Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T02:15:11.404Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Optimum Resource Allocation for Selected U. S. Agricultural Commodities*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2015

O. A. Cleveland
Affiliation:
Marketing Economics Division, Economic Research Service, stationed at Oklahoma State University
Daryll E. Ray
Affiliation:
Oklahoma State University

Extract

The commercial farm problem is often defined as a disequilibrium condition in which agriculture's productive capacity exceeds utilization at socially acceptable prices. However, commodity supplies are determined by the level and composition of resources committed to their production. While the commercial farm problem surfaces as a production-utilization disequilibrium, basically it is a resource imbalance problem.

Resource imbalances in agriculture result in an inefficient organization of the industry. To be efficient, resource use in the farm industry must satisfy three conditions:

1. the allocation of resources among agricultural and non-agricultural products must result in output and price levels that reward identical resources equally,

2. the use of resources in agriculture must result in a product mix geared to the relative demands for different products, and

3. each farm product must be produced at minimum factor cost.

The research reported in this paper focuses on the last efficiency condition. More specifically, we estimate the level and combination of resources for historical production levels of feed grains, wheat, soybeans, cotton and tobacco that minimize factor cost.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Southern Agricultural Economics Association 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Oklahoma State Agricultural Experiment Station Journal Article No. 2591.

References

[1]Heady, Earl O. and Tweeten, Luther G., Resource Demand and Structure of the Agricultural Industry, Ames, Iowa State University Press, 1963.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2]Ray, Daryll E., “An Econometric Simulation Model of United States Agriculture with Commodity Submodels,” unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Iowa State University, 1971.Google Scholar
[3]Ray, Daryll E., “The Use of Extraneous Information in the Development of a Policy Simulation Model,” Oklahoma Agri. Exp. Stat., Journal Article J-2590, 1972.Google Scholar
[4]Saupe, William E. and Kaldor, Donald R., “Efficient Organization of the Farm Industry in the North Central Region of the United States in 1959 and 1980,” Agri, and Home Econ. Exp. Stat., Research Bulletin 560, Iowa State University, 1968.Google Scholar
[5]Tyner, Fred H. and Tweeten, Luther G., “A Methodology for Estimating Production Parameters,” Journal of Farm Economics, 47:14621467, Dec. 1965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[6]Tyner, Fred H. and Tweeten, Luther G., “Excess Capacity in U.S. Agriculture,” Agricultural Economics Research 16:2331, Jan. 1964.Google Scholar
[7]Tyner, Fred H. and Tweeten, Luther G., “Optimum Resource Allocation in U.S. Agriculture,” Journal of Farm Economics 48:613631, Aug. 1966.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[8]Wilson, Stanley and Billingsley, Ray, “Factor-Factor 11,” Texas Agri. Exp. Stat., Model Documentation 71-3, 1971.Google Scholar