The acceptance and utility of alternative agricultural research can be enhanced by better incorporating social sciences and issues and by broadening its scope to the entire food system rather than focusing only on food production. Researchers have made strong contributions in developing and evaluating alternative agricultural technologies, but research attention also is needed to articulate strategies for synthesizing those technologies into coherent strategies, to examine the social effects of different scenarios, and to create better decisionmaking processes for ensuring broad-based knowledgeable participation in the choices among alternative strategies. Research that addresses human needs beyond food and fiber will help build truly alternative and desirable agricultural systems.

Low-input agriculture is likely to be the focal point for future cropping systems. Worldwide there is increasing concern that we must decrease the use of chemicals in agriculture. A leading reason for this concern has been the effects of pesticides on food quality, consumer health, and the environment. There also is concern regarding fertilizers and energy inputs because of environmental pollution from excessive application rates and poor timing of fertilization and because of the depletion of nonrenewable energy resources. Overuse of these materials not only is an economic waste but also may require environmental cleanup. Legislation may mandate the development of alternative methods of pest control. For example, the Dutch Government has demanded a 35% decrease in the use of farm pesticides in 1995 and a 50% reduction by the year 2000. Other governments may impose similar limitations.

Two large-scale (25 ha) trials were initiated in 1989 in Wisconsin to compare six alternative production systems regarding productivity, profitability, and environmental impact. The project was designed and is managed by a coalition of farmers, extension agents and research personnel. Deliberations between production-oriented and ecologically oriented team members resulted in a factorial design, with two enterprise types (cash grain and forage-livestock) and three levels of biological complexity. Statistical methods have been used to identify the most efficient plot size, plot shape, and block shape, and the optimal procedures for sampling soil characteristics. A uniformity year was allowed before initiation of the trial, and the start was staggered. We defined treatments as production strategies rather than a specific set of inputs, which led to a more flexible plot management program.

A 2-year study compared milk production and profitability for confinement feeding versus rotational grazing. Guernsey and Guernsey x Holstein cows grazed perennial grass pastures from mid-May to October or were fed in confinement. Averaged over both years, confined cows produced 7% more milk; their milk was similar in fat concentration to that of grazing cows. Body weight changes and health of the two groups were similar. Net return per cow averaged $64 higher for rotational grazing than for confinement because of lower costs for feeding, facilities, equipment, and labor. Intensive rotational grazing of pastures is a competitive alternative for dairy cow feeding. However, farmers in the northern U.S. will still require stored feeds from late fall through early spring.

We evaluated the short-term effects on earthworms of sidedressing solid dairy cattle manure on corn. The manure rates were 40, 46 and 53 t/ha applied in 1991, and a control (no manure). From 1988 to 1990, the manure plots received solid dairy cattle manure sidedressed at an annual rate of 40 to 50 t/ha, the equivalent of 100 kg N/ha, while the control received a standard mineral fertilization. The experiment took place at the MAPAQ experimental station in St.-Lambert, Quebec, Canada. Sampling occurred in autumn 1991 and spring 1992.

Sidedressing solid dairy cattle manure in spring increased earthworm populations compared with the control in fall 1991, but no significant population differences were observed among the three different manure treatments, which were then pooled for further statistical analysis. In spring 1992, the populations declined, at which time the manure treatment and the control did not differ significantly in abundance, but total earthworm biomass and Lumbricus biomass were significantly higher in the manure treatment. Cocoon production showed significant differences between treatments, which provides evidence for the potential effect of manure sidedressing on earthworm population dynamics. Although the genus Aporrectodea (endogeic) was dominant among the treatments, sidedressing of solid dairy cattle manure also stimulated Lumbricus populations, especially juveniles and adult L terrestris (epianecic).

The policies influencing the American agricultural research agenda are developed by Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the 58 state agricultural experiment stations of the land-grant university system, with input from various advisory groups. Despite the slow pace of change in the agricultural research agenda, there are no special barriers keeping the research system from adapting to contemporary and alternative agriculture issues. Rather, agricultural researchers have neither appropriate professional incentives nor sufficient financial incentives to shift toward alternative agriculture. Public intervention to alter these incentives has been thwarted because agricultural research institutions set their agendas through obscure processes. Five areas of policy change that could improve the prospects for evolution of a significant alternative agriculture research agenda are: 1) imposing a means test for formula fund payment limitations to states, with saved funds directed toward alternative agriculture research; 2) making priority setting a condition for receiving federalfunds for agricultural research to make the research agenda-setting process clearer to all interested parties; 3) requiring that federally funded research programs be categorized by the specific social goals toward which they are directed, to aid in judgments about the relevance of specific public agricultural research programs; 4) requiring information on research programs to be reported in a way that is specifically relevant to the alternative agriculture agenda; 5) formally involving public citizens and farmers in reviewing agricultural research grants to assure that the usefulness of proposed research is weighed along with scientific merit. These proposals complement current interest in making science generally more responsive to national priorities, and are entirely feasible within current agricultural research policy processes. Their effectiveness, however, is limited by the shrinking influence of federal funding in the state agricultural experiment station system, and they are only incremental changes within the existing system rather than radical reforms toward an alternative research system.

