Like having a child, a book is labor intensive and, if it survives infancy, it takes on a life of its own. People tell you it looks like you, which is no compliment. You can't disown it when it gets into trouble. Admittedly, Agriculture in An Unstable Economy is a good name to have; it got through six printings and, for all I know, because of its name. Now that it looks as old as its parent, I am asked to talk about it with no assurance that what gets said can be erased.

When my father was growing up on a farm in Appanoose County, Iowa, his environment, except for a clock made in Connecticut, was largely homegrown. The homegrown even included the hay-burners that pulled the plow and the timothy that they burned. I have brought home to Connecticut the clock that my grandfather bought from a peddlar, but time has changed almost everything else. The Lockwood Farm of the Connecticut Station is the source of some of the changes, and it shows all of them clearly. There is, of course, the hybrid corn that was invented on the Farm, but there is also a tractor made in the Middle West burning oil pumped from the Middle East and pulling a Dutch sprayer full of fungicide from Pennsylvania. The workers were born in other states as I was, and they spread fertilizer from Tennessee and plant seeds from Idaho. To conclude the contrasts between eras, I can say that my father may have gone to the annual fair in a nearby Missouri county, but he had to enlist in the AEF to see Europe, which is a tour my son can now take for a couple of weeks wages.

Recent changes in feed, livestock and fertilizer prices as well as breeding and agronomic practice developments have created substantial interest in their implications on profitable dairy farm cropping programs. The movement in soybean oil meal prices from under $100/ton in early 1972 to over $400/ton in the summer of 1973 increased the interest in alternatives to soybean oil meal. Dairymen searched for feed ingredients which were relatively cheap per unit of protein. As a consequence, interest in the protein content of alfalfa as influenced by variety, harvesting systems, and method of storage has been substantial in the past few months. Although soybean oil meal prices are expected to drop below the peak levels, the issues raised by the high price levels during 1973 need to be examined.

Historically, the standard tree set in commercial apple orchards has been 27 trees per acre, planted on 40 foot centers. With this planting system trees tend to become quite large, requiring substantial amounts of labor for pruning, spraying and harvesting. The large amount of vegetative growth on these trees renders much of the innertree fruit bearing surface unproductive due to shading.

Already we have felt the crunch of the energy shortage in many ways. However, you and I have not felt that impact equally. Just as we can expect to feel the effects of continued shortages, so, too, can we expect the pressure of that burden to bear unequally upon different segments of our population. It is this unequal impact that is the thrust of this paper.

The principal sales outlet for floral products has traditionally been the retail florist shop. Florist shops have performed many market functions including arranging, delivery, information, and credit. The sale of flowers through mass outlets started on a limited scale prior to World War II. Recently, however, supermarkets have demonstrated a greater interest in the floricultural business. Consequently, many chains have included florist shops in their stores or in adjacent areas. Others have become involved, on a smaller scale, by stocking a limited number of plants in the produce departments of the individual stores on a regular or seasonal basis.

Potato chips are believed to have been first made in this country about the middle of the last century, and for many years were prepared only in the home kitchen. Commercial production did not develop to any great extent until improved peeling and frying methods became available. In 1939 the U. S. chip industry is estimated to have used only 2.1 million hundredweight of potatoes. Chip production increased rapidly during and immediately following World War II, and annual use of potatoes for chipping grew to 29.0 million hundredweight in 1950. Quantity of potatoes used for chipping reached a peak for the crop year ending June 30, 1972, of 35.1 million hundredweight but dropped about .5 million hundredweight the following year due to the smaller 1972 crop. Use of potatoes for chip production in 1972 amounted to about 11 per cent of the crop and 17 pounds per person. Potato chip markets were first developed in the Northcentral and Northeastern States and processing plants were established close to these major markets.

Each year various agricultural commodity groups spend millions of dollars advertising and promoting their respective products. Typically such “demand creating” attempts have been purported as a panacea for low producer returns despite their unevaluated performance records. Notwithstanding the magnitude of these promotional expenditures, the literature is scarce regarding the effect of advertising on commodity sales. Such knowledge would provide an invaluable input for promotion expenditure decisions and a means to evaluate the effects of advertising and promotion on economic surplus.

At the present time the value of oyster production in Maine is minimal because the native species, Crassostrea virginica, will not survive in economic numbers, through the larval stage in Maine's cold waters. There is some indication that Ostrea edulis (the European oyster) can withstand colder temperatures and may in fact thrive in Maine's cold waters, offering an alternative for coastal economic growth. This species is raised on a scale and under continuous culture from juvenile to marketable size in other parts of the world. These factors all favor the establishment of a fishery for Ostrea edulis in Maine by adapting the proven hatchery, rearing, and mariculture techniques for this species to Maine's cold water environment. As other scientists began looking into the biological and engineering aspects of raising oysters in Maine it became necessary to consider the marketing aspects of such a venture.

