Knowledge Generation and Technical Change: Institutional Innovation in Agriculture

381 Pages·2001·14.409 MB·English

by  Henry Etzkowitz (auth.), Steven A. Wolf, David Zilberman (eds.)

KNOWLEDGE GENERATION AND
TECHNICAL CHANGE
INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATION IN AGRICULTURE
NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND POLICY
Editors:
Ariel Dinar David Zilberman
Rural Development Department Dept. of Agricultural and
The World Bank Resource Economics
1818 H Street, NW Univ. of California, Berkeley
Washington, DC 20433 Berkeley, CA 94720
EDITORIAL STATEMENT
There is a growing awareness to the role that natural resources such as water, land,
forests and environmental amenities play in our lives. There are many competing uses
for natural resources, and society is challenged to manage them for improving social
well being. Furthermore, there may be dire consequences to natural resources=
mismanagement. Renewable resources such as water, land and the environment are
linked, and decisions made with regard to one may affect the others. Policy and
management of natural resources now require interdisciplinary approach including
natural and social sciences to correctly address our society preferences.
This series provides a collection of works containing most recent findings on
economics, management and policy of renewable biological resources such as water,
land, crop protection, sustainable agriculture, technology, and environmental health.
It incorporates modern thinking and techniques of economics and management. Books
in this series will incorporate knowledge and models of natural phenomena with
economics and managerial decision frameworks to assess alternative options for
managing natural resources and environment.
Agricultural productivity has always been a major contributor to economic growth in
many countries. With higher demands put on the sector to produce more food with less
resources, technologies and knowledge may play an important role in shaping the
Agricultural sector towards such challenges. This book is concerned with knowledge
generation and transfer policies from an empirical perspective. The book also addresses
the difficult issue of assessment of knowledge systems. It covers the spectrum of
research, extension, and public-private interactions on knowledge and information.
The Series Editors
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Easter, K. William, Rosegrant, Mark W., and Dinar, Ariel:
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Casey, Frank, Schmitz, Andrew, Swinton, Scott, and Zilberman, David:
Flexible Incentives for the Adoption of Environmental Technologies in Agriculture
Feitelson, Eran, and Haddad, Marwan
Management of Shared Groundwater Resources: the Israeli-Palestinian Case with an
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KNOWLEDGE GENERATION AND
TECHNICAL CHANGE
INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATION IN AGRICULTURE
edited by
Steven A. Wolf
Department of Natural Resources
Cornell University
and
David Zilberman
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
University of California, Berkeley
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Knowledge generation and technical change : institutional innovation in agriculturel
edited by Steven A. Wolf and David Zilberman.
p. cm. - (Natural resource management and policy)
This volume grew out of a conference held on the University of California,
Berkeley campus June 18-19, 1998.
lncludes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN 978-1-4613-5584-7 ISBN 978-1-4615-1499-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4615-1499-2
1. Agricultural innovations. 2. Agriculture-Research. 3. Agriculture
Technology transfer. 1. Wolf, Steven A. II. Zilberman, David, 1947-III. Series.
8494.5.15 K65 2001
338.1'6-dc21 2001042286
Copyright CI 2001 by Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2001
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover lst edition 2001
AU rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical,
photo-copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission
of the publisher, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
Printed on acid-free paper.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List ofC ontributors ............................................................... vii
Acknowledgements ........................... '" .................................. IX
Introduction
Steven Wolf and David Zilberman ......................................... xi
I. CONTEXT AND ANALYTIC PRINCIPLES
1. Beyond the Endless Frontier: From the Land Grant to the
Entrepreneurial University
Henry Etzkowitz ............................................................... 3
2. Generation and Commercialization of Knowledge: Trends,
Implications, and Models for Public and Private Agricultural
Research and Education
William Lacy .................................................................. 27
3. Public ResearchlPrivate Alignments
Gordon Rausser ............................................................... 55
4. Challenges for Public Agricultural Research and Extension
in A World of Proprietary Science and Technology
Brian Wright. ................................................................. 63
5. Finance, Organization, and Impacts of U.S. Agricultural
Research: Future Prospects
Wallace Huffman ............................................................. 79
6. Agricultural Knowledge Systems: Issues of Accountability
Cornelia Butler Flora ............ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 111
7. Institutional Innovation in Natural Resource Management:
A Conceptualization and Some Australian Examples
John Cary ..................................................................... 125
vi
II. EMPIRICAL STUDIES
8. Land-Grantllndustry Relationships and the Institutional Relations
of Technological Innovation in Agriculture: Longitudinal
Evidence from National Surveys of Agricultural Scientists
Frederick H. Buttel ......................................................... 151
9. Structure of Public-Private Knowledge Networks in Plant
Biotechnology: An EU-US Comparison
Irini Theodorakopoulou and Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes............. 177
10. Offices of Technology Transfer: Privatizing University
Innovations for Agriculture
Douglas Parker, David Zilberman and Federico Castillo ............. 193
11. Origins of Public-Private Knowledge Flows and Current
State-of-the-Art: Can Agriculture Learn from Industry?
Jaqueline Senker and Wendy Faulkner .................................. 203
12. Institutional Relations in Agricultural Information Systems
Steven Wolf, David Zilberman, Steve Wu and David Just ............ 233
13. Innovative Models of Technology Generation and Transfer:
Lessons Learned from the South
Lori Ann Thrupp and Miguel Altieri .................................... 267
14. Whither Agricultural Extension Worldwide? Reforms and
Prospects
