Don Paarlberg

Geographic Distribution of Research Costs and Benefits

More interest is being taken in the sources of increased agricultural productivity. Public efforts to produce and disseminate new knowledge in agriculture have been increasing particularly since World War II. But there are wide differences in the contributions among the states. This article grew out of a study of the sources of income for agricultural research and education, which attempted to determine if state differences in the public production and distribution of new technology affected the average productivity of farms among the states. The methods of multiple correlation of gross farm income with conventional inputs and inputs of agricultural research education did not disclose any significant differences among states in output attributable to the latter two inputs. The conclusion is that public information is so freely available and so generally applicable that the source of the new knowledge is not very important when all the states in the Union are considered.

Agriculture Loses Its Uniqueness

Some time ago a friend asked me, What is the most important event that has happened in agriculture during your lifetime? I put him off for a month while I reflected on this provocative question. Then I told him I had an answer which would take me forty minutes to deliver. He said, I dont want to know that much about it. So, from that time to this I have borne an undelivered speech. When Jim Hildreth invited me to give this lecture I wasnt long in accepting, and I wasnt long in naming a subject. My subject is, agriculture is losing its uniqueness. This is a matter of profound significance, economically, socially, and politically. My contention is that, while we have perceived it in general fashion, it is time that we examine it in depth.

The Scarcity Syndrome

that may affect us profoundly in years ahead. After half a century of conventional wisdom that the farm problem was one of surplus, todays perception is that the problem is shortage. I call this the scarcity syndrome. It has seeped into farmer attitudes, economic analyses, and legislation. It has helped escalate farmland prices and the demand for credit. It will probably profoundly affect commodity programs during the 1980s. We are not sufficiently aware of the far-reaching effects of this new attitude. In this note I examine the scarcity syndrome-its validity and effects.

The Land Grant Colleges and the Structure Issue

nonfarm sectors is being blurred. Agriculture is losing its uniqueness; farmers are entering the main stream of economic, social, and political life. The agrarian tradition is in retreat. The family farm as an earlier generation knew it is rapidly vanishing. Numerous writings quantify these trends; for examples, see Lewis, Lin, Madden, Miller, Penn, Schertz, Senate Committee on Agriculture, University of Illinois, and U.S. Congress. Some people look at these trends as being, on balance, good. Others consider them to be bad. Still others think of them as a mixture of good and bad. There is a division of opinion as to whether the trends are inexorable or whether they might be changed by public policy. Thus has arisen what has become known as the structure issue. The issue was lifted up by what became known as the Hard Tomatoes Report (Hightower). This publication alleged that the Land Grant College system had become subservient to agribusiness concerns. Various activist groups expressed concern about the deportment of the Land Grant Colleges, alleging that they showed preference for the large farmers. There were also charges with respect to environmental concerns, consumer issues, and the like. In 1979, Secretary Bergland brought matters to a head with a dialogue on farm structure, a series of public hearings throughout the country. For the purpose of this article, J. B. Penns definition of structure is accepted. According to Penn, structure involves the following components: organization of resources into farming units; size, management, and operation of these units; form of business organization, whether a sole proprietor or several individuals in a partnership or corporation; the degree of freedom to make business decisions; the degree of risk borne by the operator; the manner in which the firm procures its inputs and markets its outputs; the extent of ownership and control of resources that comprise the farming unit; the ease of entry into farming as an occupation; and the manner of asset transfer to succeeding generations. The structure issue presents the Land Grant College system with unsought and difficult questions. What has been their role in the emergence of these trends? How should they position themselves with regard to the current and prospective dialogue on these matters? The thesis of this article is that the Land Grant Colleges, with their experiment stations, their extension services, and their classroom teaching, are operating to a considerable degree on the basis of two assumptions-implicit rather than explicitmade many years ago; that these assumptions have been called into question by the dialogue on structure; and that the Land Grant College system will have to reconsider these assumptions and decide whether to defend or revise them. The two implicit assumptions are: (a) that research and education are structurally neutral, and (b) that technology is socially neutral. These assumptions of neutrality are not embraced universally within the Land Grant College system, of course, but they are accepted widely enough so that they have contributed strongly to rhetoric and policy. The assumptions go back a long way and carry up to modern times. They are evident in the mood and tone of the report submitted by the Commission on Country Life, a seminal work. They are implicit in A National Program of Research for Agriculture (USDANASULGC) and in Inventory of Agricultural Research, FY 1969-70 (USDA 1970). The Extension Service reflects these implicit assumpDon Paarlberg is Professor Emeritus of agricultural economics, Purdue University.

