Source: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS submitted to
IMPACT ANALYSES AND DECISION STRATEGIES FOR AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH (NC1034)
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
HATCH
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1010800
Grant No.
(N/A)
Project No.
CA-D-ARE-7639-RR
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
NC-_old1034
Program Code
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Oct 1, 2016
Project End Date
Sep 30, 2021
Grant Year
(N/A)
Project Director
Alston, JU.
Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS
410 MRAK HALL
DAVIS,CA 95616-8671
Performing Department
Agricultural and Resource Economics
Non Technical Summary
Agricultural R&D policies have important economic implications, yet many of their economic consequences are not well understood by industry participants or policymakers and as a state and a nation we continue to systematically under-invest in certain types of agricultural research, and we do not use the limited research resources to greatest advantage. This project will develop new data and better models and measures, which will be applied to a range of old and new questions about the economic consequences of agricultural research policies, so as to provide useful information for stakeholders and decision-makers in industry and government.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
30%
Applied
60%
Developmental
10%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
60171103010100%
Knowledge Area
601 - Economics of Agricultural Production and Farm Management;

Subject Of Investigation
7110 - Research on research management;

Field Of Science
3010 - Economics;
Goals / Objectives
Measure trends, patterns, and sources of agricultural productivity growth. Estimate the net benefits of public and private investments in agricultural research and characterize the nature of those benefits to consumers, producers, and the environment. Analyze the adoption and diffusion of new agricultural technologies, assess agronomic, economic, and institutional barriers to adoption, and evaluate policies to overcome such barriers. Analyze decision strategies for funding, planning, managing, and evaluating agricultural research by public and private organizations. Analyze opportunities, risks, and net benefits from public-private sector linkages and technology transfer arrangements, including joint ventures, partnering, consortia, specialty research centers, start-up companies, and intellectual property arrangements. Examine possible future demands for technology as influenced by changes in population, climate and other environmental factors in addition to estimating the potential benefits of prospective technological developments.
Project Methods
The work conducted under this project involves studies of agricultural science policy and its consequences. The project will involve parametric and non-parametric analyses of the impacts of public and private research and the technologies that it generates on: (a) technology adoption by farmers, (b) consumer acceptance of new food products and food safety, (c) agricultural and resource productivity, (d) the performance of the U.S. commodity and storage programs, (e) new energy sources, new pesticides, climate change, environmental quality, and bioterrorism, (f) international technology transfer, and (g) the economic welfare of producer, consumer, and agribusiness groups. Specific attention will be paid to the effects of institutional design on the effectiveness of public agricultural research, with a view to the design of federal agricultural R&D policies to be implemented under the U.S. Farm Bill.

