Research Needs and Priorities in the Food System: Industry Viewpoint (Ed Williams, Massey-Ferguson, Chairman) Research Needs and Priorities in the Food System: An Industry Viewpoint

For professional economists, the subject of this paper implies a gap between the subject matter interests of industry economists and emphasis of current academic research, a lack of communications between those doing research and those in industry who are impatient for answers to constantly changing problems, or both. While the nature of institutional research and the nature of economics training have been perennial themes of industry sessions at annual meetings, increasingly there are similar challenges coming from professionals in academia and government. Robert A. Gordon, in his presidential address to the American Economic Association, said, "the mainstream of economic theory sacrifices far too much relevance in its pursuit of ever-increasing rigor" (p. 1). His challenge to the profession was "relevance with as much rigor as possible, not rigor regardless of relevance" (p. 12). This challenge is precisely the one industry economists have expressed for some time. There have also been similar challenges from the leaders of the American Agricultural Economics Association. Bonnen, in his presidential address, stated, "There is evidence that we are failing also to update our conceptual base at a pace sufficient to keep up with the major changes in agriculture" (p. 756). Bottum, in his fellow's address, stated, "We need today in our universities, more individuals and groups with the ability and the courage to tackle fundamental issues facing U.S. citizens" (p. 765). Neilson, in his presidential address in 1974, said, "In the past decade, I believe that we have overinvested in the development and refinement of quantitative methods. We have spent too little time and energy on discovering and tackling the emerging economic and social problems that most trouble our society" (p. 869). When only that minority of our profession who call themselves industry economists were questioning the relevance of the research of the profession, it could be dismissed as coming from a maverick group of the profession that perhaps did not appreciate the rigor of academic research. However, when it is brought into question by such professionals as those quoted above, it is time that all of us, as professionals, start listening. It is time for those in industry to insure that we are communicating our needs properly and effectively. The objective of this session is to discuss research needs and priorities in the food system from an industry viewpoint. By no means would it be possible to delineate and rank all research needs of the food industry in a single session. Each of us has an endless list of needs and priorities. My objective is not to present a laundry list of needs ranked on some ordinal basis but to discuss basic procedures and key issues. Specifically, I want to (a) comment on criteria for good research, (b) identify some of the research needs in the food industry, (c) comment on the extent to which the profession is meeting these needs, and (d) finally, recommend measures to span the gap that has been identified. The panel discussants for this session were Charles French of the National Academy of Sciences, Morton Sosland of Sosland Publishing Company, John Morrissey of Super Valu Stores, and Bill Helming of the Livestock Business Advisory Services. Richard T. Crowder is vice-president and corporate economist of the Pillsbury Company. The comments and suggestions of Paul Baumgart, Charles Erickson, Ted Rice, Bruce Scherr, and Ed Williams resulted in a substantial improvement of an earlier draft of this paper. However, since all comments and suggestions were not followed, the final paper and any errors therein are the responsibility of the writer.