Are American Farmers Better Off as a Result of Technology Gains?

Abstract

Commercial farmers remain a primary political force in support of publicly-supported research and educational programs to create productivity gains in crop and livestock production. Have the technical productivity gains brought about by both public and private sector research and educational efforts improved the well being of American farmers? A great number of agricultural scientists believe that they have. Studies have attempted to provide estimates of the internal rate of return and benefit/cost ratios for agricultural research and education. The vast majority of these studies estimate a quite favorable internal rate of return and a high productivity for public-sector agricultural research (Huffman and Just, p. 828). But these studies have focused on rates of return to agricultural research and education for society as a whole, without attempting to determine if these gains accrued to farmers, consumers, or perhaps the agribusiness firms who purchase raw farm commodities from farmers or sell them inputs.