Growth in aggregate agricultural output, and productivity is generally recognized as a necessary condition for economic development. The persistent differences productivity among countries and regions (Figure 1) have severely dampened the optimism among national policy makers and planners and among officials in the international aid agencies as to the possibility of substantially narrowing the gaps in productivity (total, land, and worker) in the feasible future.

Classical economists differentiate between international and domestic trade on the assumption that perfect mobility among factors of production exists within a nation. This is a dynamic analysis. It assumes, however, a static model in terms of the immobility of factors of production between nations. J. S. Mill used such an analysis in his discussion of colonies and considered them part of the mother country, e.g. the West Indies was part of England. Mill stated that factors of production moved freely between England and her colonies.

Shamsabad is a small rural village in the Khusestan region of southwestern Iran and within sight of ancient Persepolis, the magnificent city of the Persian Empire. In 1969, its 80 farm families and 60 laborer families were living at near subsistence levels in a mud-walled village about the size of 20 city blocks. They were dependent upon a non-technical and comparatively primitive agriculture which had existed in the region for many generations.

My observations are drawn from an economic-feasibility study for additional cattle slaughtering plants in the Republic of Panama, including aspects of technology as well as location and scale, supply and competition, transportation and market outlets. The study was made early in 1972 during a short-term assignment to the U.S. AID mission in Panama. In making the Panama study I was able to avoid many inadequacies I had encountered in similar studies of proposed new cattle slaughter plants for economic development at various locations in the United States and South America. There were contrasts in these situations and a broader challenge in the Panama study.

The Northeast has sharply reduced its acreage of vegetables and production of most fruit except apples from 1950 to 1970. Much of this decline has occurred over time as production shifted from a relatively high cost area to areas having lower costs. We have seen canning factories close down in the Northeast and move operations to the Mid West and Far West as new varieties of sweet corn, snap beans, peas, and other vegetables were developed for those areas.

Until recently, cut flower imports to the United States have been largely of non-competitive type – mostly minor novelty crops rarely produced locally, or crops out of production here seasonally.

The role played by agriculture in a developed urban-oriented economy such as the U.S. differs quite markedly from the heavy reliance upon agriculture which one observes in less developed nations. As an economy goes through the various stages of development, the contribution of agriculture to gross national product usually declines in relative importance. Concurrently, an increasingly complex marketing system for agricultural products develops. As transportation, trade, and other marketing services become increasingly specialized and prevalent, the interrelationships between agriculture and the rest of the economy become more numerous and increasingly complex.

Quality of the environment is measured and evaluated by some criteria, such as composition, and by performance. However, quality, in terms of composition and/or performance, as a factor in environment has no meaning except as it relates to some use of the environment and scale of health, happiness and aspirations of man. For example, an environment is regarded as having a lower quality than 15 years ago because of an increase in the phosphorus contained in surface water and/or a change in the species of fish present in surface waters. In terms of performance, a particular environment (watershed) is not producing enough because the soil and phosphorus losses are twice the acceptable rate. Furthermore, the composition and performance of an environment are related. Measurement of the nitrogen and phosphorus content of water helps to determine if a given water resource can be used (perform) in a particular way.

In rapidly urbanizing areas, conflicts exist between agricultural and urban uses of land. There has been both a concentration of people in metropolitan area boundaries and a spreading of those boundaries, a move away from the densely populated urban centers. Urban people and industry have been moving outward into fringe areas in a search for more living space, the amenities offered by a pastoral landscape, and to escape from the congestion, high living costs, and lack of privacy in more concentrated urban areas.

Environmental pollution is defined as “the unfavorable alteration of our surroundings through direct or indirect effects on the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of our air, land, and water influenced primarily by man's actions. Some of the major variables, elements of the problem, and problems related to farm animal waste management can be found in Table 1.

Society's growing concern over environmental pollution has forced American industry to reevaluate its methods of waste disposal. No longer is it socially acceptable or, in many cases, legal to dump untreated by-products into the air, on the land, or into the rivers. Industries have developed various methods for complying with pollution legislation and social demands. Paramount among the programs now in effect are detoxification facilities and waste recycling programs.

Individuals working with farmers in the Northern New England States of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have claimed that the Farmers Home Administration has increased non-farm loans, while deliberately curtailing new farm loan activities and reducing the service on existing farm loans. If these allegations are true, it is important for the Northern New England agri-business sector to consider the future implications. The objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of future policy alternatives available to the Farmers Home Administration on the region's dairy farms.

The principle potato producing portion of the State of Maine is located in Aroostook County adjacent to the boundary line which politically separates Maine and New Brunswick. A “natural home” for the potato, this area posesses a combination of climatic and soil features that has favored cultivation of the product to the extent that the area has become known as “The Potato Empire Of The East” for the past 52 years, over 80 percent of Maine's crop has come from Aroostook. For several years between 1920 and 1958, Aroostook County alone grew more potatoes than any other state except Maine. To speak of the potato industry in Maine is to refer primarily to Aroostook.

In this paper I will present a model of milk production and disposition which has been used with great success in analyzing the effects of alternative levels of price support on the dairy sector. The purposes of the model are twofold: (1) to generate short-run predictive estimates of milk production, consumption by major product groupings, government support purchases, and farm level gross income from sale of dairy products; (2) to provide a facility for analysis of alternative support prices, or other policy instruments. It is one of a collection of models of the dairy industry being developed by Farm Production Economics Division at Purdue University. This particular model serves a central role since it forms both the linkage from the reported aggregate statistics to a series of regional production models and also the linkage from a model of the current institutional framework to models which can analyze alternative institutional frameworks (e.g., spatial equilibrium or competitive position models). Primary emphasis will be on the model but representative results will be presented to show validity and possible uses of the model.

Agriculture has been excluded, exempted or by-passed, depending upon one's viewpoint, from much of the social legislation extending back to the 1930's. For many years agriculture was essentially outside of workmen's compensation, minimum wage legislation, child labor laws and the social security system to identify a few. Legislation extending unemployment insurance protection to farm workers has never been enacted but we appear much closer to taking positive action to correct this situation.

From 1940 to 1970 the population of the United States and particularly the Northeast has increased rapidly. The population of the United States has grown from approximately 132 to 203 million people, while the increase in the Northeast was from 36 to 49 million. This constitutes a 54 percent increase in the United States’ population and a change in density from 37 to 57 people per square mile. For the Northeast, which is already the most densely populated region of the United States (New Jersey having 953 people per square mile), the expansion was from 134 to 182 people per square mile, representing a 36 percent increase.

The New England River Basins Commission (NERBC) has placed first priority on implementation of its responsibilities for comprehensive planning. Its enabling legislation resulted in a resolution specifying that NERBC participate vigorously in the prosecution of a framework study for the region (The North Atlantic Study), and shall initiate promptly comprehensive studies of major subregions as elements of the comprehensive coordinated joint plan. The Southeastern New England (SENE) is the first such major subregion to be studied.

A long sustained belief that undeveloped natural resources constitute unproductive economic waste has recently been losing ground. Moreover, preserving a natural resource such as wetlands is not preserving something unproductive. On the contrary, the resource can often be considered as socially and economically productive in its undeveloped form. In other words, an unaltered natural resource has the potential of being productive in both material and non-material ways. In making a decision about preservation the relevant point is the social productivity of a resource in its preserved condition as compared to its social productivity in an altered condition.