Allocations of research funds across programs are often made for efficiency reasons. Social science research is shown to have small, lagged but significant effects on U.S. agricultural efficiency when public agricultural R&D and extension are simultaneously taken into account. Farm management...

In 2001, the United States General Accounting Office issued a report entitled “Management Improvements Needed to Further Promote Integrated Pest Management.” This report documents that overall agricultural pesticide usage increased from 1992 to 2000 while the use of the most toxic levels of...

This paper suggests practical methods for assessing policy research programs, both ex post and ex ante. Measuring the benefits of policy research is difficult: the path of causation between research and policy change is nearly always uncertain; multiple factors influence any particular policy...

"Production and export of horticultural products are increasing rapidly in many developing countries... Rapid growth in horticultural production has been accompanied by heavy use of pesticides and by heightened concern over health effects associated with pesticide use and abuse...The three...