Introduction: Historical Models for Change

by Douglas E. Bowers,

Head, Agricultural and Rural History, ERS USDA, Washington. DC.

New Crops and New Uses: Historical Trends

The search for new crops and new ways to use old crops has interested Americans inside and outside the agricultural sector since America's colonial days.

Over the past century that interest has intensified. The major recent theme in this quest has been how to better utilize—in industrial as well as agricultural ways—the surpluses produced by American farmers.

A second theme has also been important at many times, including today: the need to find substitutes for commodities currently in use, whether to cut our dependence on foreign imports, replace critical materials in short supply during wartime, or exchange products that harm the environment for environmentally sound ones.

Historically, these themes have tended to alternate, with times of crisis also being times when research in these areas has received the most support. In the past quarter century the two strains (to use agricultural surpluses and to find substitute commodities) have come together to reinforce each other. There have been many achievements in both areas, and conditions today promise even more success in the future.

Early American Adaptations

From the beginning, American farmers were responsive to market signals and looked for new crops and markets that would increase their incomes. Many of the crops new to the colonists had long been grown by North American Indians—corn, potatoes, squash, and tobacco, for example. Some of these crops were taken back to Europe by the first Spanish explorers, where their adoption depended on how well they fit the needs and expectations of European farmers and consumers.

Before Columbus' discovery of the New World, Europe's major food crops offered only meager yields and left Europeans vulnerable to famine. Corn succeeded in Europe because it offered a high-producing alternative to other grains and required relatively little work. Potatoes had such great yields that they became a staple in the diets of the poor, from Ireland to Germany. On the other hand, tomatoes, suspected of being poisonous and not offering a ready substitute for anything, required several centuries to become an important food crop outside of a few areas. Corn itself was restricted mainly to animal food because Europeans found it too coarse to eat.

European adoption of American crops revealed a pattern that would repeat itself in this country: Farmers replaced low-yielding or high-labor crops that they had grown for centuries with ones that were cheaper to produce—and which consumers would buy.

Early American farmers soon faced a surplus problem that threatened to hold back the development of commercial agriculture. In a country where over 90 percent of the people were farmers, most markets had to come from overseas. But to simply duplicate the crops of Europe would have made it difficult for them to compete with European farmers. Many farmers, therefore, turned to newer crops that they could export to their advantage—tobacco, rice, and indigo, for example. In the 19th century, farm exports (especially cotton) provided the income that our young country needed to industrialize.

Pioneer farmers also found an industrial use for something otherwise considered a nuisance. As they cleared the fields of trees, they were able to sell tree ashes as potash for use in making lye. This became a profitable source of income even before crops were planted.

American farmers had a continuing interest in trying out new varieties and new species and this interest was one of the main reasons for establishing the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The first specifically agricultural activity of the Federal Government was to encourage United States embassies to collect seeds from different parts of the world for distribution to farmers in the United States. By the 1840's this activity was centered in the Patent Office, where the results of research by private farmers began to be published as an annual report that Congressmen distributed to constituents. (In fact,this volume was the forerunner of the Yearbook of Agriculture.) When the Department was founded in 1862, seed distribution and research were an integral part of its efforts. The Hatch Act of 1887 greatly expanded research by setting up experiment stations at each of the land-grant colleges.

The Rise of Utilization Research

Initial agricultural research focused on improving productivity by using better agricultural practices and varieties. Ironically, the very success of that research created the potential for production to exceed demand, thus depressing prices below the level of profitability. By the turn of the century it was becoming clear that new uses for farm products would have to be found if surpluses were to be avoided and byproducts efficiently used.

Within USDA, utilization research,. as it was called, became increasingly important. In 1920—at a time when farm prices were collapsing because of a contraction in exports—an Office of Development Work was set up in the Bureau of Chemistry to find ways to chemically break down farm products into substances that industry could use. World War I also provided an incentive for research into industrial uses for agricultural products. When imports of medicinal plants were cut off, USDA's Bureau of Plant Industry helped establish such plants in Florida. Similarly, the disruption of dye imports from Germany prompted USDA to begin research on dye materials; this led to the establishment of the vat dye industry in the United States.

