RESEARCH NEEDED TO IMPROVE TRANSPORTATION FOR AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL AMERICA

The estimated total freight bill of the United States is more than $90 billion annually. Of this, about 22 percent or $20 billion is spent to transport the 680 million tons of farm and forestry products and supplies. Transportation is a basic link in the marketing and distribution chain. Agricultural and forestry procedures and industries are increasingly concerned about the problems of obtaining adequate and reasonably priced services for moving farm and forest products and supplies. To help determine the research effort of USDA and the Land Grant Universities on agricultural transportation problems, this Committee reviewed the research projects reported in the Current Research Information System (CRIS). Of the over 21,000 projects involving about 10,400 scientific man-years (SMY's) reported in CRIS, only 42 projects involving 33.2 SMY's were identified as transportation research. The Ad Hoc Committee on Agricultural Transportation Research recommends increased research effort in twelve areas listed under three broad headings--Public Policy Research, Transportation User Research, and Transportation Systems Research.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • A report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Agricultural Transportation Research established at the request of the National Agricultural Research Policy Advisory Committee.
• Corporate Authors:

  Department of Agriculture

  Science and Education Staff
  Washington, DC  United States  20250
• Publication Date: 1973-3

Media Info

• Features: Appendices; Tables;
• Pagination: 43 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Agricultural products; Commodities; Demand; Farm produce; Forest products; Freight traffic; Freight transportation; Marketing
• Subject Areas: Economics; Freight Transportation; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00046374
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Department of Agriculture
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Sep 4 1973 12:00AM