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

Equilibrium in a free market can result in prices and quantities which maximize society welfare for a given resource distribution. Departures from equilibrium of the competitive model will involve changes in net social gains and losses not only for the national economy as an aggregate, but also for particular groups or regions. The trade-offs between groups or regions, in fact, may be much larger than the aggregate changes averaged over all groups.

Departures from equilibrium under restricted pricing conditions, such as exist with the federal order marketing system in the fluid milk industry, also will involve social gains and losses on national, regional, and local levels. Given the rapid decline in Grade B or manufacturing grade milk production, the concern about equity, and the evolution of new institutions in the milk market, conditions affecting equilibrium in the fluid milk industry also must change. The nature of these changes can have marked effects on the benefits received by the participants in the industry.

Formulation of marketing policies often is based on the knowledge of various demand elasticities for the commodities under consideration. One important aspect of demand analysis is to inquire qualitatively or quantitatively into the extent of demand substitution between commodities. The Florida citrus growers and processors have been much concerned about the impact of flavored and synthetic citrus product substitutes for which the market, in terms of absolute sales, has doubled in less than one decade (Table 1).

The entry of a new product often takes place during the time when a dramatic leftward shift in supply occurs. A most recent example is the introduction of textured vegetable protein in ground beef when a severe shortage and a dramatic increase in the price of beef occurred in 1973. In the case of the citrus juice market, the introduction and market penetration of synthetic and partially natural citrus-flavored drinks were stimulated during the two Florida freezes in 1957 and 1962.

The main objective of this study is to derive economic strategies or decision rules for beef cow-calf farmers making production and marketing decisions under uncertain beef prices and pasture conditions. The problem analyzed relates to decisions concerning alternative beef systems for a 400-acre beef farm in the Shenandoah area of Virginia. At the beginning of the fall season, given the level of corn production and cow herd size, a beef farmer, faced with uncertain pasture conditions and uncertain feeder and slaughter prices for the coming year, must decide whether to sell his weaned calves or to keep them for sale later. At this time the farmer decides the amount of corn to be harvested as grain and as silage and the amount of corn to sell.

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.

A basic management responsibility in community service planning is to evaluate alternative methods of providing various public goods and services such as transportation services, sewage and solid waste disposal, and water for home and industry. These alternative methods frequently involve new or different technologies and various combinations of inputs such as capital and labor.

For example, in the disposal of solid waste, the use of different sizes and types of bulldozers, compactors and cranes may lead to significantly different combinations of capital and labor resources. For accurate analysis, the quality and quantity of the service that can be provided with limited amounts of the various resources or inputs must be considered. Thus, the basic concepts that have been used in private business to allocate limited resources to obtain the desired output are equally applicable to the management and planning of community services.

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.

The federal government has supported and continues to support or share in the support, financially and technically, of several regional pest management programs. Implicit in continued federal support is the concept that the benefits of the program to society exceed the governmental portion of the costs. As these programs are evaluated and consideration is given to discontinuing federal support, improved estimates of program benefits, or costs of discontinuing, are needed.

The objective of this study was to identify and quantify the expected effects in terms of agricultural output, insecticide use, and production costs of discontinuing a regional boll weevil suppression program on the Texas High Plains. Results of this study are useful to governmental decision makers, local producers, environmentalists and economists.

Animal scientists and agricultural economists have been working together to answer the question, “What is the least-cost feed mix for a given set of prices?” In the 1950's sophisticated mathematical programming via computers generated a renewed interest in ration formulation. Since then, animal scientists and agricultural economists have been intrigued with determing least-cost rations for various livestock species. But this research has been devoted to determining the least-cost rations rather than minimizing feed cost per pound of gain or pound of product produced and/or minimizing total cost per pound of gain or product produced. Answering the latter question is a prime goal of animal nutrition research.

During the last three decades, a major change affecting rural America has been the dramatic increase in the productivity of agricultural labor. Output per farm worker increased by 237 percent between 1947 and 1970. Although this growth in productivity provided increased income to some farm operators, it also resulted in decreased income opportunities for others. This decrease in opportunities led to migration of people from rural to urban areas. As the farming industry became more mechanized and as more rural residents were forced to migrate to urban areas in quest of jobs, the economic viability of many rural communities declined drastically. Mayer summarizes these changes in economic activity as follows:

“… the changing structure of agricultural production has significantly altered the flows of money in rural towns. More money flows to sources in urban areas and less remains to provide jobs in rural towns. As mechanization of agriculture increased and as capital intensification occurred, rural towns have experienced a slow draw-down of economic vitality.”

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.

For a decade or longer it has been recognized that pricing of food products in supermarkets is not a matter of competitive price discovery but of intricately interwoven pricing and merchandising strategy. In the search for patterns of that strategy, the more conventional approach has been to apply customary data on market structure. In a further search for conduct patterns, because of the prohibitive expense of a comprehensive multi-city study, the best research course is to build up a library of case studies. This case study of 14 supermarkets in Columbia, Mo., reports two contrasting patterns of advertising-pricing behavior. Prices are not varied as much as the ads imply.

Poultry products are an important source of agricultural income in Georgia and other southeastern states. Yet, the waste from poultry operations can lower water quality unless ways are found to reduce quantities discharged into streams and waterways. Present regulations require that all sewage discharged from processing and rendering plants have the equivalent of secondary stage treatment as defined by conventional biological standards [4]. More stringent regulations that would completely eliminate discharge of pollutants into waterways have been proposed [10]. Poultry processing and rendering plants must therefore adopt more advanced in-plant processes or private treatment systems or utilize public systems to achieve higher levels of waste water treatment in future years.

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.

Total money income typically is used to indicate the relative economic status of people. A family with total money income below some commonly recognized standard may be deemed to be poor. For example, the official low-income standard is the benchmark used by most analysts to indicate persons in poverty [15]. Historically, the proportion of farm people with low incomes has been greater than that for nonfarm people. In the 1960's, however, the income gap between farm and nonfarm people narrowed due primarily to increased off-farm income [2]. Growth in off-farm income in recent years ranks among several major changes affecting families in the farming sector [3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16].

We recognize that the concept of economic status is multi-dimensional including elements other than current money income. Some of these include aspects of permanent income [4], net worth [18], and the general quality of life [1, 6].