From the early 1600s, when tobacco exports literally saved the struggling Jamestown settlement, to the January 4, 1980, embargo of grain to the Soviet Union, food and agriculture have played varied roles in international affairs of the U.S., that is, in the political, military, economic, and cultural exchanges that affect the power of the U.S. relative to other sovereign nations. Food donations have been used as a humanitarian gesture to avert starvation. Food export embargoes have been used as weapons against foreign adversaries and domestic scarcities. Food pledges have been used to promote international food aid conventions. Food import quotas have been reallocated to reward friendly nations and penalize unfriendly ones. U.S. food shipments have been used to feed Allied soldiers and to barter for strategic materials. Food exports have been used to bolster the domestic economy and strengthen the dollar.

Management of agricultural business firms, such as grain and supply cooperatives, is becoming increasingly complex. Such complexity is a result of growth in size and intricacy of cooperatives over the last decade or more, and of processes of expansion of traditional functions and adoption of new ones. Currently, there is little research information available about the management function, and even less which is specific to agricultural business firms. Several studies have shown that the most important reason a cooperative fails is probably management. Yet, there is seldom any testing of senior management performance.

This study reports results of an acreage supply equation using individual farm data and develops implications for bias introduced by use of aggregate data. The analysis shows that use of aggregate acreage response models underestimates the absolute value of price elasticities and the lagged adjustment process. Further, aggregated analyses cannot incorporate some variables found to be important in explaining from level acreage response.

A joint task force of researchers from state agricultural experiment stations and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has completed a report entitled “Rural Development and the Quality of Living.” This report is an attempt to express the collective judgment of individual scientists and research administrators in regard to the research questions that need to be answered, some evaluation of present efforts, the adequacy of present facilities, and to suggest changes in research to meet present and future needs. The Task Force looked at these twin goals of research: (1) Raise the level of living of rural people, and (2) improve community services and the environment.

The general method of moments procedure is used for estimating a soybean acreage response function assuming that producers hold rational expectations. Results indicate that soybean, corn, and wheat futures prices, lagged acreage, and government programs are significant factors for determining soybean plantings. Implications of the results are that crop acreage selection by Georgia producers is not very responsive to demand shocks. Thus, producers in other regions are more likely to absorb impacts from these shocks on crop acreage selection.

One of the fundamental problems in applied econometric work is the choice of functional form. Economic theory is insufficient in suggesting the functional forms appropriate to the specification of economic relationships. Conventionally, the functional form of the regression equation is assumed a priori and parameter estimates are obtained according to certain desirable criteria, such as least squares. A wide variety of functional forms have been investigated empirically with respect to the demand function for food, yet no single functional form has been generally accepted among economists [2, 6, 7].

Traditional farms can play an important role in the agricultural development process [4, 6, 7, 8]. Less developed countries (LDCs) emphasize production and productivity increases for basic grains by relying on modern yield-increasing technology [2]. Technological advance, however, may produce diverging results; productivity may increase while production stagnates or declines. Due to both major seasonal and cyclical price fluctuations in basic grains and income limitations, traditional farmers in LDCs choose, quite rationally, to grow only enough of some food crops for home consumption. Yet policy makers often seek to increase the marketed supply of food crops and to determine possible changes in land utilization to meet that objective.

National food, agriculture, and trade policies operate in part through commodities. In our view, commodity policy encompasses the actions policymakers direct toward individual commodities in their attempt to influence supply, demand, price, farm income, and resource use. The instruments or provisions Executive branch policymakers use are granted by Congress through legislation. In this article we consider commodity-related developments that could occur in the 1980s and relate those developments to issues that policymakers will confront. We examine the economic pressures likely to affect producers, the instruments that policymakers may seek, and the legislative response.

As the environmental policy recommendations of economists become more acceptable, differences in the professional understanding of, and support for, different policy forms are becoming more apparent. These different approaches to environmental policy and research are described around a taxonomy of four perspectives: “rational analysts,” “cost analysts,” “market managers,” and “free market environmentalists.” These perspectives are compared and contrasted. Recognition of these differences can result in a better appreciation of the different research agendas of economists and can improve clarity in teaching and policy advising.

Industrialization is an integral part of many rural community development programs across the country. Interest in attracting industry is often based on an ex ante assessment by local groups and officials of the positive benefits accruing to the community or area from industrialization. Obvious benefits to a local economy include increased output, income, and employment. Benefits occur in the form of purchases of labor and inputs by industry from endogenous sectors and the resulting local trade. A complete understanding of these benefits by local groups and officials in rural economies is essential for the planning of effective industrial development programs.

In their article entitled, “A Model of Weekly Price Discovery for Florida Celery,” Shonkwiler and Pagoulatos provide an analysis of the pricing power of the Florida Celery Exchange, a marketing cooperative that represents all of that state's major celery producers. In their description of the activities of the Exchange, the authors cite several factors which indicate that Florida celery producers may have the ability to raise prices above levels that would prevail in a competitive U.S. celery market. Such factors include a market share of approximately 40 percent and a marketing allotment program which has prevented other producers from entering the industry since 1965. Shonkwiler and Pagoulatos then proceed to estimate the weekly demand faced by the Exchange and conclude, on the basis of the point estimate of an own-price elasticity, that the prices charged over the period 1972-1978 are inconsistent with those that would have been charged by a profit-maximizing monopolist. This conclusion leads them to state that the Exchange is socially beneficial because, they claim, it has provided price stability and market information without raising prices much above competition levels.

Whether the next farm bill is a slightly modified extension of the 1996 Farm Bill or is significantly different from the current bill will hinge on how the 1996 Farm Bill is perceived to have performed. With no supply management provisions in the 1996 Farm Bill, the crop markets have not shown a capacity to self-correct by reducing the quantity supplied and increasing the quantity demanded in response to relatively large declines in crop prices.

Predicted crop yields and wind erosion rates from a multi-year/multi-crop growth simulation model provided input into a multi-period recursive QP model to evaluate erosion implications during the transition to dryland crop production on the Texas Southern High Plains. Three farm-program participation options were considered in this study. Participation in an extension of the current farm program resulted in an increase in net returns and wind erosion rates above nonparticipation. Imposition of a soil loss limit without consideration of a flexible base option can significantly reduce discounted present values. Increasing risk aversion across producers affects crop mix selection which can result in lower per acre wind erosion rates for this particular region.

A growing deficit in shrimp landings relative to processing needs in the Southeast Region of the United States concerns both industry and government officials. Structural changes in the shrimp industry are encouraged by the growing supply deficit. The shrimp supply situation and resulting industry organization changes are the primary concerns of this paper.

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.

The prospects for U.S. beef products in the advent of a North American Free Trade Agreement were examined using a system-wide approach to import allocation. Results indicate that increases in the standard of living in Mexico and Canada would stimulate increased importation of processed and unprocessed beef products. Bulk beef product in both countries had expenditure elasticities greater than one, while semi-processed and highly processed beef products had expenditure elasticities of less than one.