Power and the US food policy agenda

Abstract The author examines the cycle of the struggle for control of the US food policy agenda. It is commonly thought that the central matter of public policy is the choice between alternative solutions to issues on the agenda. The real question is whether the issues on the agenda are the relevant ones and who has control of the agenda. A review of the US food policy agenda since the middle of the nineteenth century is carried out within this context.

Tarnished gold: US farm commodity programmes after 50 years☆

Abstract It is fifty years since the introduction of the US farm commodity programmes launched under the New Deal. Based on the concepts of relief, recovery and reform, the New Deal gave new hope to farmers emerging from the Great Depression. But how successful were these programmes? Don Paarlberg believes they were miscarried, becoming preferential, profligate and perennial. With the recent recession and the introduction of new farm legislation, the author speculates as to whether history will repeat itself.

The new US farm policies

Abstract This article is an early assessment of the agricultural policies of the Carter administration, particularly as they relate to Western Europe. The author examines emerging US farm policy with regard to: price and production, grain reserves, attitude toward the Common Agricultural Policy of the EEC, trade in agricultural products, and commodity agreements.

Food donation: a mixture of motives

Abstract Why do we give away food? Sometimes it is out of pure compassion, the undiluted desire to help needy people. Sometimes it is out of enlightened self-interest, awareness that we may help others as we help ourselves. But sometimes the wish to help people comes from the caretaker complex, the belief that people are unable to take care of themselves, which can be true. But the caretaker complex can lead to co-dependency and a bond that neither giver nor receiver can break. These three motives are mingled and hard to sort out. There is not enough compassion to meet the need; enlightened self-interest can and does help. The caretaker complex can subvert the effort. Overcoming hunger requires both prudence and compassion. Either is scarce; to find the two in combination is rare indeed.

Hargreaves, Mary W. M. Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains: Years of Adjustment, 1920–1990, Development of Western Resources Series. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1993. 386 pp., 4 maps. Cloth

Grandiose plans for land retirement and expanded irrigation have been frequently proposed for the northern Great Plains, but they have not significantly affected agricultural practices in the region. Those major readjustments to farming methods that did occur in the region evolved out of local initiative in response to drought and depression during the 1920s. With some refinements but few amendments, procedures remain basically the same today. In Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains, Mary Hargreaves reviews the changes in agricultural technology and farm management through the 1920s, the introduction of federal programs as drought and depression recurred in the 1930s, and the realignment of concerns from drought to marketing instability during the recovery years that followed. Drought remains a perennial problem in the region, which in this study includes the eastern two-thirds of Montana and the western half of the Dakotas. But instability of marketing has been a greater concern, according to Hargreaves, and marketing, not environmental factors, occasioned the land retirement programs of the 1950s and 1980s. Despite the economy and practicability of dry farming, the national agricultural policy of acreage restrictions since the 1930s has promoted the use of costly inputs and enabled higher-cost producers to continue competitive operation. Misconceptions and myths have too frequently entered into national land-use planning, Hargreaves writes. There are still those who see the Plains as a Great American Desert; still those who look to irrigation as the only basis for successful agriculture there; and still those who cherish the small diversified homestead operation as the agrarian dream, regardless of the environment. Dry farming has proved successful in the northern Great Plains, Hargreaves contends. That success is measured not only by production but also by limited erosion. On its record, dry-land agriculture should not now fall prey to hyperbole, myth, or politics.