study of the allocation, distribution, and utilization of the resources used, along with the commodities produced, by farming. Agricultural economics plays a role in the economics of development, for a continuous level of farm surplus is one of the wellsprings of technological and commercial growth.

Agriculture is the source of livelihood for more than half of the world's population. In some countries more than four-fifths of the inhabitants support themselves by farming, while in the more industrialized countries the proportion ranges much lower—to less than 3 percent in both the United States and Great Britain. In general one can say that, when a large fraction of a nation's population depends on agriculture for its livelihood, average incomes are low. This does not mean that a nation is poor because most of its population is engaged in agriculture; it is closer to the truth to say that because a country is poor most of its people must rely upon agriculture for a living.

As a country develops economically, the relative importance of agriculture declines. The primary reason for this was shown by the 19th-century German statistician Ernst Engel, who discovered that as incomes increase the proportion of income spent on food declines. For example, if a family's income were to increase by 100 percent, the amount it would spend on food might increase by 60 percent; if formerly its expenditures on food had been 50 percent of its budget, after the increase they would amount to only 40 percent of its budget. It follows from this that, as incomes increase, a smaller fraction of the total resources of society is required to produce the amount of food demanded by the population.

This fact would have surprised most economists of the early 19th century, who feared that the limited supply of land in the populated areas of Europe would determine that continent's ability to feed its growing population. Their fear was based on the so-called law of diminishing returns: that under given conditions an increase in the amount of labour and capital applied to a fixed amount of land results in a less than proportional increase in the output of food. This principle is a valid one, but what the classical economists could not foresee was the extent to which the state of the arts and the methods of production would change. Some of the changes occurred in agriculture; others occurred in other sectors of the economy but had a major effect on the supply of food.

In looking back upon the history of the more developed countries, one can see that agriculture has played an important part in the process of their enrichment. For one thing, if development is to occur, agriculture must be able to produce a surplus of food to maintain the growing nonagricultural labour force. Since food is more essential for life than are the services provided by merchants or bankers or factories, an economy cannot shift to such activities unless food is available for barter or sale in sufficient quantities to support those engaged in them. Unless food can be obtained through international trade, a country does not normally develop industrially until its farm areas can supply its towns with food in exchange for the products of their factories.

Economic development also requires a growing labour force. In an agricultural country most of the workers needed must come from the rural population. Thus agriculture must not only supply a surplus of food for the towns, but it must also be able to produce the increased amount of food with a relatively smaller labour force. It may do so by substituting animal power for human power or by gradually introducing labour-saving machinery.

Agriculture may also be a source of the capital needed for industrial development to the extent that it provides a surplus that may be converted into the funds needed to purchase industrial equipment or to build roads and provide public services.

For these reasons a country seeking to develop its economy may be well advised to give a significant priority to agriculture. Experience in the developing countries has shown that agriculture can be made much more productive with the proper investment in irrigation systems, research, fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides.

Fortunately, many advances in applied science do not require massive amounts of capital, although it may be necessary to expand marketing and transportation facilities so that farm output can be brought to the entire population.

One difficulty in giving priority to agriculture is that most of the increase in farm output and most of the income gains are concentrated in certain regions rather than extending throughout the country. The remaining farmers are not able to produce more and actually suffer a disadvantage as farm prices decline. There is no easy answer to this problem, but developing countries need to be aware of it; economic progress is consistent with lingering backwardness, as can be seen in parts of southern Italy or in the Appalachian area of the United States.

One characteristic of undeveloped peasant agriculture is its self-sufficiency. Farm families in those circumstances consume a substantial part of what they produce. While some of their output may be sold in the market, their total production is generally not much larger than what is needed for the maintenance of the family. Not only is productivity per worker low under these conditions but yields per unit of land are also low. Even where the land was originally fertile, the fertility is likely to have been depleted by decades of continuous cropping. The available manures are not sufficient, and the farmers cannot afford to purchase them elsewhere.

