American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century: How it Flourished and what it Cost

Գրքի շապիկի երեսը
Harvard University Press, 2009 - 400 էջ
American agriculture in the twentieth century has given the world one of its great success stories, a paradigm of productivity and plenty. Yet the story has its dark side, from the plight of the Okies in the 1930s to the farm crisis of the 1980s to today's concerns about low crop prices and the impact of biotechnology. Looking at U.S. farming over the past century, Bruce Gardner searches out explanations for both the remarkable progress and the persistent social problems that have marked the history of American agriculture. Gardner documents both the economic difficulties that have confronted farmers and the technological and economic transformations that have lifted them from relative poverty to economic parity with the nonfarm population. He provides a detailed analysis of the causes of these trends, with emphasis on the role of government action. He reviews how commodity support programs, driven by interest-group politics, have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to little purpose. Nonetheless, Gardner concludes that by reconciling competing economic interests while fostering productivity growth and economic integration of the farm and nonfarm economies, the overall twentieth-century role of government in American agriculture is fairly viewed as a triumph of democracy.

From inside the book

Բովանդակություն

Introduction
1
Technology
8
Farms
48
Farm Communities
92
Markets
128
Government I Public Investment and Regulation
176
Government II Commodity and Trade Policy
213
Explanations
250
Regions and States
278
Counties
307
Findings and Policy Implications
339
References
357
Index
379
Հեղինակային իրավունք

Այլ խմբագրություններ - View all

Common terms and phrases

Սիրված հատվածներ

Էջ 361 - Market power in the retail food industry: evidence from Vermont', Review of Economics and Statistics; 68(3) (August), 379-86.

Վկայակոչումներ այս գրքի մասին

Հեղինակի մասին (2009)

Bruce L. Gardner is Distinguished University Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland, College Park.

Բիբլիոգրաֆիական տվյալներ