Assessing the Role of Public Research and Extension Policies in Promoting Improved Performance of the Agro‐Food Marketing System

Abstract

The bulk of public research and extension activities directed toward the agro-food marketing system has been the product of the public USDA land grant system. Movements toward freer markets and trade combined with increasingly constrained public research and development expenditures are redefining the roles and capacities of the public land grant system in promoting improved agri-food marketing institutions. The Research and Marketing Act of 1946 (RMA of 1946) has been the primary instrument for providing organizational and funding structure for much of the applied and basic agricultural marketing research and extension programming over the past four decades. However, the capacity to deal with future marketing issues is challenged by several trends affecting the public's land grant institutions.