Progress 10/01/16 to 09/30/21

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience includes U.S. and international policy makers, State Agricultural Experiment Station funders and directors, state and federal government decision-makers, private foundations, and international aid organizations. Work conducted as part of this project is packaged into professional papers, books, monographs, and policy briefs, and presented orally at conferences, workshops, and other meetings. Changes/Problems:Progress on some elements was impeded by the restrictions on travel imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Mentoring through one-on-one interaction was provided to graduate students employed to work on funded projects in this area (Shanchao Wang, Devin Serfas), and other relatively junior collaborators. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In addition to the published papers, I presented papers at conferences and workshops and other meetings in 2020-21. Several of these presentations were to groups that would not otherwise typically see this work but mainly they were to groups of agricultural economists. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The work under this project has included three main continuing elements: (1) an international comparisons project involving the documentation and analysis of institutional arrangements and investments in agricultural research around the world; (2) empirical studies of agricultural productivity patterns and their determinants, and (3) empirical studies of the benefits and costs of agricultural R&D and technological change. Specific accomplishments are enumerated below: (1) In 2016-17 we completed a book on evaluating the implications of agricultural policy for obesity, including agricultural R&D through its effects on lowering the prices of food commodities (joint with Abby Okrent ). In the same year a project was completed on consequences of the new U.S. law requiring mandatory labeling for GE food products (joint with John Bovay). (2) Considerable progress was made in a long-term project on the economics of varietal improvement for grapevines (part of the NIFA-SCRI funded project, VitsGen, conducted jointly with colleagues from Cornell and various other universities). The project was renewed in 2016 as VitsGen2, which is to end in June 2022. This project has given rise to diverse presentations and publications about the economics of grape varietal innovations to confer traits demanded by consumers or with agronomic advantages (e.g., pest and disease resistance). A related project on the economics of precision viticulture was also concluded (part of the NIFA-SCRI funded project on Efficient Vineyards conducted jointly with colleagues from Cornell and various other universities). (3) Major accomplishments were made in a continuing project with Phil Pardey and other colleagues over many years, which has focused on measuring and modeling U.S. farm productivity growth and its likely causes and potential consequences. A controversial aspect has related to the existence, timing, magnitude and duration of a slowdown in U.S. and global farm productivity growth. Over the past five years this was the subject of numerous publications and presentations, including some landmark findings in our work which resolved the main issues. Some aspects remain the subject of continuing research. (4) Work was undertaken to prepare and present the 2017 fellow's address to the AAEA on "Reflections on Agricultural R&D, Productivity, and the Data Constraint: Unfinished Business, Unsettled Issues." This drew on the work on the productivity slowdown and other projects under the NC1034 banner. (5) A project was initiated on measuring the biological capital embodied in fruit and nut trees and vines, and the implications for measures of productivity (jointly with Wei Zhang and Philip Pardey). Good progress was made initially but since 2019 progress has been significantly delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but work is still underway. (6) A project was initiated recently seeking to review, rationalize, and reconcile the significantly disparate approaches used to model R&D lag relationships in different branches of economics. Progress was made on a meta-review of studies estimating the rate of return to industrial R&D (jointly with Devin Serfas and Phil Pardey), on an econometric analysis comparing the disparate models and how well they match up to data for U.S. agriculture (jointly with Shanchao Wang and Phil Pardey), and on an omnibus review and reconciliation (jointly with Pardey, Wang, and Serfas). (7) Various other papers and presentations were completed that fit under tNC-1034on issues ranging from the management of Brettanomyces in wine to technological regulations that impinge on producers and consumers, the role of agricultural R&D and innovation in economic development and growth, and meta-reviews of the returns to agricultural R&D.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Alston, J.M., P.G. Pardey, and X. Rao. Rekindling the Slow Magic of Agricultural R&D. Issues in Science and Technology (May 3, 2021): published online https://issues.org/rekindling-magic-agricultural-research-development-alston-pardey-rao/
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Alston, J.M., and D. Gaeta. Reflections on the Political Economy of European Wine Appellations. Italian Economic Journal 7 (May 2021): 219258. doi:0.1007/s40797-021-00145-4
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Alston, J.M., P.G. Pardey, and X. Rao. Payoffs to a Half Century of CGIAR Research. American Journal of Agricultural Economics (August 22, 2021): published online https://doi.org/10.1111/ajae.12255


Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience includes U.S. and international policy makers, State Agricultural Experiment Station funders and directors, state and federal government decision-makers, private foundations, and international aid organizations. Work conducted as part of this project is packaged into professional papers, books, monographs, and policy briefs, and presented orally at conferences, workshops, and other meetings. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Mentoring through one-on-one interaction was provided to graduate students and post-doctoral researchers employed to work on funded projects in this area (Olena Sambucci, Jarrett Hart, Shanchao Wang), and other relatively junior collaborators. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In addition to the published papers, I presented papers at conferences and workshops and other meetings in 2019-20. Several of these presentations were to groups that would not otherwise typically see this work but mainly they were to groups of agricultural economists. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The work under this project has included three main continuing elements: (1) an international comparisons project involving the documentation and analysis of institutional arrangements and investments in agricultural research around the world; (2) empirical studies of agricultural productivity patterns and their determinants, and (3) empirical studies of the benefits and costs of agricultural R&D and technological change. Highlights for 2019-20 include: (1) Work continued with Phil Pardey on modeling the slowdown in U.S. farm productivity growth and its likely causes and potential consequences. (2) Work continued in a project on the economics of varietal improvement for grapevines (part of the NIFA-SCRI funded project, VitsGen2, conducted jointly with colleagues from Cornell and various other universities). (3) Work continued in a project on the economics of precision viticulture (part of the NIFA-SCRI funded project on Efficient Vineyards conducted jointly with colleagues from Cornell and various other universities). (4) Work continued on a project on measuring the biological capital embodied in fruit and nut trees and vines, and the implications for measures of productivity (jointly with Wei Zhang).

