Agricultural experiment station

An agricultural research station, theVolcani Center,Rehovot,Israel

Anagricultural experiment station(AES) oragricultural research station(ARS) is a scientificresearch centerthat investigates difficulties and potential improvements tofood productionandagribusiness.Experiment station scientists work withfarmers,ranchers,suppliers,processors,and others involved in food production andagriculture.

Research

Station scientists study biological, economic, and social problems of food and agriculture and related industries in each state. They investigate such areas ascrop variations,soil testing,livestock,processingandanimal technology,and other advanced technology in food and agriculture. They also work with specialists calledextension agents.These specialists help inform farmers about developments in agriculture. Most agricultural experiment station scientists are faculty members of the land-grant universities.

Locations

Canada

InCanada,about 50 per cent (1988) of the experiment stations are controlled by the Canadian government. TheCentral Experimental FarminOttawais the headquarters of the federal system. Private industries, universities, and agricultural colleges control the remainder of the stations. Each province has a number of provincial stations.TheUniversity of Saskatchewanhas extensive agricultural experimental land.

Greece

TheBenaki Phytopathological Instituteconducts experiments pertaining to plant health in many locations throughout the mainland, as well as in Crete and on other Greek islands.

Iceland

TheAgricultural University of Icelandmaintains several experiment stations throughout the country.

Israel

Researchers, Nehma Bidner and avid Lahover in the agricultural station in Rehovot, Israel.

Further information:Agricultural research in Israel

Israel host multiple agricultural stations, including the Yair Agricultural Research and Development Station in the Arava desert, theVolcani centerand others.Israel is considered a global hub of water and sustainable agricultural technology.

India

The Regional Agricultural Research Station at Lam ofGuntur.

Japan

Japanhas five agricultural experiment stations ofIndependent Administrative InstitutionofNational Agriculture and Food Research Organization,former national stations, and many otherprefecturalstations all over the country.

New Zealand

New Zealandhas agricultural research stations atRuakura,Winchmore and Invermay.

United Kingdom

Sutton Bridge Crop Storage Research inSutton Bridge,Lincolnshire,is a leading UK agricultural experiment station owned by theAgriculture and Horticulture Development Boardand operated by itsPotato Councildivision, it engages in a wide range of research disciplines impacting upon crop storage for the British potato industry, including confidential contract research and development.

Syngenta's largest R&D center is atJealott's Hillin Berkshire. Before its current incarnation it belonged toImperial Chemical Industries.

United States

TheHatch Act of 1887authorized the establishment of agricultural experiment stations, to be affiliated with the land grant college of agriculture, in each state (7 U.S.C. 361a et seq.). The mission of the agricultural experiment stations as set out in the Hatch Act is to conduct original research, investigation, and experiments which contributing to the establishment and maintenance of the agricultural industry in the United States. Including research pertaining to agriculture in its broadest sense as well as improvement of the rural home and rural life, and the contribution by agriculture to the welfare of the consumer.Research done at these stations underpins the curriculum of the colleges, as well as the programs of theCooperative Extension System.The United States of Americahas more than 600 main experiment stations and branch stations, run by about 13,000 scientists.In some states, agricultural experiment stations are integrated into the agriculture colleges ofLand Grant Universities;while in others they are administratively unique institutions. The structure of the agricultural experiment stations varies state-to-state in order to meet the unique needs of each state. Factors such as size of the land grant university, and size and type of agriculture in a state will affect the organization and research conducted by the station.

TheUnited States Department of Agriculturealso maintains over 90 research locations, including locations abroad. The research stations of the USDA are divided into 5 geographic areas across the United States, each with a centrally located station. Including:Pacific West at Albany, CA,Plains Area atFt. Collins, CO,Southeast Area atStoneville, MS,Midwest Area atPeoria, IL,and Northeast Area atBeltsville, MD.Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Centerin Beltsville, is the largest of USDA's research locations at 6,500 acres and contains theNational Agricultural Library.

The U.S. experiment stations are state institutions. However, the federal and state governments cooperate in funding the research done at the stations. The states provide about 60 percent (1988) of the government money. Additional income comes fromgrants,contracts,and the sale of products. The stations receive a total income of more than $1 billion a year.

U. S. Virgin Islands

TheUniversity of the Virgin Islandsmaintains an experiment stationon the island ofSt. Croix,working onagroforestry,aquaponics,biotechnology,forage agronomy, andtilapiafarming, among other areas of research.

History

France

In 1786,Comte d'Angiviller,acting forLouis XVI of France,acquired 366merino sheepfrom Spain and began an experimental program of adapting the species to France at the farm attached toChâteau de Rambouillet.As a result, there is the branch of merinos calledRambouillet sheep.

In 1836Jean-Baptiste Boussingaultestablished thefirst agricultural experiment stationat Pechelbronn in Alsace.

Germany

A precursor to the agricultural experiment station was thebotanical garden.For example,Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeckfounded theBotanische Gärten der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonnin 1818. With need foranimal nutrition,scientists such asKarl Heinrich Ritthausenturned tobiochemistryto investigate the comparative nutrition fromgrainsandpulses.

