This work analyzes the research productivity of agricultural and life science faculty in U.S. Land Grant research universities from 1975 to 2005. Production function estimations that control for inputs and demographic characteristics reveal significant improvements after 1980 in faculty research productivity per unit time, especially in the non-top ten universities. Because, however, time available to faculty for research has decreased substantially in the past three decades, overall journal article output per faculty did not increase after the 1980s. Our findings demonstrate large productivity increases but raise concerns about the optimal allocation of faculty time.