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Alston, J., Arvik, T., Hart, J., and Lapsley, J. Brettanomics I: The Cost of Brettanomyces in California wine Production Journal of Wine Economics (2020): doi:10.1017/jwe.2020.20.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2021 Citation: Pardey, P.G., and J.M. Alston. Unpacking the Agricultural Black Box: The Rise and Fall of American Farm Productivity Growth Journal of Economic History (March 2021), in press.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Pardey, P.G., and J.M. Alston. The Drivers of U.S. Agricultural Productivity Growth. Chapter in The Roots of Agricultural Productivity Growth: 2020 Agricultural Symposium, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, 2020, pp 526.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Sadras, Victor, Julian Alston, Pedro Aphalo, David Connor, R. Ford Denison, Tony Fischer, Richard Gray, Peter Hayman, John Kirkegaard, Holger Kirchmann, Martin Kropff, H. Renee Lafitte, Peter Langridge, Jill Lenne, M. In�s M�nguez, John Passioura, John R. Porter, Tim Reeves, Daniel Rodriguez, Megan Ryan, Francisco J. Villalobos and David Wood. Making Science more Effective for Agriculture. Chapter 4 in Advances in Agronomy ed. Donald Sparks, Academic Press, 2020, pp. 153177.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Alston, Julian M. and Philip G. Pardey. Innovation, Growth and Structural Change in American Agriculture. NBER Working Paper 27206. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2020.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2021 Citation: Alston, Julian M. and Philip G. Pardey. Innovation, Growth and Structural Change in American Agriculture. Chapter 3 in The Role of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth ed. Michael J. Andrews, Aaron Chatterji, Josh Lerner and Scott Stern, eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming 2021.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2021 Citation: Alston, J.M. Woke Farm and Food Policies in the Post-Truth Era: Calamitous Consequences for People and the Planet. Chapter in Modern Agricultural and Resource Economics and Policy: Essays in Honor of Gordon C. Rausser eds. Harry de Gorter, Jill McCluskey, Johan Swinnen and David Zilberman. New York: Nature Springer, 2021 (in process)
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Alston, J.M., P.G. Pardey and X. Rao. The Payoff to Investing in CGIAR Research. Washington DC: SoAR Foundation, 2020. Available at: https://supportagresearch.org/assets/pdf/Payoff_to_Investing_in_CGIAR_Research_final_October_2020.pdf


Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience includes U.S. and international policy makers, State Agricultural Experiment Station funders and directors, state and federal government decision-makers, private foundations, and international aid organizations. Work conducted as part of this project is packaged into professional papers, books, monographs, and policy briefs, and presented orally at conferences, workshops, and other meetings. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Mentoring through one-on-one interaction was provided to graduate students and post-doctoral researchers employed to work on funded projects in this area (Olena Sambucci, Jarrett Hart, Shanchao Wang), and other relatively junior collaborators. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In addition to the published papers, I presented papers at conferences and workshops and other meetings in 2018-19. Several of these presentations were to groups that would not otherwise typically see this work but mainly they were to groups of agricultural economists. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The work under this project has included three main continuing elements: (1) an international comparisons project involving the documentation and analysis of institutional arrangements and investments in agricultural research around the world; (2) empirical studies of agricultural productivity patterns and their determinants, and (3) empirical studies of the benefits and costs of agricultural R&D and technological change. Highlights for 2018-19 include: (1) Work continued with Phil Pardey on modeling the slowdown in U.S. farm productivity growth and its likely causes and potential consequences. (2) Work continued in a project on the economics of varietal improvement for grapevines (part of the NIFA-SCRI funded project, VitsGen2, conducted jointly with colleagues from Cornell and various other universities). (3) Work continued in a project on the economics of precision viticulture (part of the NIFA-SCRI funded project on Efficient Vineyards conducted jointly with colleagues from Cornell and various other universities). (4) Work continued on a project on measuring the biological capital embodied in fruit and nut trees and vines, and the implications for measures of productivity (jointly with Wei Zhang).

