About three and a half years have passed since the National Commission on Food Marketing published its findings on organization and competition in the food industries. This has been sufficient time to observe some of the impact of the study. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the future changes in the food industries against the background of the Commission findings and conclusions.

There has been some confusion about the nature and role of the National Commission on Food Marketing compared with that of the National Advisory Commission on Food and Fiber. To make sure there is no confusion concerning the Commission discussed in this paper, the distinction will be reviewed briefly.

The report of the National Advisory Commission on Food and Fiber displays some shortcomings, but in the main is a well conceived and extremely useful contribution to farm policy. My paper will focus principally on the implications of the Food and Fiber Commission recommendations for the South. A secondary objective will be to critique some of the recommendations, and to suggest some possible improvements in the Commission report.

I have divided the recommendations into three categories for this paper: (a) commercial agriculture, (b) world trade, aid and development, and (c) rural poverty and area development. The implications of the latter two categories are presented in a most sketchy manner. I have attempted to be more comprehensive in explaining the implications of policies for commercial agriculture.

Many facets of the much discussed and maligned “farm problem” were examined in the National Advisory Commission report on Food and Fiber. This report was readable, cohesive and on the whole, quite informative. All the essentials of our dynamic and complex agriculture were touched upon. Members of the Commission represented a cross section of thinking concerning the industry of agriculture. It appears that they presented their ideas and objectives with a view toward what was good for all of agriculture. Consideration was given not only to farm numbers and sizes, but also to the human resources involved in agriculture and rural America.

The Regional Research Program has potential for being the elite among research programs and to be a high status symbol for those associated with it. That it is not so means that it is not achieving its potential and that it is falling short of the original objectives. Since its inception, the regional research program has been praised and condemned. There appears to be more dissatisfaction than satisfaction with both the administrative procedures and the subject matter content of the program. Control of the program, the administrative structure and its effectiveness have been the subject of much discussion and debate. Some say the program has yielded little, and some of those who defend it do so on the basis that it has enabled researchers to meet and discuss their work, which in itself is worthwhile.

Agriculture is experiencing an increasing reliance on commercial and governmental sources of capital in order to finance the adoption of new technology and the organizational changes made necessary by that technology. If this trend progresses, it is reasonable to suppose that the interdependence of flows of funds to the farm sector with flows to other sectors will become greater and will become a more important consideration in matters of farm credit policy. In a recent paper, Lee has called for further research into the implications of changes in the financial structure of the farm sector, among them the growth of alternative sources of funds and the changing roles of major lending groups. It is the intent of this paper to suggest a procedure through which the financing of the farm sector can be analyzed as one of a number of economic sectors which are financially interrelated.

In order to adequately appraise a district's potential for economic growth and development, it is important to know as much as possible about the economic structure of the particular district under analysis. Recent input-output analysis research conducted for the state of Oklahoma provided an examination of the economic base of the state, but this examination proved inadequate when considering the economic structure of the districts within the state.

The Oklahoma model provided an “average” or “aggregate” description of the various economic structures found in the state.

In his 1967 presidential address to the AAEA, Charles E. Bishop raises the question: “Why have agricultural economists not devoted more resources to the study of structural changes in rural communities and to public policies relating to the location of economic activity and of population?”. Later in the address, he partially provides the answer through the comment that “We must reorient our thinking in terms of location and scale of organizations and interrelations among firms and among communities … it will be necessary for us to make basic changes in our philosophical approaches to problems, our analytical tools,…”.

Little research has focused on developing a model which farmers can use to make yearly machinery replacement decisions. This paper contains an optimizing replacement criterion and then demonstrates the results of alternative rules of thumb used to implement the criterion in a real world situation.

The economic life of a machine is here defined as the interval of time during which that machine reaches its minimum average yearly cost. If a machine is replaced by an exact duplicate with the same annual costs, replacement occurs when the currently owned machine attains its economic life. When average cost reaches its minimum, marginal cost and average cost are equal. This is the same as saying that when economic life is reached, the actual yearly cost (marginal cost) is equal to the average yearly cost of the machine. Theoretically, replacement should occur when marginal cost first crosses average cost from below.

I have a colleague at Missouri who says educators in farm management “have failed to deal with the comprehensive problems of farm management comprehensively.” I think he is saying that even though we have made great advances (e.g., integrated static firm theory can teach farm organization in a risk world with innovative budgeting and linear programming exercises) our mix does not yet include enough dynamics or management. My colleague contends we rarely attack such managerial problems as imperfect anticipation of future conditions, accumulative effects of decision-condition interaction over time, capital budgeting and the realities of cash flow, time sequencing of decisions, firm-household competition, and firm growth. Such criticisms indicate farm management teaching is ready for new techniques which better communicate functional management processes and the application of farm economics.

