Agricultural and rural development programs can only succeed if they are based on effective participation and support of actors from the policymaking stage through all levels, including field personnel and primary producers. But these actors must possess the knowledge, attitude, and skills...

This paper argues that the new biotechnologies will affect the natural environment primarily in two ways: by bringing relatively “wild” areas, such as forests and estuaries, under domestication, and by forcing areas now domesticated, such as farms, out of production, because of surpluses....

Agricultural research raises fundamental ethical and value questions going beyond those in other fields both because of its public funding and because its results have significant impacts on habitats and other species. Questions about the sustainability of modern agriculture, which are shared...

This paper presents some of the basic trends, issues, and questions regarding the last four decades of international development cooperation in agriculture. The impact of technical cooperation tends to account for only a small proportion of change; the bulk of the variance being caused by...

If the field of agricultural ethics is to realize its potential and if the agricultural and philosophical communities are to address the impending changes in world food production, there is a need for education in public, governmental, and academic arenas. The development of a symposium on...

In periods of social crisis, policymakers become particularly vulnerable to interest groups mobilizing to compete for scarce funds. At this point, legislators are no longer able to address the specific needs of their primary constituency directly, but rather are forced to do so in pretext only....

All biotechnology-related promises are based upon its technological potential; yet, many of these promises assure the solution for chronic socio-economic problems in the Third World through a new technological revolution in agriculture. The forecasting is that such a revolution will start...

Difficulties in getting participants in agricultural research policy disputes to work fairly with four different and sometimes conflicting normative viewpoints might be lessened by attending to the deeper cultural differences that lie behind differences of normative view. Mediation of policy...

This paper reviews current trends in the development of agricultural biotechnology, including (1) the recent and potential biotechnology products and processes in the plant, animal and food sciences, and (2) the enormous increase in Federal and State government and industrial investments in...

Technology transfer is a multi-level process of communication involving a variety of senders and receivers of ideas and materials. As a response to market failure, or as an effort to accelerate market-driven social change, technology transfer may combine public and private aparatus or rely...