Peasant agriculture is often said to be characterized by inertia. The peasant farmer is likely to be illiterate, suspicious of outsiders, and reluctant to try new methods; food patterns remain unchanged for decades or even centuries. Evidence, however, suggests that the apparent inertia may be simply the result of a lack of alternatives. If there is nothing better to change to, there is little point in changing. Moreover, the self-sufficient farmer is bound to want to minimize his risks; since a crop failure can mean starvation in many parts of the world, farmers have been reluctant to adopt new methods if doing so would expose them to greater risks of failure.

The increased use worldwide of high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat since the 1960s has shown that farmers are willing and able to adopt new crops and farming methods when their superiority is demonstrated. These high-yielding varieties, however, require increased outlays for fertilizer, as well as expanded facilities for storage and distribution, and many developing countries are unable to afford such expenditures.

As economic development proceeds, a large proportion of the farm labour force must shift from agriculture into other pursuits. This fundamental shift in the labour force is made possible, of course, by an enormous increase in output per worker as agriculture becomes modernized. This increase in output stems from various factors. Where land is plentiful the output per worker is likely to be higher because it is possible to employ more fertilizer and machinery per worker.

Only a small fraction of the world's land area—about one-tenth—may be considered arable, if arable land is defined as land planted to crops. Less than one-fourth of the world's land area is in permanent meadows and pastures. The remainder is either in forests or is not being used for agricultural purposes.

There are great differences in the amount of arable land per person in the various regions of the world. The greatest amount of arable land per capita is in Oceania; the least is in China. No direct relationship exists between the amount of arable land per capita and the level of income; Europe has almost as little arable land per capita as Asia and less than Africa; Japan and The Netherlands have very limited amounts of arable land per capita.

The relationship between land, population, and farm production is a complex one. In traditional agriculture, where methods of production have changed little over a long period of time, production is largely determined by the quality and quantity of land available and the number of people working on the land. Until the early years of the 20th century, most of the world's increase in crop production came either from an increase in land under cultivation or from an increase in the amount of labour used per unit of land. This generally involved a shift to crops that would yield more per unit of land and required more labour for their cultivation. Wheat, rye, and millet require less labour per unit of land and per unit of food output than do rice, potatoes, or corn (maize), but generally the latter yield more food per unit of land. Thus, as population density increased, the latter groups of crops tended to be substituted for the former. This did not hold true in Europe, where wheat, rye, and millet expanded at the expense of pasture land; but these crops yielded more food per acre than did the livestock that they displaced.

As agriculture becomes modernized, its dependence upon land as well as upon human labour decreases. Animal power and machinery are substituted for human labour; mechanical power then replaces animal power. The substitution of mechanical power for animal power also reduces the need for land. The increased use of fertilizer as modernization occurs also acts as a substitute for both land and labour; the same is true of herbicides and insecticides. By making it possible to produce more per unit of land and per hour of work, less land and labour are required for a given amount of output.

Crop yields have increased dramatically since 1950, with a faster rate of growth in the developing than in the developed countries. Most of this increased output has been due to gains in yields rather than to the expansion of cultivated land.

In Europe as well as in North and Central America, the total area under crops has declined; in South America it has increased by more than one-half and in Asia by more than one-third. The large increase in Oceania was due to immigration. The large decrease in Africa was due to a succession of droughts from the 1970s on.

Grain yields in the developed regions of the world have increased consistently over the past several decades. In the rest of the world the pre-World War II yields were not achieved again until the mid-1950s. The increases in grain production were more than twice as high in the developing as in the developed countries.

Food production and total agricultural production exhibit nearly identical trends, and changes in food production can be taken therefore as indicative of changes in total agricultural production. Food supplies per capita in developing countries have increased at nearly the same rate as in developed countries, indicating a narrowing gap between food supplies and population growth in the developing countries.