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Fuller, K.B., J.M. Alston, and D.A. Golino. ⿿The Economic Benefits from Virus-Screening: A Case Study of Grapevine Leafroll in the North Coast of California.⿝ American Journal of Enology and Viticulture 70(2019): doi: 10.5344/ajev.2018.18067.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Sambucci, O., J.M. Alston, K.B. Fuller, and J. Lusk. ⿿The Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Costs of Powdery Mildew and the Potential Value of Resistant Varieties in California Grapes.⿝ American Journal of Enology and Viticulture 70(2019): doi: 10.5344/ajev.2018.18032
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Lapsley, J.T., J.M. Alston, and O. Sambucci. ⿿The U.S. Wine Industry.⿝ Chapter 5 in Adeline Alonso Ugaglia, Jean-Marie Cardebat, and Alessandro Corsi, eds, The Palgrave Handbook of Wine Industry Economics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Alston, J.M. and O. Sambucci. ⿿Grapes in the World Economy.⿝ Chapter 1 of Dario Cantu and Andrew M. Walker, eds, The Grape Genome, for the Springer Publishers Compendium of Plant Genomes, 2019.


Progress 10/01/17 to 09/30/18

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience includes U.S. and international policy makers, State Agricultural Experiment Station funders and directors, state and federal government decision-makers, private foundations, and international aid organizations. Work conducted as part of this project is packaged into professional papers, books, monographs, and policy briefs, and presented orally at conferences, workshops, and other meetings. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Mentoring through one-on-one interaction was provided to graduate students and post-doctoral researchers employed to work on funded projects in this area (Olena Sambucci, Jarrett Hart), and other relatively junior collaborators. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In addition to the published papers, I presented papers at conferences and workshops and other meetings in 2017-18. Several of these presentations were to groups that would not otherwise typically see this work but mainly they were to groups of agricultural economists. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The work under this project has included three main continuing elements: (1) an international comparisons project involving the documentation and analysis of institutional arrangements and investments in agricultural research around the world; (2) empirical studies of agricultural productivity patterns and their determinants, and (3) empirical studies of the benefits and costs of agricultural R&D and technological change. Highlights for 2017-18 include: (1) Work continued with Phil Pardey, Matt Andersen and Aaron Smith on modeling the slowdown in U.S. farm productivity growth and its likely causes and potential consequences; we published an article in 2018. (2) Work continued in a project on the economics of varietal improvement for grapevines (part of the NIFA-SCRI funded project, VitsGen2, conducted jointly with colleagues from Cornell and various other universities). (3) Work continued in a project on the economics of precision viticulture (part of the NIFA-SCRI funded project on Efficient Vineyards conducted jointly with colleagues from Cornell and various other universities). (4) Work was begun on a new project on measuring the biological capital embodied in fruit and nut trees and vines, and the implications for measures of productivity (jointly with Wei Zhang). (5) The 2017 fellow's address to the AAEA on "Reflections on Agricultural R&D, Productivity, and the Data Constraint: Unfinished Business, Unsettled Issues," was revised and published in 2018.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Alston, J.M. ⿿Reflections on Agricultural R&D, Productivity, and the Data Constraint: Unfinished Business, Unsettled Issues.⿝ American Journal of Agricultural Economics 100(2)(2018): 392⿿413. doi:10.1093/ajae/aax094
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Pannell, D.J., J.M. Alston, S. Jeffrey, Y.M. Buckley, P. Vesk, J.R. Rhodes, E. McDonald-Madden, S. Nally, G.P. Goucher and T. Thamo. ⿿Policy-oriented Environmental Research: What is it Worth?⿝ Environmental Science & Policy 86(2018): 64⿿71. doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.05.005
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Andersen, M.A., J.M. Alston, P.G. Pardey, and A. Smith. ⿿A Century of U.S. Farm Productivity Growth: A Surge Then a Slowdown.⿝ American Journal of Agricultural Economics 100(4)(2018): 1072⿿90. doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aay023.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Zhang, W., and J.M. Alston. ⿿The Demand for Inputs and Technical Change in the U.S. Dairy Manufacturing Industry.⿝ Agricultural and Resource Economics Review (December 2018): 553⿿567. doi.org/10.1017/age.2017.32
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Livat, F., J.M. Alston and J.-M. Cardebat. ⿿Do Denominations of Origin Provide Useful Quality Signals? The Case of Bordeaux Wines.⿝ Economic Modelling (2018): 1⿿15 doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2018.06.003
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: 1. Alston, J.M., Lapsley, J.T., Sambucci, O. (2018) ⿿Grape and Wine Production in California.⿝ In Goodhue, R., Martin, P. and Wright, B., eds, California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues). Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, Berkeley, CA, available at https://s.giannini.ucop.edu/uploads/giannini_public/a1/1e/a11eb90f-af2a-4deb-ae58-9af60ce6aa40/grape_and_wine_production.pdf .
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Bovay, J., and J.M. Alston. ⿿GMO Food Labels in the United States: Economic Implications of the New Law.⿝ Food Policy (2018): 14⿿25. doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.02.013


