Agriculture means $240 billion to the South’s economy, an impact due in part to public research and innovation from the land-grant university Agricultural Experiment Station system and the Cooperative Extension Services, according to a new study by Battelle.
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Agriculture means $240 billion to the South’s economy, an impact due in part to public research and innovation from the land-grant university Agricultural Experiment Station system and the Cooperative Extension Services, according to a new study by Battelle.
Each year, millions of dollars worth of public agriculture research is carried out by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, both part of the University of Arkansas System’s Division of Agriculture.
The study, “Impact and Innovation: Agbioscience in the Southern United States,” released last Wednesday, found that agriculture, forestry, and fisheries production supports more than 2.2 million jobs in the South, with labor income totaling $62 billion. Processing into value-added food and industrial products added $1 trillion in output across the region, with nearly 4.6 million jobs with labor income totaling more than $200 billion.
“The current and future importance of agbiosciences is hard to overstate,” said Simon Tripp, a co-author of the report. “For instance, this science and industry sector is fundamental to the survival of the world’s expanding population, the food security of our nation, and the health of our population.”
However, the report warned that inflation and lack of federal budget increases could put a damper on the public research and education that has helped U.S. agriculture become the world’s most productive.
Land-grants key to growth
“Being able to compete in the world agricultural economy requires constant innovation, practice improvement, new technology introduction, skills enhancement, and global intelligence – exactly the factors that the Land-grant Extension Service and Experiment Station system was created to enhance, develop and support,” the report said.
The Battelle report underscores a 2011 study by USDA’s Economic Research Service that found a direct link between public agricultural research and development and agricultural productivity. Among the study’s conclusions was that raising “R&D spending by 3.73 percent annually, offsetting the historical rate of inflation in research costs, would increase U.S. agricultural output by 73 percent by 2050.”
Public research innovations include new products, crop varieties and management practices. Arkansas examples include:
• 300 Day Grazing — A joint extension and experiment station project aimed at helping ranchers by extending the number of days their pastures can be grazed, saving them money that might otherwise be spent purchasing hay. The techniques in this program have also been useful in managing forages during drought.
• Battle against resistant weeds — Fighting weeds that have developed resistance to common herbicides has cost farmers across the South hundreds of millions of dollars. Work done by Division of Agriculture research and extension has helped Arkansas farmers adapt and cope with the problem.
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