In the past few decades governments have undertaken to control both prices and output in the agricultural sector, largely in response to the pressures of the farmers themselves. In the absence of such control, farm prices tend to fluctuate more than do most other prices, and the incomes of farmers fluctuate to an even greater degree. Not only are incomes in agriculture unstable, but they also tend to be lower than incomes in other economic sectors.

The instability of farm prices results from several factors. One is the relative slowness with which farmers are able to respond to changes in the demand for their product. Farmers generally must produce on the basis of expectations, and if their expectations turn out to be wrong, the resulting surplus or shortage cannot be corrected until the beginning of the next production cycle. Once a crop is planted, very little can be done to increase or decrease production in response to market prices. As long as prices cover current operating costs, such as the cost of harvesting, it pays farmers to carry through their production plans even if prices fall to a very low level. It is not unusual for the prices of particular farm products to vary by a third or a half from year to year. This extreme variability results from the relatively low responsiveness of demand to changes in price—i.e., from the fact that in order to increase sales by 5 percent it may be necessary to reduce the price by 15 percent.

The instability of farm prices is accompanied by instability of farm income. While gross income from agriculture generally does not vary as much as do individual farm prices, net income may vary more than prices. In modern agriculture costs tend to be relatively stable; the farmer is unable to compensate for a drop in prices by reducing his payments for machinery, fertilizer, or labour.

The incomes of farm workers are generally below those of other workers. There are two major reasons for this inequity. One is that in most economies the need for farm labour is declining, and each year large numbers of farm people, especially young ones, must leave their homes to seek jobs elsewhere. The difference in returns to labour is required to bring about this transfer of workers out of farming; if the transfer did not occur, farm incomes would be even more depressed. The second major reason for the income differences is that farm people generally have less education than do nonfarm people and are able to earn less at nonfarm jobs. The difference in education is of long standing and is found in all countries, developed and undeveloped; it also exists whether the national education system is highly decentralized, as in the United States, or highly centralized, as in France.

Governments have employed various measures to maintain farm prices and incomes above what the market would otherwise have yielded. These have included tariffs or import levies, import quotas, export subsidies, direct payments to farmers, and limitations on production. Tariffs and import quotas can be effective only if a nation normally imports some of its supply. Export subsidies result in higher prices to domestic consumers than to foreign purchasers; their use requires control over imports to prevent foreign supplies from entering the domestic market and bringing prices down. Direct payments to farmers have been used to maintain prices to consumers at reasonable levels, while assuring farmers a return above world-market levels. Limitations on production, intended to reduce supply and thus increase prices, have been used mainly in Brazil (for coffee) and in the United States (for major crops).

Since the enactment of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, the United States has had programs designed to limit the production of major farm crops through restrictions on acreage. Since that date it has also offered price supports for major crops such as wheat, feed grains, rice, tobacco, peanuts (groundnuts), and cotton, as well as for manufactured dairy products. It has not had price-support programs for perishable crops or for major livestock products except for a few years during and after World War II.

The price-support method most widely used has been the nonrecourse loan made by the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC): the farmer may repay the loan by delivering his produce at the support price or “redeem” it in cash if the market price is higher. The amount of particular crops offered for price-support loans has varied greatly from year to year, as have redemptions.

Most of the farm products given price supports were crops normally exported by the United States. Until the mid-1960s the price supports were above the export prices. Unless export subsidies were paid to make up the difference between domestic prices and the prices foreign buyers were willing to pay, exports became impossible. Export subsidies were accordingly paid on such farm commodities as cotton and grains. In the 1960s the support prices for the major export commodities, except tobacco, were established at levels near or slightly below world prices to permit market forces to manage the distribution of supplies between domestic and foreign markets. The lowering of support prices was accompanied by a substantial increase in the size of direct payments to farmers. By the end of the 1960s such payments had come to constitute a high percentage of the cash receipts from farm marketings: in cotton, 60 percent; in wheat, 40 percent; and in feed grains, 30 percent. These payments fell sharply in the late 1970s, largely as a result of increased demand.

