What Is Farm Research?

by CHARLES E. KELLOGG

RIGHT NOW, in peace again, is a good time to look at the methods of agricultural science and assess its deeds and prospects.

We know that science has changed nearly all the common farm practices over the past 50 years or so. By no means equally nor everywhere : Millions of farmers in the world carry on about as their grandfathers did; even in the United States today many farmers do not follow the best practices. But where really put to work on the ordinary successful farm, the total effects of science have been tremendous. Although average acre yields of most of our crops have not risen greatly, farmers have been able to reduce labor and effort; their aim has been increased efficiency, not simply high yields; and the choice of crops has been greatly widened. The old farming arts have been improved, especially in their refinement to fit Specific conditions. We cannot say that the old knowledge was all poor, simply because it developed over thousands of years of trial and error and was passed on from conservative father to conservative son. In fact, some of the old practices were sound, and only recently has science given us reasons why they were. The trouble is that trial and error is a costly system in a fast-changing world.

We know that science is bound to remake the world even faster, either in an orderly and not too slow a way, or in a series of catastrophes. This very fact of change gives us another chance to solve the problems that lead to war. Any solution will recognize that because farm science touches all our lives, a good world will be one where farm science is strong and alert.

What some of us do not realize, perhaps, is that science can make abundance physically possible. That is important, because we should know by now that no group can be secure while others are without confidence and hope. Maybe I cannot prove it to everyone's satisfaction, but I am convinced that the world has enough soil for farmers to produce enough food for all our needs, and do so efficiently on a secure basis. Problems, of course, stand in the way; to them laymen and scientists should address themselves with courage.

Although few would wish to return to the old days and ways, all must admit that advances in technology have created new problems as well as solved old ones. Again and again new machines and processes have made old skills obsolete. If some farmers get to be more efficient, others must fall in line or suffer the consequences. Efficiency among farmers has come to mean much more than being able to grow big yields of corn or fat cattle. Farming—at least successful farming—has become an exceedingly complicated business. All branches of science are involved and a myriad of industrial developments growing out of science, as well as the eternal, unchanging forces of nature. A farmer never knows enough. Thus, from whichever direction we, approach the problem or whatever name we give to it, we must be concerned with the disparities of opportunity that result from the unevenness of scientific advances and from failures to view science as a whole.

We do not separate agricultural science from all science. Agricultural research workers use the principles worked out in the fundamental or basic sciences—like chemistry, geology, and botany—and also contribute to them. The term is useful but misleading. By it we mean, generally, all scientific principles as they apply to farming and rural living. But the principles could not exist apart from other sciences. We could not have an agricultural chemistry apart from chemistry, nor agricultural economics apart from economics; the fundamental principles of production economics are the same, whether applied to farm organization or to the manufacture of automobiles. In striving for solutions to agricultural problems, then, it is often necessary to carry on research deeply in the basic natural and social sciences to develop principles for application.

This fact is important. A constant hazard to effective agricultural research is that its supporters may insist that too large a proportion of .the effort be devoted to immediately practical objectives. But remember: Practical attempts to control some insect pest, for example, may be nearly futile until its detailed life history has been learned; much basic research preceded the development of hybrid corn.