One of the most successful utilization researchers early in this century was George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Carver saw that the South was suffering from the -overproduction of cotton, almost to the exclusion of other crops. Not only were cotton prices low, but the boll weevil was also beginning to devastate cotton farms that stood in its path.

Carver believed farmers would turn to other crops if enough new uses could be found for them to create a sufficient market. He concentrated on peanuts and sweet potatoes, two crops southerners already knew how to grow but that were not widely planted for commercial purposes. Over the years, Carver developed hundreds of new products from peanuts and sweet potatoes; the best known to consumers is probably peanut oil. USDA's Extension Service helped disseminate information throughout the South about converting from cotton to other crops. Largely thanks to Carver's research, peanut acreage quadrupled between 1910 and 1940. Carver also found new uses for cotton and soybeans; in fact, soybeans can be seen as the most successful "new" crop in the United States this century.

Surplus production became an even greater problem during the Depression of the 1930's, when domestic markets fell and exports nearly dried up. Congress took a major step toward the expansion of utilization research when it passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1938; this act created four regional research laboratories as part of what is now the Agricultural Research Service. Each laboratory specialized in the crops grown in its region—for example, cotton in the South; wheat, fruits, vegetables, and alfalfa in the West; animal products, milk, and tobacco in the East; and grain crops, soybeans, and other oilseeds in the North.

With the AAA of 1938, the basic institutional structure of today's national, regional, and State experiment station laboratories was established. The present-day advisory committee system, by which representatives of farmers and land-grant universities are given a voice in setting research priorities, was also foreshadowed by a committee on utilization research appointed just after the 1938 act was passed. Advisory committees and research on utilization and marketing were strengthened by the Research and Marketing Act of 1946, which sought to redress the imbalance between production and postproduction research. That act also set up the mechanism for contracting with private research facilities, permitting the Government to draw on the expertise of private sector scientists as well as its own. This institutional framework—combining the perspectives of Federal and State Governments, as well as university, Government, and private researchers—was well geared to support research into the problems of particular areas and to supply quick answers to questions of national importance.

World War 11 showed how rapidly the research establishment could respond to a national crisis. The war redirected the regional laboratories toward finding substitutes for critical materials and other war needs.

Some notable successes came out of this effort, including synthetic rubber, replacements for chemical cellulose, dehydrated foods, and the extraction of wheat starch, which was used to supplement corn in feeding livestock. Most important, in 1943 USDA scientists discovered a way to mass-produce penicillin, making this miracle drug widely available for the first time.

Postwar Research

After the war, attention again focused on crops in surplus. In 1957, with farm productivity soaring from the greatly increased use of chemicals and machinery, Congress created a Commission on Increased Industrial Use of Agricultural Products to recommend new research in this area. The Commission noted that the greatest advances came "when utilization research in agriculture has had the benefits of adequate expenditures and large teams of workers"—as it had had during the war. It urged a broadly expanded program of research, including more basic research. Funds were increased but not to the level that the Commission had hoped for.

Nevertheless, the first two decades following the war saw some striking accomplishments from the regional laboratories, whose efforts were directed toward particular agricultural problems. The development of frozen food technology in the 1940's and 1950's enabled consumers to enjoy fresher tasting foods all year round and helped even out seasonal swings in vegetable and fruit prices. Development of frozen orange juice concentrate was a particular achievement. Concentrate produced from Florida oranges climbed from 226,000 gallons in 1945 to more than 84 million gallons in 1960. Frozen foods paralleled and accelerated a consumer trend toward convenience foods.

That same trend helped ensure the success of another USDA product, instant potato flakes. Potato flakes were developed at a time when potato consumption was falling. Their introduction gave potatoes a new market. By 1969, dehydrated potatoes represented over 9 percent of the total potato crop, and per capita consumption had turned upward.

