ABSTRACT
Bovine somatotropin (BST) is one of the most controversial technologies developed within the landgrant system, even though other technologies have had more substantial and more dislocating socioeconomic impacts. Economists, by developing macroeconomic and microeconomic models and doing future projections, have done parallel work for a long time. But prior to the 1970s there was not a substantial research community in any of the rural social sciences focused on assessing the socioeconomic impacts of emerging technologies. The chapter explains some of the considerations that are important in assessing the future impacts of BST. The most crucial breakthrough in BST technology was recombinant DNA research by Genentech. The most controversial aspect of these ex ante BST studies has been the distributional impact of BST among dairy farmers. BST has been a controversial technology well in advance of its commercial introduction. BST promised to completely overwhelm the ability of the federal dairy commodity program to support prices above the average cost of production.
