as to how 21st century agriculture is supposed to look. How can LGCUs maximize the contribution of agriculture to the improvement of rural life or consumer welfare if there is no clear vision?Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,