The disposal of industrial and municipal wastes is a complex and costly problem. The combination of increases in population, affluence, and industrial activity is generating growing volumes of water borne waste that must be disposed of or recycled. In 1972 for example, the estimated volume of wastewater generated in Rhode Island was 179 million gallons per day (MGD). This represented an average of 185 gallons per day for each Rhode Island resident and indications are that this volume is increasing each year.

As population increases and per capita consumption rises, secondary effects in the form of pollutants, which originate from the production of goods and services, have become increasingly evident. More of the nation's energies are required to bring about the proper management and utilization of these pollutants. Until recently, most pollutants were considered something to be disposed of at minimum or no cost. Further analysis has revealed that they are to a large extent “misplaced resources.” Many can be utilized, thus reducing the cost of waste management and the use of virgin materials.

Over the past decade, a fundamental transformation has occurred in the attitudes of our citizens regarding the range, quantity and quality of services desired of all levels of government. One result has been a dramatic rise in public expenditures to provide the diverse set of services desired. For example, between 1960 and 1972, expenditures of federal, state and local governments increased from $151.3 billion to $410.3 billion, about 171 percent. Local government expenditures, which were pushed upward by expanding school enrollments and welfare caseloads, maintained their relative importance by growing from $29.0 billion to $75.4 billion, about 169 percent.

In recent years, rural development has become an increasingly important domestic issue. External diseconomies such as congestion, water and air pollution, transportation problems have underscored the gravity of this issue. One proposed strategy of coping with this issue is that of promoting growth in existing small cities and towns in nonmetropolitan areas.

Debate over how one “does” Community Resource Development (CRD) extension undoubtedly dates back to the moment the field consisted of more than a single practitioner. And the debate goes on. Gratto recently outlined five roles the public policy educator can assume, ranging from one with a pure “process” orientation to one where the subject matter is everything. Another recent publication describes six approaches to community development.

Rural and urban communities alike are adopting, formally or informally, “no-growth” policies. The residents of these communities share a set of beliefs concerning the impact of economic growth and development on their community. These residents also share a set of values concerning what constitutes the good life for them. The “no-growth” policies result because of a conflict between the values held by the residents and their beliefs concerning the impacts of economic growth and development. One of the beliefs shared by many of these residents is that economic growth and development will require an expansion of various public service systems such as water and sewer. In addition, these residents believe that they will be required to pay much of the cost involved in expanding the systems even though they will receive few, if any, of the benefits. In essence, the residents of these communities are concerned with the incidence of the cost of system expansion.

Until recently, nutrient losses from livestock manure have been of little concern. Manure, a valuable by-product in the past, is now regarded as a waste product to be disposed of in the cheapest manner possible. The cost of manure handling frequently exceeds the value of the nutrients in it. This is still true in 1974 even though the price of fertilizer has increased substantially.

Some kinds of research dealing with environmental problems are faced with the need to measure the relative qualities of different environmental situations. The assessment of environmental impact for resource development projects (including the no-build alternative) when alternative locations are considered implicity involves a comparison of the qualities of different environments. Russell Train, Head of the EPA, has made a plea for the development of environmental indices. There have been a number of attempts to quantatively rank or rate environmental situations. Economists are emphasizing the need to objectively measure the value of environmental attributes, and considerable work has been done in trying to understand the way in which people perceive environmental attributes.

In the eyes of environmentally concerned citizens, Oregon has set a splendid example. Their “bottle bill” was instrumental in reducing can and bottle litter on beaches, highways, and recreational and camping sites by 49 percent. A field burning ban becomes effective in 1975 to protect air quality. Legislation enacted in 1972 will remove billboards from its highways and interstate roads by 1975. A regulation to protect 820,000 acres of wilderness area from development was also adopted in 1972. Last year (1973) senators Robert Packwood and Mark Hatfield of Oregon and senators Frank Church and James McClure of Idaho jointly introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate to create a unique Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.

As the most densely populated area of the nation, New Jersey and the Northeast stand as a laboratory in which concepts and institutions might be developed and tested to preserve valuable nonrenewable farmland for multiple social uses including an ability to provide open space and life-sustaining food and fiber. In this context, there is a need to carefully consider the idea that actions by government and society generate or destroy economic values in property through the creation or modification of institutions and social organization. It is also true that the lack of action by government may result in the wasteful destruction of amenities which may be held in high regard by many individuals in society.

The motivation of this study is to provide and solve a decision model for land use planning for an existing regional situation. The chosen framework views the task of floodplain management as a constrained optimization problem capable of solution by standard mathematical programming techniques. The framework is sufficiently flexible to permit incorporation of, in addition to floodplain zoning, such non-structural flood control measures as flood proofing, insurance, and flood warning systems. Further, the framework can be modeled so as to include political restraints and a broad range of socially desirable goals. In a larger regional context, the framework permits the internalization of the value of the externality commonly associated with development of floodplain lands.