In order to receive payments, farmers had to agree to limit the acreage devoted to specified crops. At the beginning of the 1970s the various programs had resulted in the diversion of approximately 20,000,000 hectares of land from the production of major farm crops. The number of acres diverted from cultivation fell sharply, however, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

A major component of U.S. farm price policy since World War II has been the disposal of surplus produce abroad through the economic aid program. This began as an outgrowth of wartime Lend-Lease, and food exported from the United States made a major contribution to the postwar recovery of western Europe. The Agricultural Trade and Development Act of 1954 provided a base for continuing such activities, and gradually the emphasis shifted from western Europe to the developing countries. One of the important effects was to dispose of farm products that could not be sold either domestically or in regular commercial foreign trade. Without this the farm income and price objectives could not have been achieved except by more stringent output limitations, lower farm prices, and larger direct government payments.

Efforts to control agricultural prices go far back in English history, although the early objectives were quite different from those of more recent times. The Corn Laws of the 15th century were designed to prevent prices from becoming too high; restrictions were imposed on the right to export corn (wheat) when the domestic price exceeded a specified level. In 1663 the laws were revised to prevent prices from falling too low, by including import duties when the home price did not exceed a specified level. The general trend, until the Corn Laws were finally abandoned in 1846, was increasingly toward ensuring higher prices for home producers through the payment of export bounties and by the restriction of imports until prices reached specified levels. After 1846 the British followed a free-trade policy for agricultural products but moved to the protection of agriculture and the establishment of minimum prices for certain farm products during the depression of the 1930s. Protection was expanded after World War II by legislation in 1947 and 1957 which sought to support farm prices primarily through deficiency payments to farmers, covering about 95 percent of total output. In most cases the domestic price was free to vary with changing demand and supply conditions; local products competed with imported supplies that were generally subject to relatively low tariffs. The farmer was reimbursed for the difference between his average realized price and a guaranteed price. The Agricultural Act of 1957, which gave the government the right to limit the amount of agricultural output on which deficiency payments were made, was designed to reduce the cost of the program and to encourage domestic production.

The British system of supporting farm prices, while allowing consumers the lowest possible food prices in the world market, was gradually abandoned during the late 1960s as the United Kingdom prepared for entry into the European Economic Community (EEC). When the United Kingdom entered the EEC in 1972, its agricultural prices began to rise to the much higher level prevailing within the EEC. The United Kingdom, moreover, imports more food and live animals from EEC countries than it exports, leading many British to question the value of membership in the EEC.

The EEC has established a common agricultural policy (CAP) for the Common Market countries. The CAP, worked out for each major farm commodity, was originally designed to create free trade for that commodity within the community. Special subsidies by the individual countries, and other national farm programs, were to be eliminated to prevent competitive advantages. The first of the regulations implementing the CAP were enacted in 1962 and applied to grain (except rice), poultry, eggs, live hogs and whole hog carcasses, fruit and vegetables, and wine. Similar programs were developed later for beef, dairy products, sugar, rice, and fats and oils.

The most important features of the CAP mechanism are the target prices, the threshold prices, the support or intervention prices, the variable levies on imports to make up the difference between landed prices and threshold prices, and export subsidies or refunds equal to the difference between market prices in the EEC and in the importing country. For most CAP commodities the primary device for achieving target prices is the variable import levy. This levy, which fluctuates with the import cost of a commodity, keeps the domestic price at or near the target price if the commodity is imported. When EEC production of a commodity exceeds EEC consumption, the authorities may purchase the commodity for storage, pay to have it processed for another use (e.g., wheat may be denatured and sold as a feed grain), or subsidize its export to countries outside the EEC. With these techniques the EEC has been able to maintain farm prices at levels substantially higher than those prevailing in the United States and Canada.

