ABSTRACT
Agricultural research needs to interact with the rest of the scientific community. Looking specifically at research related to global environmental change, agriculture has contributions to make in all Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change categories. To develop a more complete understanding of the system, agriculture can make better measurements of biogeochemicial fluxes of greenhouse gases from agriculture, contribute to a better understanding of the biosphere component of the carbon cycle, and bring our understanding of soil and hydrology to bear on the inputs needed to improve general circulation models. Water is the lifeblood, and the most frequently limiting factor in agricultural production. Not only is agriculture the largest user of water, it also is one of the major sources of water. How these resources are managed can have a substantial impact on the nation's water supply. Scientists in the developing countries could be enlisted to work on monitoring of natural resource problems, such as erosion, salinity, and desertification.