Decisions farm boys make upon graduation from high school with regard to education and occupation are important to their future welfare, the optimum allocation of human resources, and the rate of economic growth. In order to help these boys make educational and occupational plans, parents, teachers, counselors, and other adults must understand what factors influence their choices. Several well designed studies have been conducted in other states by sociologists and economists within this general area. This analysis was specifically designed to provide information about the factors which influence Oklahoma farm boys' educational and occupational plans.

Dairy farmers in the South have become increasingly interested in gaining a stronger bargaining position in the market arena for the purpose of obtaining a more favorable price for their milk. They have implemented this objective by organizing cooperative associations. Cooperative bargaining relationships have been of three types (1) bargaining between seller and buyer (bilateral competition), (2) bargaining between sellers or bargaining between buyers (interfirm competition), and (3) bargaining in or through the political economy.

Market organization is both the cause and effect of differences in functional efficiency. Despite this mutual dependency and responsiveness, structure research has stressed firm size, numbers, and concentration within an industry, while efficiency generally has been considered from a plant or firm viewpoint.

While the relationships would be similar for most agricultural product markets, this paper approaches the market organization-efficiency relationship with the specific question, “How does the organization and execution of supply coordination influence efficiency in a milk market?” Efficiency is compared by two measures: The proportion of supply needed as reserve, and the cost of handling the supply. The relevant variable is the organizational level at which responsibility is exercised for coordinating supply.

The purpose of this paper is to present some ideas on research needs in the area of Southern Economic Development. Discussion is centered on subtopics of agricultural development, industrial development, and research orientation. Exposition is generally in terms of questions posed but unanswered.

The traditional role of agricultural development has been to provide for food and fiber needs with fewer and fewer resources, thus, freeing resources for use in producing other goods and services associated with a higher standard of living.

In 1966, leading agricultural economists indicated that production response under changing conditions would be a significant factor in agricultural policy, and recommended that research be directed accordingly. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the use of production response relationships to indicate the effectiveness of government policy. One commodity for which this approach can be easily demonstrated is mohair, which is included in the National Wool Act and supported by production incentive payments. Thus, the response of mohair producers to changes in expected market price, government policy and other variables is estimated.

Cotton's position as the leading raw input supplier of the American textile industry is in grave danger. Recent years have seen various synthetic and man-made fibers make serious inroads into cotton's markets. In 1955, cotton enjoyed about 65 percent of the total domestic fiber market. By 1960, with the introduction of relatively high priced substitutes such as nylon, cotton still commanded close to 65 percent of this market. Today, after the introduction of improved nylon, the polyesters, and the high-modulus rayons at more competitive prices, cotton comprises only about 50 percent of the textile market.

Increased competition from barges and trucks for wheat traffic has caused rail charges for transporting wheat to decline relative to those for flour. Some flour milling centers now find themselves in an uneconomic location. The development and consequences of truck-barge-rail competition for wheat transportation is discussed in terms of the development of a differential between rates for wheat and flour. A spatial model that isolates the effects of these changes in rates for analysis is presented and the implications of the results are discussed as they pertain to various sectors and regions of the wheat-flour economy.

In recent times, few concepts have enjoyed as much exposure or suffered more abuse than Community Resource Development. Social scientists have dissected its components with the skill of the surgeon's hand and too frequently with the clarity and understanding associated with UFO's (unidentified flying objects).

The “novice expert” has contributed greatly to the “popular parade” of information on Community Resource Development. Among his more notable contributions have been complicated frameworks, models, approaches, strategies and processes - - all guaranteed to foster community growth and progress.

This task with respect to any extension marketing program, can be divided into four parts (1) identify the clientele of extension marketing work, (2) identify the problems of the various clientele, (3) relative to these problems, identify the types of economic information needed for solving the problems of this clientele, and (4) suggest how this economic information can be adapted to the needs of this clientele. The first section of this paper will identify the clientele and the latter section will deal with problems, information needs, and methods of adapting information relative to each defined type of clientele.

A very cursory review of our agricultural economics literature shows a history of concern in our profession about the effectiveness of our research efforts. And, concern and criticism follow us to the present day. Certainly, there are no simple answers to the questions that face us. The question for discussion cannot be elaborated on in an authoritative and summary fashion. Though more modest in scope, the question before us is part of a much broader question of where are we and what should we be doing in agricultural research. This broad question was posed by the Senate Committee on Appropriations in 1965. We recall that the level of concern was such that USDA and the Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges arranged for a special 12 member USDA-SAES task force to study and report on the situation. Their comprehensive report, entitled “A National Program of Research for Agriculture” (Report of a study sponsored jointly by an Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges and USDA, Oct. 1966) is testimony to the monumental nature of the assignment.

This paper is concerned with research priorities, future directions in production economics research, and organizational problems for the Federal-State cooperative research effort. The topic of foreign development and trade is an important one for production economists. However, the emphasis of this paper is “production economics in our domestic commercial agriculture.” In terms of the perspective and scope of this specific subject, several related matters should be considered.