Throughout the 1960s the EEC did nothing to limit or control the production of agricultural products. When large stocks of butter and dry skim milk accumulated, and as the costs of maintaining dairy product prices and subsidizing wheat exports mounted, consideration was given to reducing production. A payments program to induce shifts from dairy to beef production was inaugurated, and there was talk of reducing the area cultivated for grain. Output limitation has been made difficult, however, by the significant differences in circumstances among the farmers in the various EEC countries.

The farm policies of the Soviet Union were established during the First Five-Year Plan (1928–32), when agriculture was collectivized. For all practical purposes, regular markets for farm products were abolished at that time, and each collective farm was required to deliver an assigned quota of produce to the state at very low prices. If a farm had anything left after meeting the obligatory quotas, it could sell the surplus to the state at higher prices or to the local free markets. Until 1958 the collective farms also had to make payments in kind to the machine tractor stations in return for work done.

After Stalin's death in 1953, farm prices were increased significantly; the average procurement prices for food products increased almost fourfold between 1950 and 1956. In 1958 the multiple-price system was abandoned, and the prices paid to collective farmers became almost seven times the average paid in 1950. The machine tractor stations were abolished in 1958 and the machinery transferred to individual farms. Another major revision of prices was made by the post-Khrushchev government in 1964–65. A two-price system replaced the single prices; prices for deliveries of grain up to the planned amount were about 10 percent higher than the previous single price, and deliveries above the plan level received a premium of 50 percent. Significant regional price differentials were established to cover the higher costs of production in some regions. Prices of livestock products had already been increased by about 35 percent in 1962, and in 1965 further increases of perhaps a third were made. Another important measure was a commitment that planned purchases were to be fixed at specified levels during the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1966–70), both in the aggregate and for individual farms. Prior to that time, if a farm had significantly increased its production or if other farms in the same region had failed to meet their deliveries, the delivery quota might be arbitrarily increased for the farm that happened to have had some output available for delivery.

Soviet price policy before 1953 was clearly designed to obtain farm products as cheaply as possible. The low prices were generally not passed on to consumers; a significant fraction of total governmental revenue was derived from high taxes on farm products. The changes made after 1953 were intended to provide farmers with an incentive to raise production and to make more efficient use of resources. Only a part of the increase in prices paid to farms was passed on to consumers; much of the increase was at the expense of government revenue.

In the late 20th century Soviet planning began to give greater emphasis to private plots; while constituting only about 1.5 percent of Soviet farmland, these plots produced about one-third of the nation's agricultural output other than grains. Restrictions on the crops private plots could produce were relaxed, and the importance of those plots was stressed. State farms and collectives, however, continued to receive the vast majority of capital and feed grains. Private plots, moreover, suffered from many of the problems that stunted the state farms and collectives, including the flight of young people from the countryside.

None of the governments engaged in regulating farm prices and incomes has been able to apply a meaningful standard as to what a fair price or reasonable income is. The actual measures adopted, such as specific price supports or intervention prices, have been determined through the political process, with little reference to formal principles or standards.

In the United States the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 stated that the goal should be to establish prices having the same purchasing power as those of the period 1910–14. By the end of World War II it had become clear that the “parity price” relationships of 1910–14 were no longer relevant to existing conditions. The Agricultural Act of 1948 retained the 1910–14 average as a parity for all farm products but stated that the parity for individual products was to be the average of prices over the most recent 10-year period. Since the application of this formula would have resulted in a significant reduction in the parity prices for some politically important farm products, particularly cotton and wheat, legislation that was passed in 1949 declared that the parity price for an individual commodity was to be determined by either the old or the new formula, whichever was higher. Not until 1955 were the “modernized parity” prices put into effect on a gradual basis. The Food and Agricultural Act of 1977 introduced cost of production as a standard for determining farm price supports. This standard, however, is far from absolute, since the cost of production varies from one region to another; moreover, many costs of production, such as rent, are influenced by the value of the crops produced.

