Food and Agriculture in the 1980s: The Implied Research Priorities

Several factors arose during the post-World War II era and particularly the 1970-1980 decade which had a great impact on the U.S. food and agriculture system—including forestry, fiber, and related activities. They include (1) the increasing interdependence among the basic industries of agriculture and forestry and other sectors of the domestic and world economies, (2) the emergence of a technology highly dependent on petroleum and petrochemicals accompanied by increasing dependence of the U.S. on foreign sources of petroleum, the cartelization of major foreign crude oil suppliers under OPEC, and an increased vulnerability to worldwide political unrest, (3) the rapidly expanding export market for farm food and feed commodities and the reliance on farm commodity exports to help offset a growing deficit in international trade, (4) the rapid commercialization and industrialization of the food and agriculture sector, and (5) the increasing social awareness and demands for improved environmental quality and human health that led to public regulations affecting the food and agriculture system.