The Rural Voice, 1988-04, Page 22AGRICULTURAL
RESEARCH PART SIX:
THE FUTURE OF RESEARCH =
The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Incomprehensible
ne of the reasons the British
government uses to justify
its ongoing reduction of
funding for agricultural research is
that there are essentially no more
problems to solve. Thgre is, as the
government reiterates, a surplus of
agricultural products in Europe.
Couple this argument with a
political attitude which maintains
that research done today should yield
saleable products tomorrow, and the
consequences for agriculture are
dramatic: agricultural research is
perceived to be both useless and non-
productive, so funds for it are cut to a
minimum.
The fate of the Rothamstead
Experimental Station in Hertfordshire
illustrates the severity of this trend.
As Britain's biggest research station,
Rothamstead had 424 scientists in
1981. As of this month, there are only
247. Across Britain, agricultural
research institutes are being closed,
combined, and pared down in accor-
dance with government wishes.
Agricultural research is suffering
a similar fate in many other countries.
In Australia, government cutbacks to
basic research programs, including
agriculture, have drawn sharp protest
from the scientific community there.
The same government has moved to
strengthen the links between basic
research and industry, so that "pro-
ductive" research will receive more
money and emphasis.
In Canada, science in general has
undergone a 10 -year spell in which
funds have been chipped away.
Agricultural research establishments
were included in this reduction. Staff
levels in research stations have also
by Ian Wylie -Tool
been reduced in government moves to
purge the civil service. Philosophical-
ly, a shift has been made to "market-
oriented research" which will create
jobs for industry.
This sort of list could go on and
on. Throughout the world, govern-
ments are attempting to control their
What to expect in:
• plant breeding
• genetic engineering
• disease resistance in plants
• integrated pest management
• integrated soil management
• research on animal welfare
spending and, because cutting back
on research funding is less politically
contentious than cutting back on
medical funding or pensions, science
is usually hit first and hardest. Agri-
cultural research is not considered to
be very important; it produces little
that industry can exploit and doesn't
squeak very loudly when it's dropped.
Looked at without prejudice, how-
ever, agriculture is not in a perfect
state, and both at home and abroad
there are many problems left to solve.
A short list of "standard" agricultural
concerns is enough to confirm this.
Plant breeders are always striving
for better crops. Usually this means
producing plant varieties that grow
faster, yield more, fall over less, and
are more frost -resistant. And for each
crop there are special areas of concern.
For example, breeders are working to
develop a corn plant resistant to a
group of herbicides, thereby making
weed control more effective. Similar-
ly, as it always seems to rain in the
fall, wheat breeders are trying to
incorporate sprout resistance into the
seeds so the crop won't germinate in
the swath.
Genetic engineering has opened
up other frontiers. No longer must
breeders be limited to a specific crop;
they can look for characteristics found
in other plants and attempt to incor-
porate them into the genetic material
of the crop plant. Canola breeders are
looking at using mustard or radish
genes to create a canola plant resistant
to flea beetles.
Improved disease resistance is
always an imperative for crop plants.
Disease organisms are not static —
they are always changing and mutat-
ing. As modern crop plants have very
little innate ability to respond to new
organisms, plant breeders must moni-
tor the wild diseases to detect mutants,
and adjust the plants accordingly.
Failing to do so could mean massive
crop destruction.
Research in the area of insect and
weed control in agriculture has been in
a state of flux since the mid-1970s. In
the past, the emphasis was on cheap,
broad-spectrum pesticides. These
pesticides were shown to have com-
plex environmental effects undreamt
of at the time, and a start was made on
finding safer methods. This philo-
sophical shift coincided with a sharp
rise in the cost of pesticides during the
oil crisis of the 1970s, and has resulted
in research with a "fewer are more"
emphasis: fewer overall poisons,
fewer persistant poisons, fewer broad-
spectrum poisons.
Called "integrated pest manage -
20 THE RURAL VOICE