Möckern Agricultural Experiment Station

Following the footsteps of the enlightenment rationalism and experimentalism, Germany began to see the rise of agricultural experiment stations, indicating the beginnings of an attempt to merge traditional agronomy with analytical chemistry. In 1840,Justus von Liebig,an influential German chemist and professor at theUniversity of Giessen,published his bookOrganic Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology.Liebig theorized that nitrogen and trace minerals from soil erosion were essential to plant nutrition, and, from this analytical chemistry perspective, simplified agriculture to a series of chemical reactions.While Liebig's work inspired a generation of analytical agricultural chemists interested in fundamental questions of plant nutrition, e.g.,Wilhelm KnopandJulius von Sachs,founders of early German agricultural experiment stations did not solely seek to pursue questions of soil chemistry, but rather sought to bridge the gap between the two fields of agriculture and chemistry.

The most well-known and earliest German experimental station, orLandwirtschaftlicheVersuchsstationen,established was theMöckern Agricultural Experiment Station,located near the city ofLeipzig.Created on September 28, 1850, the Möckern project was spearheaded by three Saxon men:Julius Adolph Stöckhardt,a professor of agricultural chemistry; Wilhelm Crusius, German estate owner interested in scientific agriculture; and Theodor Reuning, the German agricultural minister at the time.Though all three men took interest in Liebig's scientific approach to soil chemistry, they maintained distinct agricultural and economic focus at Möckern, and rejected a purely laboratory approach to agriculture.Unlike Liebig, Stöckhardt sought the integration of chemistry with agriculturists, rather than a specialization of chemists to come in and do the work. As a landowner who employed chemists, Crusius saw the value of chemical agriculture in economic terms to increase profit, while Reuning's support for Möckern Station represented the beginnings of governmental interest and funding of agricultural experimental stations.

Under Crusius, the Möckern Station submitted a Letter of Purpose in a government application. It specified that the Möckern Station belonging to the Leipzig Economic Society would devote itself to the advancement of agriculture via scientific investigation, through cooperation between practical farmers and scientific professionals. They listed six main research objectives, summarized below:

1. Investigation into conditions of plant growth, mainly that of soil, manure, and fertilization.
2. Analysis of plant fodder and its effects on animal products.
3. Meteorological observations.
4. Cultivation and valuation of rare plants.
5. Agricultural technology testing of implements and machines.
6. Research and creation of agricultural metrics, such as relative values of fodder.

Japan

Hokkaido Development Commissionfounded the very first agricultural experiment station of the country inSapporoin 1871, under the advice ofO-yatoi gaikokujin(hired foreign experts).

The first national agricultural experiment station was founded in 1893 inTokyo,Sendai,Kanazawa,Osaka,Hiroshima,Tokushima,andKumamotounder theEdictNo.18.

And, 1899 act for prefectural agricultural experiment stations supported prefectural movement to establish agricultural experiment stations all over Japan.

United Kingdom

John Bennet Lawes,with the help ofJoseph Henry Gilbert,established one of the oldest agricultural experiment stations in the world:Rothamsted Experimental Station,located atHarpendeninHertfordshire,England,was founded in 1843. This establishment was whereRonald Fisherwas inspired to important advances in the theory ofstatistical inferenceandgenetics.Another important agricultural experiment station was founded in 1903 and closed in 2003:Long Ashton Research Station.

United States

The movement to establish agricultural experiment stations in the US can be credited toSamuel William Johnsonwho taught the first course inbiochemistry.The development was recounted byWilliam Cumming Rose:

In 1875, through Johnson's influence, the Connecticut Legislature made a small appropriation to aid the cost of a two year program of agricultural experimentation, to be conducted byWilbur Olin AtwateratWesleyan University,inMiddletown, Connecticut.Atwater had received the Ph. D. under Johnson's direction... Two years later, the State Legislature approved the establishment of theConnecticut Agricultural Experiment Stationon a permanent basis, and Johnson became its first director... At the start, it was housed in two rooms on the lower floor of Sheffield Hall ofYale University.Later,... moved to a building of its own on Huntington Street in New Haven.

TheBussey InstitutionatHarvard University(since 1871) and theHoughton FarmatCornwall, New York(1876–88), were privately endowed stations. By 1887 fourteen states had definite organizations and in thirteen others the colleges conducted equivalent work.

Federal aid for state experiment stations began with theHatch Act of 1887.The Hatch Act authorized direct payment of federal grant funds to each state to establish an agricultural experiment station "under direction of" itsland-grant college.Land-grant colleges had been established under theMorrill Actof 1862. The aid was increased by theAdams Act(1906) and thePurnell Act(1925). The provisions of the original Hatch Act and of later legislation providing increasing funds were combined in theHatch Actof 1955.

TheMcIntire–Stennis Actof 1962 authorized forestry research studies at experiment stations.

See also

• New York State Agricultural Experiment Station
• Moray (Inca ruin)

Further reading

• Dictionary of American HistorybyJames Truslow Adams,New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940

External links

• Japan National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO)