An important component of the current interests in environmental problems concerns solid waste. Not only has public interest in solid waste disposal been substantial, but legislators have restricted ways by which solid wastes may be disposed. New Hampshire's State Legislature, for example, has passed a law requiring municipalities to cease all open burning by 1975.

The energy crisis has awakened interest in delivery systems, efficient fuel utilization, and alternatives for reducing delivery costs. Inquiries into the potential for energy and cost savings that exist within our economy are of immediate concern.

Cochrane has described the shape of modern agriculture as a world with highly productive, commercial farmers at one extreme and the world of poor, low-production farmers at the other. In the highly productive world, technology and farm expansion have resulted in increased yields and production on many farms. In contrast, many low-production farms provide no more than poverty level incomes for the farm operators and their families. Their problems stem largely from the fact that many of these farm operators are old, poorly educated and have limited and poor quality resources. Many have been unable to take advantage of the exploding technology and the scale economies accompanying increases in farm size. A third group, the “transition” group, forms the continuum between the two extremes. Some of its members, like young farmers just getting started, are improving their operations and moving into the “commercial world.” For others, who perhaps lack the financing or managerial capacity to compete in a modern agriculture, the transition is in the opposite direction.

Resource economists and the federal government have shown a growing awareness of the role of non-structural measures (such as floodplain zoning) as an important part of an overall flood damage reduction program. This awareness has come in part with the realization that structural measures often provide a false sense of security to floodplain occupants and, as such, often result in increased flood damages contrary to their intended purpose. To be sure, restrictions prohibiting all development in flood prone areas could eliminate all damages. There are no a priori reasons, however, to believe that all uses should be prohibited from all floodplain areas. Through sound land use management practices, some of these areas can, in fact, be put to economic use such that the benefits derived outweigh the costs associated with such development.

The farm price of much of the milk produced in the Northeast has been under government regulation for a long time. Although they have not applied to all markets at all times; two principal economic criteria have generally been used as bases for setting minimum producer prices; (1) costs of production in the regulated area, and (2) the costs of obtaining milk from sources outside the area. Which of these criteria was paramount at any particular time and location was related to the effectiveness with which barriers to the inflow of milk could be maintained, and the political power of milk producer groups relative to other interests. Thus, as is well known, criteria other than the economic have also been important determinants of farm prices.

Since land accounts for more than 23 percent of the wealth in the United States, information concerning who ultimately makes decisions about how the resource is used and claims returns or benefits from the resource assumes great importance. Land ownership effects land use decisions, including all activities on the land, and influences the distribution of wealth, income, and other measures of well-being. Additional knowledge of who owns the land and his attitudes, goals, and objectives of ownership is needed to analyze the effectiveness of existing policies and to develop new policies for application in guiding the development and use of the land resource.

It is generally recognized that the goal of achieving acceptable river basin planning in New England has been elusive. This is especially true in regard to the Connecticut River Basin (7). Ten government agencies have spent more than 10 years and over $4 million in inventorying and planning the Connecticut River Basin but have not yet produced a plan acceptable to the people of the Basin.

The public has an abiding interest in land and its use. This interest is reflected in a long list of publicly sponsored programs and policies which directly or indirectly affect land. A segment of the public policy arena deals with the conversion of agricultural land to non-farm uses. Necessary ingredients for policy in farmland conversion include some understanding of conversion trends, the forces influencing these trends, and the likely outcomes of specific policy instruments designed to intervene in the conversion process and register public or communitywide interests in private uses of farmland.