Increased demand for U.S. farm exports—primarily food grains, feed grains, and oil crops—emerged as an important factor influencing food and agricultural research and education in the 1970s. Maintaining producers' revenue remained as a motivating force in agricultural research.

Adjustments in enterprise organization and resource use by firms in response to changing prices, yields, technology, and expectations are of interest to production economists and farm management specialists. Comparative statics has been the primary means of analyzing the impact of changes in these variables on the firm.

The impact of a monopolist or monopsonist on the price and output performance in comparison with perfectly competitive markets is well documented. These markets are coordinated through spot market exchanges.

In general, people are aware of the rapid growth of urban areas, the spread of suburban developments, urban sprawl, strip developments, and extensive highway systems, but they are seldom aware of the extent to which prime agricultural land has been, and is being, diverted to these and other nonagricultural uses.

Economic analyses of typical farms are often useful in applied agricultural research, because agricultural policymakers and analysts have a particular need for information on policy impacts and indicators of well-being at the farm level.

Use of irrigation has been increasing rapidly in the Southeast. For example, irrigated acreage in Georgia increased by 20 percent in 1980, to 0.988 million acres (Skinner, 1981), and increased 16.5 percent in the previous year (Skinner, 1980). Research has been completed on the costs and profits of irrigated crops (Tew and Musser).

The literature of industrial organization is replete with analyses of the relationship between seller concentration and market performance. Most researchers have hypothesized a continuous linear relationship between profitability and concentration and have estimated that relationship accordingly.

Researchers as well as planners have been concerned with the impact of augmenting an existing recreation system with new recreational areas. That is, they are concerned with the substitution or duplication of services stemming from additional numbers of recreational areas.

Farm supply cooperatives provide farm inputs that are used by producers and nonproducers. The development and urbanization of many rural areas have caused farm supply cooperatives to be faced with more and more potential patrons who are not producers. The use of farm inputs by nonproducers has thus expanded the farm supply cooperatives' market potential, while threatening to force them out of what may be preferred tax status.

Economic theory suggests that demand behavior is time variant, but does not offer much insight into the nature of the temporal variation. For practical purposes, at least two interpretations regarding the time behavior of demand relationships may be advanced.

During 1981 two major pieces of legislation were passed that will greatly influence the economic welfare of farmers in the United States. First to be passed was the Economic Recovery Tax Act, and second was the Agriculture and Food Act. These two laws will likely have significant impacts on commercial farmers throughout the next decade.

Considerable research has been conducted over the years to determine optimal rations for dairy cattle. Dean et al. extended earlier work through a comprehensive examination of milk production functions, isoquant shapes, and feed systems to maximize income over feed cost (IOFC) for a given point in time.

The mechanization of American agriculture has played a key role in the technological progress of U.S. agriculture in this century (Heady and Tweeten). In turn, the demand for farm tractors and other farm machinery has been highly dependent on the year-to-year strength of the agricultural economy. Unit sales of tractors have varied by as much as 50 percent from one year to the next (Royal Commission on Farm Machinery).

The teaching of economic theory has become a major topic in the economics literature. Siegfried and Fels point to the growing number of economists who consider their special interest to be economic education.

The production of feeder pigs as a cash commodity has been widespread in the southeastern U.S. during the past several years. One indication of the extent of marketing pigs at this intermediate stage is the fact that in 1979, 41 percent of the total Tennessee pig crop was sold through organized feeder pig sales (Rawls). This specialized production is continuing in many areas of the Southeast, although a trend has emerged that has more producers holding feeder pigs and feeding them to market weight.

Meat imports have been a source of controversy in United States agriculture for more than 20 years. Beef producers early contended that imports unduly restricted their incomes and placed the domestic livestock industry at a disadvantage.

Backgrounding of feeder cattle is a growing specialty operation in the so-called “Fescue Belt” grasslands of the South (Bradford et al.). Backgrounding is largely a seasonal enterprise, consisting of the purchase of weaned calves that are placed on pasture and supplemental feed for several months and then resold for placement in feedlots. Since feeder calf and feeder cattle prices are among the most volatile of all classes of cattle, backgrounders face considerable price risk (Russell and Franzmann). In principle, hedging could shift this risk, but there has been a question whether hedging can be worthwhile, given the additional costs and financial obligations involved.

Throughout the principal fresh fruit and vegetable (FFV) growing areas in southeastern and southwestern states, trucking is the dominant mode for transporting fresh produce to the northeast and upper Midwest. The dramatic shift to trucks in the last 30 years has virtually displaced the railroads from FFV transportation.

During 1981 there was much in the news about the Medfly (Mediterranean fruit fly) infestation of California. During the summer of 1981, a USDA quarantine on produce from California was imposed by 11 states–North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee, Florida, and South Carolina.

Achieving water quality goals will necessitate adoption of best management practices (BMP's) by some or all farmers. Water quality is expected to improve as farmers adopt BMP's such as conservation cropping systems, structural measures, and conservation tillage methods. Currently, there is an absence of pollution abatement incentives strong enough to induce farmers to abate sediment, nutrients, and pesticides to desirable social levels. Although a specific socially optimal level of pollutants may be difficult (or impossible) to quantify, the U.S. Congress, by passing the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (P. L. 92-500), has demonstrated the need for improvements in water quality.