Considerable controversy exists with regard to pricing agricultural commodities, especially when pricing departs from classical market concepts dependent on equating supply and demand. In a recent study of alternative Class I pricing systems, it was suggested that “pricing of milk and dairy products is one of the major policy issues to be resolved in the 1970s”. A different pricing system in federal milk orders was considered urgent enough that a concentrated study of pricing alternatives was pursued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This paper addresses conceptual inadequacies of standard labor force and unemployment statistics for the purpose of representing relative stocks of available labor among regions. It attempts to rectify some of these inadequacies by applying relatively simple statistical adjustments. These are based on secondary data relating to local population characteristics and national participation rate norms.

Current criteria used to determine labor force participation depend on solicited statements regarding attempts of an individual to secure employment, or his current status as a gainfully employed person. Using labor force participation as defined by these criteria, it has been observed that labor-force size varies directly with level of economic activity and demand for labor over time. During periods in which unemployment rises, the size of the labor force normally declines.

A number of aggregate agricultural labor market studies exist, typically concentrated on data at the national level. The Florida agricultural labor market, however, differs substantially from that of the rest of the nation, excepting California. In Florida, a large portion of the labor force is employed as harvesting labor. This is not only highly seasonal work, but also among the least demanding of skill. Also, over the period 1953-57 to 1967-69, the total number of farm workers declined in 49 states and by 43 percent nationally. During this time, Florida, however, experienced a 53 percent increase in hired labor usage, more than offsetting a 38 percent decline in family labor.

In Oklahoma, manufacturing employment continues to grow, playing a crucial role in the state's economy. The proportion of state employment in manufacturing rose from 12 percent in 1960 to 15 percent in 1970. Since then, the growth rate of manufacturing jobs has been even greater. In addition, many of the jobs created were in rural communities—from 1963 through 1971, 54 percent were located in communities smaller than 15, 000. State and community leaders planning for future growth could benefit from a manpower analysis. State leaders need to insure a sufficient supply of manpower in appropriate occupations. Community leaders could benefit from a manpower analysis estimating occupational needs resulting from changes in local economic base.

Retirement planning for farm families is complicated by the unique relationship between the farmer and his business. Farm operators combine their labor and management with owned or borrowed capital to generate income, a combination of labor and investment return. When earned income exceeds immediate consumption needs, the excess is often invested in the farm business. In fact, the high demand for capital reinvestment in the business enterprise may leave little opportunity for farm families to establish a savings or investment program designed to produce adequate income for their retirement needs.

Much attention has been focused recently on the need for land use planning in this country. With federal land use legislation pending, it seems imperative that resource economists develop quantitative methods for evaluating and predicting land use change. The need to develop appropriate estimation techniques is most apparent for land use change in areas which have received substantial investment in a relatively short period of time. Construction of multi-purpose reservoirs is the most important type of public investment that has impacted land use patterns in Oklahoma since the “dust bowl” days.

Floods will continue to cause damage as long as development continues upon flood-prone lands. Inevitably, flooding occurs, damage ensues and there is personal suffering and loss. A burden of rescue and relief operations falls on all taxpayers.

Flood control projects cannot protect against all damage, and not all flood hazard areas are amenable to flood control projects. An alternative to continued construction of engineering works for flood protection is flood plain management. To be effective, this must be brought about through political and legal means. Its purposes are to minimize the consequences of flooding and to achieve, in the long run, an optimum use of the flood plains.

Several Southeastern Oklahoma towns located in the Kiamichi Economic Development District (KEDDO) are not currently in compliance with the Oklahoma Solid Waste Management Act of 1970. The act requires that all incorporated cities and towns adequately dispose of solid wastes generated within incorporated limits. Most areas of the state were granted extensions until July 1975, to operate landfill facilities in accordance with state requirements. Some large towns have collection and disposal systems, but many smaller towns have no service or partial service. A few are not in compliance with the law.

Planning for regional growth and development must necessarily be contingent upon population growth or decline expected for the region in question. Ultimately, all decisions regarding allocation of resources to the process of developing the infrastructure of fixed capital assets to serve a region's population depends upon the number of people to be served. The purpose of this article is to present employment multipliers calculated by regression analysis and to describe their usage for planning in nonmetropolitan counties of the Ozarks region. Many technical questions concerning the statistical procedure have been discussed elsewhere. Thus, these questions will be only briefly reviewed herein.

Most ongoing research in the agricultural economics department at Oklahoma State University uses the computer at some time during its development. This is also true nationwide. It has become apparent that efforts need to be made to improve communications between economist and computer. This paper briefly presents alternatives available to the economist and advantages and disadvantages associated with each. Based on experiences of the agricultural economics department at Oklahoma State University, a method for improving communication between economist and computer programmer will be developed.

Reducing soil water losses due to evaporation, runoff or weeds, is a primary concern in the management of agriculture in arid and semiarid regions. A method has recently been proposed to promote infiltration and retard evaporation and weed infestation by waterproofing surface-zone clods with chemical agents to form a mulch of loose, dry clods. The effect of this treatment is to stabilize the clods against breakdown and consequent water and wind erosion. Rain or irrigation water can trickle off individual clods and flow downward through open spaces between them, thus penetrating directly into the deeper soil layers. In this way, the intake of water is enhanced and the hazard of runoff (entailing erosion) is reduced.

In analyzing the impact of recent energy price increases on agriculture, agricultural economists have suggested the possibility of substitution of labor for farm machinery inputs [3, pp. 881-833] [17, pp. 195-196]. Since large energy input is embodied in farm machinery [14, p. 195], energy-price increases not only raised costs of machinery fuel, but also provided a cost-push effect on other fixed and variable machinery cost components. However, these potential price incentives have not been sufficient to reverse aggregate historical trends towards larger equipment in current machinery purchases [11, 15]. Understanding the nature of recent shifts in optimum machinery size on different farm sizes is important for consideration of future farm size and labor-capital structure of agriculture.

Record high grain and protein supplement prices in the early 1970s provided the impetus for developing lower priced substitutes for grains and concentrates in livestock rations. One promising substitute is animal wastes, since these are often of considerable nutritive value.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of feeding ensiled turkey litter to replacement dairy heifers. In addition, the implications to both dairy and poultry producers of using turkey litter as a feed are also discussed.

As a cost reducing measure, it is appropriate that local government officials use voluntary labor in their programs supplying public services to constituencies. The Revenue-Sharing Act of 1972, however, may actually serve as a disincentive to this use of voluntary effort, because the revenue-sharing allocation formula may discriminate against communities using voluntary labor. Stinson and Stam state that “the current allocation procedure (of revenue sharing) fails to take into account the cost of inputs which are not purchased with tax revenues” [7, p. 11]. They further suggest that “the most important of these neglected costs is the opportunity cost of voluntary labor” [7, p. 11]. Hitzhusen states, “to the extent the smaller communities substitute … volunteer for paid effort, then tax effort, and thus their revenue-sharing payment, is decreased” [2, p. 10]. The problem is one of examining alternative ways of modifying the present revenue-sharing allocation formula to include the value of voluntary effort. Providing fire protection services to rural areas by employing voluntary labor is the example used here.