Another crop in trouble by the 1950's was cotton. During and after World War II, cotton faced increasing competition from synthetic fibers, which required less ironing than cotton fabrics. Research on cross-links between cotton fibers led to chemical finishes that imparted to cotton and cotton blend fabrics the wrinkle resistance they needed to satisfy consumers. These new fabrics helped stem the tide toward polyester and nylon.

New Sources of Demand

Since the 1960's, rising productivity has kept interest high in using surplus crops. In addition, the past several decades have also been a time of renewed interest in finding agricultural substitutes for industrial materials. New demands for research have likewise appeared. One such incentive came from the dramatic oil price hikes by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in 1973 and 1979. Not only did energy costs soar, but Americans became painfully aware of their dependence on foreign oil, which kindled interest in organic substitutes for petroleum. Research to replace part of the petrochemicals used to manufacture plastics with biodegradable corn starch derivatives promises to increase the demand for corn. Soy ink, made from soybeans, is beginning to supplant petroleum-based ink products for some uses. New research to replace gasoline with ethanol or other fuels from renewable resources could sharply cut our reliance on oil imports and provide a large market for corn.

Another attraction of organic fuels is that they likely will generate less pollution than petroleum products. Interest in the environment has brought a call to substitute biological pesticides for chemical ones and to find biodegradable and recyclable materials to conserve natural resources and reduce waste disposal problems.

Another source of demand for utilization research has been the expanded interest in nutrition by increasingly articulate and discriminating consumers. (The widespread desire to reduce consumption of fat, for example, has led animal scientists to breed leaner beef and pork.) As people increase their intake of grain products, higher protein wheat and oats have been developed. Research has also been done on brans, such as rice bran, which can add fiber and possibly reduce cholesterol. Similarly, concerns about chemical additives in meat have brought about ways to reduce nitrosamines in bacon and other cooked meats.

In the 1970's, strong exports of grain, soybeans, and other crops made the United States even more a part of the global market than it had been in the past. Trade deficits in the 1980's underscored both the vulnerability of farmers to shifts in world markets and the urgent need to find alternatives to traditional products that had to be imported. This, coupled with the desire to replace nonrenewable substances with renewable ones, has revived the effort to find new plants. Plant explorers from the Agricultural Research Service each year bring back thousands of new plants from abroad for testing.

Historically, introducing new plants has been harder than finding new uses for old ones because new crops must be able to be grown here and must be accepted by farmers and the marketplace. Nevertheless, a number of potentially useful plants have been experimented with in the past two decades, including guayule (for rubber), kenaf (as a substitute for wood pulp in making paper), and crambe (for industrial oil). Using biotechnology, plant breeders should be able to develop new and better varieties faster than in the past and better predict their chemical properties.

A Promising Future

Today opportunity and necessity combine to create a more favorable climate for the introduction of new crops and new uses than at any other period short of wartime. The utilization research establishment has been solidly in place for over 50 years, and it has the facilities and experience to undertake a major expansion if it is called on to do so. Plant and animal scientists looking for new varieties or species to introduce have an even longer history to draw on, plus the advantage of using biotechnology, a tool that opens a vast new horizon.

At the same time, the demand for research has rarely been greater and has never come from so many different directions. New crops and new uses for old ones hold out promise to restore the balance of trade, reduce our dependence on imports such as oil, and make us more competitive in agricultural exports. They may also make it possible for us to replace our depletable resources with renewable ones and in many cases benefit the environment as well.

Another potential advantage would be reduced spending on farm programs because of stronger demand for program commodities or lower supply of surplus crops caused by a shift to new crops. The Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 provides farmers with the sort of flexibility they need to experiment with new crops.

Finally, utilization research could benefit some rural economies by bringing new rural factories to process raw materials. Research could lead to greater farm sales from land that in the past has been diverted by Government programs to reduce production.

Seldom, if ever, has the time been more favorable for new initiatives in research.