Luther Tweeten Receives Science Award

The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) presented its Charles A. Black Award to agricultural economist Luther G. Tweeten. The award was given Saturday, March 16, 1996 in Arlington, Virginia.

The award is presented annually to a food or agricultural scientist actively engaged in research who has made significant scientific contributions to his/her scientific field, and communicates the importance of this work and of food and agricultural science to the public, policymakers, and news media.

Dr. Tweeten, Anderson Professor of Agricultural Marketing, Policy, and Trade in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology at The Ohio State University, Columbus, earned the Ph.D. at Iowa State University, served on the faculty of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Oklahoma State University from 1962 to 1987. He joined Ohio State in 1988.

He has served as a consultant to the National Advisory Commission of Food and Fiber, the Office of Technology Assessment, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Harvard Development Advisory Service, the Center for Agricultural and Economic Development, and the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.

Dr. Tweeten has served as president of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA). A Fellow of AAEA, he received the society’s Quality of Communication Award in 1981. He is an internationally recognized lecturer and speaker and coauthored Research Methods and Communication in the Social Sciences. In 1995, he was voted one of the ten most influential Land-Grant university agricultural economists. Iowa State University presented him the with Henry A. Wallace Award for Distinguished Service to Agriculture, the highest award given by its College of Agriculture.

Dr. Tweeten was chair of task forces that wrote two CAST reports, The Emerging Economics of Agriculture (1983) and Long-Term Viability of U.S. Agriculture (1989). He is author or coauthor of seven books and over 400 journal articles and published papers.

The award is named for Dr. Charles A. Black, professor emeritus of agronomy at Iowa State University and a past president, executive vice president, and member of the founding committee of CAST. CAST, a consortium of 31 scientific societies, identifies food and fiber, environmental, and other agricultural issues and to interpret related scientific research information for legislators, regulators, and the media for use in public policy decision making.