Progress 10/01/16 to 09/30/17

Outputs
Target Audience:U.S. and international policy makers, State Agricultural Experiment Station funders and directors, state and federal government decision makers, private foundations, and international aid organizations. Work conducted as part of this project is packaged into professional papers, books, monographs, and policy briefs, and presented orally at conferences, workshops, and other meetings. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Mentoring through one-on-one interaction was provided to graduate students and post-doctoral researchers employed to work on funded projects in this area (Olena Sambucci, Jarrett Hart), and other relatively junior collaborators. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In addition to the published papers, I presented papers at conferences and workshops and other meetings in 2016-17. Several of these presentations were to groups that would not otherwise typically see this work but mainly they were to groups of agricultural economists. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The work under this project has included three main continuing elements: (1) an international comparisons project involving the documentation and analysis of institutional arrangements and investments in agricultural research around the world; (2) empirical studies of agricultural productivity patterns and their determinants, and (3) empirical studies of the benefits and costs of agricultural R&D and technological change. Highlights for 2016-17 include: (1) We completed the book evaluating the implications of agricultural policy for obesity, including agricultural R&D through its effects on lowering the prices of food commodities (joint with Abby Okrent ). (2) Work continued with Phil Pardey, Matt Andersen and Aaron Smith on modeling the slowdown in U.S. farm productivity growth and its likely causes and potential consequences, with a view to publishing an article in 2018. (3) Work continued in a project on the economics of varietal improvement for grapevines (part of the NIFA-SCRI funded project, VitsGen, conducted jointly with colleagues from Cornell and various other universities) and a renewal of this project was approved for funding (VitsGen2). (4) Work continued in a project on the economics of precision viticulture (part of the NIFA-SCRI funded project on Efficient Vineyards conducted jointly with colleagues from Cornell and various other universities). (5) A project was completed on consequences of the new U.S. law requiring mandatory labeling for GE food products, joint with John Bovay. (6) A new project was initiated on measuring the biological capital embodied in fruit and nut trees and vines, and the implications for measures of productivity (jointly with Wei Zhang). (7) A new project was undertaken to prepare and present the 2017 fellow's address to the AAEA on "Reflections on Agricultural R&D, Productivity, and the Data Constraint: Unfinished Business, Unsettled Issues."

Publications

  • Type: Books Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Alston, J.M. and A.M. Okrent. The Effects of Farm and Food Policy on Obesity in the United States. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2017.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Fuller, K.B., J.N. Sanchirico, and J.M. Alston. The Spatial-Dynamic Benefits from Cooperative Disease Control in a Perennial Crop. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 42(2)(2017): 127145.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Pardey, P.G., J.M. Alston, C. Chan-Kang, T.M. Hurley, R.S. Andrade, Steven P. Dehmer, K. Lee, and X. Rao. The Shifting Structure of Agricultural R&D: Worldwide Investment Patterns and Payoffs. Chapter in E. Carayannis, N. Kalaitzandonakes, S. Rozakis, and E. Grigoroudis, eds., From Agriscience to Agribusiness: Theories, Policies and Practices in Technology Transfer and Commercialization, Springer International Publishing, 2018, 13-39. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67958-7_2.