William Rivera... ... .. . ... . . . .. . ... ... ...... ... . . . .. . . .. ... . .. . . . ... ... . . . 291
15. Agricultural Extension: Generic Challenges and the
Ingredients for Solutions
Gershon Feder, Anthony Willett, and Willem Zijp .................... 313
III. CONCLUSION
16. Institutional Dimensions of Knowledge System Design and Analysis
Steven Wolf and David Zilberman ....................................... 357
Index ............................................................................... 367
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Miguel Altieri, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and
Management, University of California, Berkeley
Frederick H. Buttel, Professor of Rural Sociology and Environmental
Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
John Cary, Principal Research Scientist, Bureau of Rural Sciences,
Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry Australia and Principal Fellow,
University of Melbourne.
Federico Castillo, Graduate student, Department of Environmental
Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley
Henry Etzkowitz, Director, Science Policy Institute (SPI), State University
of New York at Purchase and Stony Brook and Associate Professor of
Sociology, State University of New York, Purchase
Wendy Faulkner, Senior Lecturer, Science Studies Unit, University of
Edinburgh
Gershon Feder, Research Manager, Rural Development Department,
World Bank
Cornelia Butler Flora, Professor of Rural Sociology, Iowa State
University
Wallace Huffman, Professor of Economics, Iowa State University
David Just, Graduate student, Department of Agricultural and Resource
Economics, University of California, Berkeley
Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes, Associate Professor of Agricultural
Economics, University of Missour -Columbia
William Lacy, Vice-Provost, University Outreach and International
Programs, University of California, Davis
viii
Douglas Parker, Associate Professor of Agricultural and Resource
Economics, University of Maryland
Gordon C. Rausser, Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource
Economics, University of California, Berkeley
William Rivera, Associate Professor, College of Natural Resources,
University of Maryland
Jacqueline Senker, Senior Fellow, SPRU Science and Technology Policy
Research, University of Sussex
Irini Theodorakopoulou, graduate student, University of Missouri -
Columbia
Lori Ann Thrupp, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region IX, San
Francisco, CA
Anthony Willett, Consultant, Rural Development Department, The World
Bank
Steven Wolf, Assistant Professor, Department of Natural Resources,
Cornell University
Brian Wright, Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource
Economics, University of California, Berkeley
Steve Wu, Graduate student, Department of Agricultural and Resource
Economics, University of California, Berkeley
David Zilberman, Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource
Economics, University of California, Berkeley
Willem Zipj, Senior Agricultural Extension Specialist, Rural Development
Department, The World Bank
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This volume grew out of the conference "Knowledge Generation and
Transfer: Implications for Agriculture in the 21st Century," held on the
University of California, Berkeley campus June 18-19, 1998. We gratefully
acknowledge the financial support of the University of California College of
Natural Resources, The Farm Foundation and Walter Armbruster, and the
UC-Berkeley Center for Sustainable Development. The contributions of all
who participated in the conference are appreciated, particularly Jerry
Caulder, Bill Friedland, Alain de Janvry, Tom Dimare, Reg Gomes, Stanley
Johnson, Richard Klemme, Victor Lechtenberg, Dave Mowery, Niels
Reimers, Terrell Salmon, Suzanne Scotchmer and Michael Watts. The
administrative assistance provided by Gregg Graff and Aija Leiponen is
recognized with appreciation. We thank Diana Lazo and Amor Nolan for
editorial assistance and Ariel Dinar and anonymous reviewers of an earlier
version of this manuscript for their helpful comments. Additionally, we
recognize the contributions of Thomas Randall and Marian Scott of Kluwer
Academic Publishing to the production of this volume. Steven Wolf is
grateful to the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics of the
University of California, Berkeley, the Unite d'Economie et Sociologique
Rurales, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Castanet, France
and the Swedish School of Social Science of the University of Helsinki,
Finland for support during the production of this volume.
INTRODUCTION
Steven Wolf and David Zilberman
University of California, Berkeley
Knowledge generation and transfer mechanisms have undergone significant
transformation since the beginning of the 20th century. In response to
recognition that scientific productivity is tightly connected to economic
dynamism, investment in research and education has increased. In order to
stimulate higher levels of private investment, patent protection has been
expanded. To accelerate the diffusion and enhance the value of knowledge
produced by public agencies and universities, intellectual property rights
(IPR) held by public organizations and researchers are now increasingly
transferred to private organizations. Additionally, new institutions such as
university offices of technology transfer, venture capital markets and a
variety of consortia in knowledge-intensive industries are being established
throughout the United States and in other parts of the world. These changes
have led to an increase in the proprietary character of scientific knowledge.
Applied to agricultural research this general trend is most visible in the new
strategies and functions of giant multinational life science firms competing
to stake and defend claims applied to genetics and proprietary
biotechnologies. During this same period, in some countries agricultural
extension services have been partially or fully privatized. In others, they are
being reorganized, decentralized and in some cases integrated into
commodity chains. Some functions previously performed by public
extension are increasingly transferred to private interests or cooperative
organizations. Public financing for some extension activities has been
reduced, and there is ongoing reliance on fee-for-service arrangements.
The emergence of new conceptions of innovation processes and
knowledge systems parallels these changes on the ground. The linear model
of innovation is being challenged and many now perceive technical change
to be a simultaneous and recursive process rather than sequential.
Distinctions between various functions (basic versus applied research) and
structures (public versus private sector actors) are blurring. There is
growing realization that organizational configuration and institutional
arrangements of systems of innovation are variables that mediate