Farmers' markets are important but inadequately studied contributors to local economies. They allow individual entrepreneurs and their families to contribute to the economic life of local communities by providing goods and services that are not readily available through formal, mass markets, and they bring producers and consumers together to solidify bonds of local identity and solidarity. Using data collected from 115 farmers' market vendors in three regions of New York in 1993, we examined the characteristics and operations of three categories of vendors: full-time growers, part-time growers, and non-grower artisans and craftspeople. Drawing on theories of mass production and mass markets, we show how farmers' markets represent intermediate social structures that bridge the formal and informal sectors of the economy.

We conducted a field experiment within a low-input reduced tillage trial to determine how a cover crop affects inoculum levels of vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal (VAM) fungi. Plots with and without the hairy vetch cover crop were established on September 30, 1993, under moldboard plow (MP), chisel-disk (CD), and no-till (NT) treatments in low-input (LI) management, and MP in conventional (CONV) management. We conducted a 3-week colonization assay in the greenhouse with bahiagrass seedlings to assess the relative colonization potential of the soils in the fall and following spring. Hairy vetch roots were colonized by indigenous VAM fungi by 65 days after planting, with plants from NT being more colonized than plants from MP or CD plots. Spore populations were greater in the LI than in the CONV system. The beneficial effect of the cover crop on VAM spore populations in soil was manifested in the spring, with the Glomus type group more abundant in plots with cover than without it. The greenhouse bioassay showed that colonization potential of spring 1994 soil samples was higher in plots with cover than without cover for both the LI and CONV systems. Just one season of an overwintering cover crop of hairy vetch increased the inoculum of VAM fungi the following spring before the next cash crop was planted.

We evaluated the effect of compost enriched with rock phosphate on the yield and phosphate nutrition of rye grass in a calcareous clay loam soil. Enriched compost was prepared by composting either Mussoorie rock phosphate (MP) or Hyper rock phosphate (HP) separately with wheat straw for up to 120 days. A significant amount of insoluble P was solubilized from both kinds of rock phosphates and converted to water soluble, organic, and formic acid soluble P fractions during composting. MP-enriched compost (MPEC) and HP-enriched compost (HPEC) contain 0.30% and 0.34% water soluble P205, 1.94% and 1.42% organic P2O5 2.82% and 3.28% formic acid soluble P2O5, and 1.76% and 1.18% insoluble P2O5, respectively. In a greenhouse study, the yield of ryegrass (three cuttings) with both enriched composts was not significantly different from that of single superphosphate fertilizer (SSP). Phosphorus fractions of soil before sowing and after harvesting the rye grass showed that fixation of P with native soil calcium was much higher with SSP than with enriched composts. No significant differences were observed between MRP and HRP.

Residues of dead cover crops can suppress weeds by providing a mulch on the soil surface. The cover crop usually is killed with herbicides, but a mechanical method is desirable in systems intended to reduce chemical use. We designed and built an undercutter to kill cover crops by severing their roots while flattening the intact aboveground biomass on the surface of raised beds. We studied which cover crop species could be killed with the undercutter and compared the weed control potential of cover crop residues after flail mowing, sicklebar mowing, and undercutting.

Whether a species was killed by the undercutter depended primarily on growth stage. Species that were in mid- to late bloom or beyond, including rye, hairy vetch, bigflower vetch, crimson clover, barley, and subterranean clover, were easily killed by undercutting. There were no differences in dry weights of broadleaf weeds between the undercut and simulated sicklebar mowed treatments, both of which had less weed biomass than the clean-tilled or flail-mowed plots.

Livestock production and manure handling decisions often have been treated in the literature as separate enterprises. Policymakers, too, have ignored the interactive nature of manure management by focusing on land application for nutrient disposal. This study outlines a systems approach to describe the interrelated decisions producers face, using examples from North Carolina and Iowa that show how producers' attitudes toward manure management lead them to handle manure differently in different regions. In North Carolina, nutrients in manure are “not wanted.” There are economic incentives to treat manure, thus reducing its nutrient content, and to apply it on as little land as possible. In Iowa, nutrients are “not wasted.” Producers conserve the nutrients in manure and use them more fully, applying manure to higher value crops such as corn. Policies that influence manure management can be made more effective by accounting for the differences in producers' incentives to waste or want the nutrients.

We evaluated free-range domestic chickens and geese as components of a nonchemical apple orchard intercropped with potato. Chickens and geese were compatible with the system but provided different benefits and had different requirements. Chickens were omnivorous and highly active throughout the day, and dispersed throughout the available area. In contrast, geese were strictly herbivorous and less active, and usually remained close to their coop and water source. Geese substantially reduced vegetation biomass under the trees and around the potatoes without damaging either crop. Chickens reduced noncrop vegetation biomass slightly but also consumed several insect species, including Japanese beetle and Colorado potato beetle. Factors influencing the feasibility of integrating domestic chickens or geese into agroecosystems are discussed.

Applied agricultural research that is concerned with highly specific production methods and growing conditions differs in its purposes and social value from more “academic” kinds of research intended to advance knowledge in a more general and less immediately practical way. Nevertheless, it is conducted in an institutional setting established largely for the latter kind of research. Many people have suggested that the resulting conflicts could be reduced by introducing greater flexibility into the professional reward system for agricultural researchers. However, the mismatch may go too deep to be fixed this way. An alternative would be to remove highly applied researchfrom the academic domain and treat it instead as a service to the university's outside constituencies. A service orientation is especially appropriate for publicly supported universities, which is where most such research is done.