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Farmers, Food and Fretful Consumers
During the past year the
publicity associated with
agricultural scarcities and high
food prices has caused a fretful
population to question the
capability of American
agriculture to export grain and
adequately produce for the
nation’s needs. This is an unusual
situation considering that
agricultural abundance has been
taken for granted during the past
40 years.
The U S. has developed an
agricultural system with such
abundant output that it has been
one of the wonders of the 20th
century. In 1930 each American
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farm worker supplied farm
products for 10 people, including
himself. By 1950 the figure had
increased to 15.5 persons supplied
by each farm worker. Since 1950,
the rate of increase has sharply
accelerated, so that the number
supplied by one farm worker
today is approximately 51, or
three times as many as 20 years
ago. Twenty years ago one
person out of 7 was living on a
farm, but now only one person in
22 lives on a farm.
When farm productivity grew
sharply in the 1950’s food was not
only plentiful but many products,
particularly grains, were in huge
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surplus. Through government
programs farmers were paid to
remove a portion of their acreage
from production in an effort to
reduce overall supplies of grains.
This tended to hold down
productivity, but we lacked
sufficient markets and North
America became the grain
storehouse for the world
by H. Moore
Professor of Agricultural
Economics Extension
The Pennsylvania State
University
During this period, the U.S.
was annually exporting about
one-half of the soybean crop, 40
percent of the wheat, 25 percent
of the corn, and 20 percent of the
sorghum crop. With only 7 per
cent of the world’s land mass, the
U S. has more than 12 percent of
the world’s cultivated land and
nearly 9 percent of the
pastureland. In our Corn Belt, we
have about half the world’s
farmland with long summers of
adequate rainfall.
Cheap food policy
Our government’s “cheap
food” policy has been successful
beyond all expectations. Con
sumers enjoy an abundance of
food which, despite recent sharp
price increases, still costs less
than 16 percent of their
Banking the way you’d do it.
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 15,1973—11
many people thought we could feed the world
disposable income. U.S. fanners
have been able to produce farm
commodities far above our
citizens’ needs and still export
the production from one acre out
of five in most years. This year it
will be one acre in four. But what
about the shortages we have been
■<
hearing so much about in the past
year?
Perhaps current high prices of
farm commodities are due to
some extent to the success of our
past programs to reduce
production of agricultural
products, particularly grains
The major cause, however, is
that world food production has
not kept pace with demand in
recent years. There have been
severe drought problems in the
Soviet Union which is the world’s
largest wheat producer. This
drought resulted in the big grain
sale by the U. S. to Russia in 1972-
73. There has been a sharp in
crease in demand for food by the
.other developed nations. The
developed nations comprise
about one-fourth of the world’s
population.
As personal incomes in the
developed countries increase,
their citizens demand a better
diet (more milk, eggs, and red
meat). In the world’s poor
countries the per capita con
sumption of grain is about 400
pounds per year and nearly all of
it is consumed in some form of
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