There has been a similar lack of objective or measurable standards in other countries. In Great Britain, for example, the Agriculture Act of 1947 declared its intention to be that of

Several other countries have legislation that aims, without specifying in practice what is meant, to obtain for farm people the same level of income as that of other groups in the economy or that states that farm people should share in the rise in real per capita incomes. Finland, Japan, France, Sweden, and Norway have such policy objectives. German legislation declares that agriculture should share in the progressive development of society and requires that the government each year prepare a report showing the extent to which the return to farm labour, or properly managed holdings under average conditions, is in line with that of wage earners in comparable nonagricultural occupations in rural areas.

The agricultural price objectives of the Treaty of Rome, which established the EEC, also lack practical significance:

The effects of price and income policies are difficult to assess. The policies have unquestionably worked to raise agricultural production in the countries where they have been applied, but their usefulness as a means of enhancing the economic well-being of farm people is debatable. The governments of the industrial countries have been able to raise the returns from agriculture above the levels that would have prevailed in the absence of such intervention. In addition to maintaining prices, they provide subsidies for agricultural inputs such as tractor fuel and chemical fertilizers; they also gave assistance in consolidating small farms into larger ones and in improving farm buildings. They do not, except for the United States, attempt to moderate the effects of these policies on production.

The level of income and the economic well-being of farm people in general are determined by many factors, including not only the prices they receive for their output but also the rate at which the economy in general is growing, the ease with which people can move from farm to nonfarm jobs, the prices they must pay for their productive inputs, and their level of education. With respect to average income per person, as distinguished from total income, the prices received and paid are probably less important than the other factors mentioned. This becomes obvious when one compares farm incomes in the United States or the United Kingdom with those in Argentina or India; the differences in real income have to do mainly with the levels of economic development and not with farm prices or subsidies. Government efforts to increase farm prices are likely to be offset, in the long run, by an increase in the number of persons engaged in farming, and this tends to keep the returns to farm labour from rising much faster than they would in the absence of such policies.

There are two other reasons for believing that the income effects of higher farm prices or subsidies are relatively insignificant in the long run compared with other factors affecting incomes of farm workers. One is that an increase in farm prices induces farmers to use more fertilizer, machinery, fuel and oil, and other items. If a significant part of any increase in gross income is used for such things, the absolute increase in net farm income is much smaller than the increase in gross farm income. The second reason is that a given increase in government-supported farm prices generally occurs only once. After the increase in returns has been realized, the higher farm prices contribute nothing further to incomes. In contrast, general economic growth along with the continued reduction of the farm labour force has cumulative effects on the return to farm labour. If the returns to farm labour were to grow at an average annual rate of about 3 percent, for example, farm prices would have to increase at least 3 percent annually (assuming other prices did not change) to have the same effect on returns to farm resources.

The costs of the agricultural price and income policies of industrial countries are substantial; they include not only direct governmental outlays but also the increased costs to consumers in those countries, as well as the losses to developing countries of potential export markets.

The high prices of farm products in the United States in the mid-1970s and the relaxation of interventionist policies by the EEC after 1974 substantially reduced the costs of farm programs in these two regions. With the decline of farm prices that began in 1976, costs to taxpayers and consumers again approached the levels of the early 1970s.

Except in nations with Communist governments, most farm land is privately owned. This does not mean, however, that the land is owned by those who farm it. In most countries a major aspiration of farm people has been to achieve the ownership of the land they work. After World War II, Japan and Taiwan underwent land reforms that were intended to broaden ownership; these are generally considered to have been highly successful. Similar reforms have been advocated in other countries.

On a cooperative farm the land is owned jointly by the members of the group who farm it. The cooperative generally also owns all the major means of production, and the members supply all or most of the labour. While there are examples of cooperative farms in many countries, they loom large only in Israel, where the kibbutzim control about a fifth of the total agricultural land.

