Replaced with revised version of paper 04/21/06.

The nature of public agricultural research changed in 1980 when the Bayh-Dole Act allowed universities to retain title to inventions that were created with Federal funds, and the court case Diamond v. Chakrabarty allowed patenting of living tissue and eventually other bio-engineered products. In...

The Symposium on the Impact of Technology on Agricultural Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa funded by AID/AFR/ARTS and AID/RD/EID under the Michigan State University Food Security Cooperative Agreements, was held in Washington, D.C., Oct. 14-16, 1992. A primary purpose of the symposium was to...

Recent discussions of a subtherapeutic antibiotic ban in U.S. livestock gives rise to much speculation regarding industry impacts. Swine producers are heterogeneous; thus, a ban on subtherapeutic antibiotics could affect producers of different sizes, cost structures, different production systems...

Recent studies have shown that agricultural research can have high payoffs in Africa, but impact depends on how well technology fits with evolving needs and capacity in the agricultural sector and the rest of the economy. Structural adjustment policies (e.g., market liberalization, currency...