The stabilization of farm prices and incomes has been a goal of all farm legislation dating back to the establishment of the Farm Board in 1929. After the Farm Board concept failed in the wake of the great crash of 1929, price stabilization turned more and more toward price supports with prices set above market equilibrium. To absorb the differential quantities that arose, loan and storage programs were established for major commodities. Stocks of accumulated grain were used in times of war or world grain production shortfalls to even out the flow of food to consumers

Events of the past two years, specifically the agricultural price explosion of 1973, have strongly emphasized the growing interdependency of countries in the production, consumption and trade in agricultural products. The illusion of a closed agricultural economy has been dealt a series of severe blows. The world monetary crisis, the dollar devaluations, and sharply increased foreign demand for U.S. commodities have suggested that there is a single world market for basic commodities.

The method of value determination for agricultural commodities and products is likely to be of major concern during the balance of the 1970's. Food and agricultural prices are currently in the forefront of public interest. This concern is likely to continue and be more dramatic at times during the rest of this decade. Attention is likely to focus on the marketplace and arrangements for price determination.

Several writers in the field argue that the manner in which agricultural prices are determined presents some major equity problems. They envision more problems ahead. Some conclude that there must be better mechanisms, institutions, organizational arrangements and procedures for determining the value of agriculture products. This concern implies a belief that a relationship exists between the method or process of price determination and performance. However, we know very little about the formation of prices, and we have very little empirical evidence on which to base firm conclusions about alternative arrangements.

Second thoughts about the assigned title of this paper (Rural Development Research—One Perspective) prompted a change — there is a not too subtle implication that the “one perspective” may not be the correct perspective. Also, I had envisioned assimilating a number of perspectives attributable to others into my own – and at least attempting not to miss the target altogether. However, such would be a rather placid and inappropriate approach to the topic. Consequently, I propose to confront the topic of rural development research more directly, scrutinizing it as closely as possible, and attempting to make a contribution to a better understanding of the problems facing rural development researchers and those concerned with action programs in “rural development.”

Problems of low income, high incidence of poverty, inadequate or expensive community services, net out-migration and high dependency rates in rural areas are now well documented and widely recognized. Not so well recognized is, “What can be done about these problems?” This paper suggests systems analysis to answer this question. Following a description of the systems approach to planning, a case is made for applying such an approach to rural development. Finally, some new observations are presented on the economic payoff from various public programs suitable for inclusion in systems planning.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the management of larger multidisciplinary research projects in the existing agricultural experiment station framework. Through a recounting of changes occurring in agriculture and their implications for research, the need for research management is established.

Next, systems analysis is introduced as a means for organizing the quantity and variety of resources involved in large multidisciplinary research projects. After a discussion of the requirements for engaging in systems analysis, suggestions are made for organizing research through the systems analysis approach. An example, with diagrams, is used to help clarify the discussion and to strengthen the argument that systems analysis constitutes a potentially productive tool – both for primary research and for research management.

Recent years have seen a rapid expansion in expenditures for new small town water and sewer systems. Both federal and state governments have increased their aid programs significantly in this field. The primary source of federal funds for new water and sewer facilities in such towns has been the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), whose loans and grants totaled approximately $1,425 million for water and $629 million for sewer facilities in such places during fiscal years 1966-1973.

Acceptance and increased interest in rural development as a legitimate concern of land grant institutions is well documented. Although rural development research is not “new” for the discipline of agricultural economics, there is little doubt that the area has experienced renewed and greatly expanded interest at both the national and regional levels by the passage of the 1972 Rural Development Act.

While much has been written on the importance and need for a direct frontal attack on this traditionally underfunded and low priority research area, the sad fact is that the profession is still without a clear sense of direction regarding research and extension needs and priorities. The establishment of state and regional rural development centers is a positive step toward directing and coordinating the limited resources available in this area. Many southern states have demonstrated significant leadership roles in this first step, obviously recognizing the massive rural development problems of the region.

In a recent article, Hildreth and Schaller suggest that researchers can make important contributions to community development programs by analyzing the trade-offs resulting from increasing economic activity in rural communities or moving the people to jobs in other communities, and the subsequent effects of these alternatives on the allocation of community services. Although they concentrate on the delivery of public services to rural communities, it is important to note that urban public service costs are a major factor influencing the current emphasis on “place development,” rather than encouraging rural-to-urban migration.

Rural industrial development is advocated as a means of improving the economic status of residents in lagging rural areas. A recent USDA report stated, “One of the main problems in Rural America is the lack of employment opportunities. With advances in agricultural technology, farm-related jobs are decreasing and other forms of employment must be found”.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the economic impact of industrial expansion in rural areas. The specific emphasis will be the potential effect on locally disadvantaged people – the poor and underemployed. The question is not are jobs and income opportunities created, but for whom are they created. Ideally, those who benefit are the underemployed, poor and near poor; but this need not be the case.

Although the importance of multiple goals in the decision-making process has been recognized for years by economists, economic analyses typically are based on the assumption of maximization or minimization of a single goal. Some firm growth analyses have considered two or more goals by maximizing one goal subject to constraints on the remaining goals. In other cases, utility functions that incorporate expected income and income variability have been estimated for individual farm operators. Although these approaches are an effort to incorporate more than one goal in the decision process, firm growth research in general has not been based on multiple-goal decision models.

This study grew out of the need for a more realistic notion concerning the investment behavior of the individual farm firm. Once a stable investment behavior function is identified, it can be incorporated into dynamic growth models to describe and predict farm firm growth. Considerable effort has been devoted to estimating the appropriate investment behavior function for industrial corporations; however, a search of the literature revealed no estimates of such a function for individual farm firms.

The purpose of this study was to estimate the investment behavior function for individual farm firms using the concept of rational distributed lag functions developed by Jorgenson to approximate the time structure of the investment process. To do this, a class of rational distributed lag functions was imposed on a multiple regression equation to obtain the lag distribution that best describes the time path of the investment response to changes in desired capital.

The growth in the capital investment in agriculture that occurred during the 1950's and 1960's and the resulting credit demands led to a number of inquiries into the future capital and credit requirements of American agriculture [2, 3, 4]. The results of these studies suggest that the aggregate capital and credit needs of the agricultural sector will increase significantly in the future. However, estimates of future capital and credit requirements of firms that are representative of different sizes and enterprise types of farms are not available. These estimates would be useful to farmers and lending institutions in determining the future amount of capital and credit needed to generate a given level of gross sales or income. Those entering farming could compare the present and future capital needed for different types of operations.

A systematic approach to projecting supply and demand for agricultural commodities is to: (1) estimate what the demand for agricultural products will be at some date in the future, (2) estimate the capacity of United States farmers to produce that output in terms of cropland availability and projected crop yields, and then (3) distribute estimated United States production requirements to states and regions according to some historical trend or some estimate of comparative advantage. The object of this paper is to relate the expected demand for United States farm products in 1985 to the South and determine its production needs and acreage requirements.

The theory of industrial organization provides a conceptual base for investigation of the market structure of specialized industries. A number of measures of concentration exist which have been applied to market structure investigations. These measures are utilized to quantify seller concentration in an effort to classify individual markets with respect to relative competitiveness.