Discoveries in fundamental sciences during the past four decades have made possible remarkable advances in genetics and plant breeding, biotechnology and synthetic biology that resulted in new varieties of crops and improved selection animal breeds. Furthermore, advances made by scientists and technologists have been adopted by farm producers in 29 countries. However, while scientific discovery has been rapid, innovation and development of new products has been slow, and involvement of public sector scientists in development has been weak. While reasons for these phenomena are complex it is clear that federal and local policies have a significant impact on forward movement in this sector. The presentation will discuss these and related issues from the perspective of a scientist who detoured to Washington, D.C.