During the last six decades of the twentieth century, U.S. agriculture experienced great progress through the utilization of technological advances in machinery and equipment, pest and disease protection, nutrients, irrigation, breeding and genetics, and conservation. The question now arises, Can the United States sustain or even increase the rate of this progress, particularly in the crop and livestock sectors of the agricultural economy? To obtain the information needed to answer this question, the RCA III Crop and Livestock Technologies Symposium was held, bringing together one humdred specialists, scientists, and researchers to focus on the key questions:
? What are the yield potentials of the major crops and livestock in the next 50 years?;
? What are the limiting factors of these yield potentials?;
? What technologies might help overcome these limiting factors?;
Crop and Livestock Technologies summarizes the results of the reports and discussions by the participating experts and presents key lessons that emerged pertaining to crop genetics and bioengineering, input, mechanical technologies, and livestock and grazing land technologies.