SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS_____________JULY, 1979
SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS IN SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE
IN THE DECADE OF THE 1970s AND EMERGING POLICY ISSUES
IN THE 1980s
Gene D. Sullivan
There is considerable overlap between events
of lasting significance in the 1970s and policy
issues of the 1980s, perhaps because of an im-
plicit requirement (in my own mind at least)
that policy implications are a prerequisite to
significance. At any rate, past developments in
their full dimensions seem closely interwoven
with future events.
Repeated invitations to Harold Breimyer to
“look ahead” are evidence of our profession’s
view of his ranking in the trade of seers. Be-
cause, at best, we can only “see through a glass
darkly,” it may be a futile effort to forecast
developments beyond a two- or three-year hori-
zon. Yet several of the unexpected events with-
in our individual spheres of existence might
have been spotted on the more distant horizon
if we had really strained a bit to peer through
the fog. Even knowing that the forecasting
balance is tilted heavily on the side of events
that cannot be foreseen, we feel it beneficial to
keep peering ahead. I believe that is why, in
spite of records that do not sparkle with ac-
curacy, Breimyer continues to prophesy and
we continue to listen.
My own expectations for significant future
events in agriculture are extensions of ongoing
developments during the 1970s. Rudd’s
comments on the significant happenings in
southern agriculture within the past decade
center on changes in the economic environ-
ment. He discusses four major areas of impact
which he identifies as international trade, infla-
tion, energy, and environmental regulation. I
agree that these are important issues, and he
has done a good job of outlining their impacts.
I would quibble a bit with Rudd’s early dis-
missal of any regional uniqueness or dissimi-
larity of southern agriculture. The presence of
several farm enterprises that, if not uniquely
southern, are disproportionately large in the
South makes the topic worthy of more consi-
deration. Not only tobacco but cotton,
peanuts, rice, oranges, sugarcane, vegetables,
and broiler production occupy positions of
much greater importance in the southern re-
gion (including Texas and Oklahoma) than na-
tionally. Although no single one of the enter-
prises is large enough, areawide, to warrant
top ranking in dollar value, the presence of all
within the same region in relatively concen-
trated areas of production lends uniqueness to
southern agriculture. Separate governmental
policies have been directed toward the indivi-
dual needs of most of these enterprises, and
significant changes in those policies can have a
disproportionate influence on the South’s agri-
cultural economy in comparison with the na-
tion’s.
One significant development I would add to
Rudd’s list is the agricultural program
changes in the past decade that have greatly
affected producers of cotton, rice, and sugar-
cane. Similar changes in programs for tobacco,
peanuts, and perhaps fruits and vegetables
remain an ominous possibility. I would label
the specific thrust of the development a re-
structuring of policies to include goals and ob-
jectives of groups in addition to agricultural
producers. The participation of new groups in
policy formulation has already resulted in
drastic restructuring or dismantling of some
policies that were formerly the exclusive do-
main of producer groups, and it appears cer-
tain to me that there is more such action to
come.
These developments can be attributed to the
erosion of the base of agriculture’s political
support and the exercise of political clout by
groups outside agriculture. A shift in political
power is not a development exclusive to the de-
cade of the 1970s; it certainly has been accen-
tuated during the past decade by the continued
departure of population from the agricultural
sector. The population shift is significant. We
have not always been cognizant of the fact that
governmental policies in the ultimate are in-
tended to serve the needs of people and are not
necessarily for the benefit of commodities or
geographic areas.
The rapid escalation of wage rates in agricul-
ture during the 1970s has hastened the substi-
tution of capital and new technology for labor.
Part of the inflationary spiral for land and
machinery has undoubtedly reflected the na-
tural effort to reestablish equilibrium between
prices of the factors of production.
Gene D. Sullivan is Research Officer and Senior Agricultural Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
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