In a collective farm, at least as organized in the former Soviet republics, the land was owned by the state but was permanently leased to the kolkhoz (collective farm). The kolkhoz owned its own equipment and livestock and was required to meet certain commitments to the state in the form of deliveries of farm products. In theory the members of the kolkhoz were to elect the officers of the farm and establish the procedures by which the net product was to be divided among the members for services performed. In practice, however, their autonomy was severely limited by the economic plans. In most cases these plans were incredibly detailed, specifying the crops to be grown, the times of plowing, planting, and harvesting, the quantities of fertilizer and manures to be used, and the kinds of livestock to be maintained.

On state farms the land and all other means of production are owned by the state. The workers are paid in wages, and management decisions are made by individuals directly responsible to the state.

If a family farm is defined as one for which the farm operator and members of his family supply at least half of the labour, the majority of farms in the world are family farms. Family farming is carried on under a wide range of conditions, from the small farms of Asia to the highly mechanized farms of Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

The family farm may be owned by the farmer or rented. The most rapidly expanding type of tenure in the United States is that in which the farmer owns part of the land and rents the remainder; almost one-third of all farmland in the United States consists of part-owner farms. This arrangement enables the farmer to increase the size of the farm through renting and to invest capital in machinery and livestock.

Family farms may be large in terms of total assets or sales. The relative importance of family farms among the largest farms in the United States has increased over the past few decades. One of the more striking changes in industrial countries has been the increased importance of nonfarm income received by farm families. In the United States, Canada, and Japan more than half of the total income of farm families comes from nonfarm sources, while in most western European countries at least a third of the income of farm families is earned outside of agriculture.

A system of tenant farming known as sharecropping developed in the South of the United States following the freeing of the slaves in the 19th century. It was essentially an adjustment of the plantation system created to permit the owners to maintain a large measure of control over farm operations. The sharecropper usually supplied only the labour, while the owner provided animal power, machinery, and most of the other inputs in the form of an advance. The sharecropper received what was left after he had paid back the owner—generally about half of what had been produced.

For various reasons, including the exodus of blacks from American agriculture, the introduction of farm machinery, and the reduction in the acreage of cotton, the number of sharecroppers in the South has diminished by well over 80 percent since 1935.

In the past several decades there has been a growth of large-scale farming run as a business enterprise. These “industrial farms” are of growing significance in world agriculture. There are farms covering extensive areas of land in Africa, South America, and Australia, but most of them do not rely heavily upon machinery or other purchased inputs. Farms in the United States are becoming larger as their numbers grow smaller. Such large farms tend to specialize in the production of vegetables, fruits, cotton, poultry and poultry products, and livestock.

If they were free to choose, most farm families would want to own the land they farm. Wherever collectivization of private farmers has been carried out, it has required the use of force or the threat of force. But if family farming is to be viable, it must function efficiently, which means that farmers must have access to adequate sources of credit; must be able to obtain fertilizers, machinery, and other equipment; and must be able to market their produce easily. Laws and institutions must be sufficiently flexible to permit the average size of farms to increase as economic growth occurs.

Collective farming did not fulfill the hopes of its early advocates. In the Soviet Union the collective farm was used by Stalin as a means of exploiting the rural population in order to finance the expansion of industrialization. In the post-Stalin era the incomes of collective farm members increased, and it was believed that many remaining difficulties could be eliminated if the farms were given greater freedom in running their affairs. Nothing in the concept of the collective farm required the imposition of delivery quotas, centralized control of farm investment, or a particular organization of farm labour. Another weakness of collective farms was the failure to provide adequate incentives for individual members. Because of the difficulties involved in rewarding members for their individual work on the common land, the household plots of the members all too often tended to flourish at the expense of the collective.

There is no ideal form of organization that fits all farming. Under some circumstances the ownership of land may absorb so much capital that other investments, such as machinery and livestock, are neglected. Land rental may be a better alternative for many families, especially those with limited capital. The Israeli kibbutz has made it possible for many people with little or no agricultural experience to learn farming techniques quickly and efficiently. The most important consideration is whether the other institutions—economic, political, and social—are adequate to provide farmers with a wide range of resources and alternatives.