The Second Rca Appraisal: Soil, Water, and Related Resources on Nonfederal Land in the United States; Analysis of Condition and Trends (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Second Rca Appraisal As information technology improves and as transaction costs continue to decline, the world economy will continue to have ever greater dominance over resource use and conservation. The influence of the global community fosters a resource-use environment that is not well controlled with the traditional domestic policy tools. The policies of other nations and general economic forces are outside the control of the u.s. Agricultural sector and can only be affected by national and joint international policy and economic actions. Current Agricultural Production situation.-the most conspicuous aspects of the agricultural production situation of the early l98o’s are the surpluses of commodities, depressed commodity prices, and reduced farm incomes. These conditions apply to our major crops, to dairy production, and to the cattle industry. During the l97o’s, u.s. Producers expanded production rapidly in response to sharply rising world food and fiber demands. It took 75 million acres more cropland in 1981 than in 1971 to meet export demands. That increase more than offset the 28 million A acre decline in land needed to meet domestic demands; a decline that resulted from improvements in agricultural productivity.