The agricultural industry, like other industries, has become increasingly dependent upon energy resources such as electricity, fossil fuels, chemicals and fertilizers, largely due to relatively low energy prices. In the middle 1970s, however, energy prices rose sharply as a result of continuously rightward shifting energy demands and leftward shifting energy supplies due to dwindling domestic reserves and oil price increases by OPEC nations. Although the rapidly rising energy prices may have been viewed initially as a temporary phenomenon, most now agree that we are in an era of high energy prices. Carter and Youde [2] have discussed some impacts of the changing energy situation on U.S. agriculture.

Linear programming (LP) models have been developed for a wide range of normative purposes in agricultural production economics. Despite their widespread application, a pervading concern among users is reliability — how well does a particular model actually describe and/or predict real world phenomena when it is so designed.

Much attention has been devoted in recent years to methods for making programming models produce results more in line with those actually observed. These efforts have included development of more detail in production activities and restrictions, incorporation of flexibility constraints into recursive programming systems, specification of more realistic behavioral properties, and development of guidelines for reducing aggregation error.

Agriculture has been among the most productive sectors of the U.S. economy. The agricultural sector uses only four percent of the labor force to produce food needed for both domestic use and export demand. Consumers in the U.S. spend only about 17 percent of their disposable income on food, the smallest percentage of any country in the world.

That energy has been recognized as the propelling force for current and continuing agricultural productivity, along with the prospect of much higher costs, have given rise to a growing interest in technologies or systems of agriculture that are less energy intensive. Possible future adjustments in agriculture may affect output levels, costs and conservation of land and water qualities.

The U.S. farm sector has long been dominated by independent firms exemplifying competitive free enterprise norms. Individual farm operators have had considerable freedom in controlling their own operations. Certain government programs and financial limitations have been the major restraints on their decision making.

In about the past two decades, however, a number of production subsectors have become organized or structured along lines more closely resembling industrial sectors of the economy than the traditional agricultural sector. At the same time, other production subsectors have remained virtually unaffected by this industrialization process and have retained their traditional independent form of organization. Concern over industrialization in agriculture relates to the question of who will control agricultural resources.

Increased use of marketing contracts by agricultural firms has stimulated a modest amount of literature in which the principles of decision theory are applied to the contracting problem. Much of this literature has focused on farmers' choices between cash and futures market positions. Others have modeled the influence of annual open market and fixed forward price options on farm growth objectives. Little or no attention has been paid to expressed interest, especially among processors, for suitable long-term (multi-annual) contract price formulae and for a theoretical framework through which to evaluate them. This paper attempts to provide this service in special regard to the tomato and tomato paste contracting problems of a U.S. fruit and vegetable processing cooperative.

Literature is replete with studies projecting the performance of agriculture to 1980, 1985 and the year 2000. These studies are usually based upon a dynamic certainty econometric model which, in turn, either assumes or projects annual rates of growth in the stock of producer capital over the time period covered by the study. In two recent assessments of the state of the art King [12] and Tweeten [27] cited several needed changes in our approach to sector econometric projections models, which should lead to increases in accuracy and consistency of future projections. Among those listed were incorporation of risk and uncertainty associated with expected outcomes and integration of disparate models into an aggregate sector projections system. Both of these authors failed, however, to identify the lack of financing considerations in present sector projections models. For example, those studies that sought to explain aggregate demand for farm producer capital when projecting the capital stocks associated with future output levels ignored the implicit rental price of capital and other variables suggested by finance and risk theory.

In recent years, many communities have used regional planning in their quest for economic and social development. Several factors have prompted them to do so. First, community leaders have recognized that a larger geographic area gives a community a larger economic base for planning purposes and offers access to services and institutions that would be impossible in each and every town, thus enhancing potential for development. Second, a greater emphasis is now placed upon identification and use of regions for planning and development purposes under state and federal laws. Third, importance of regional planning has grown because of such factors as growing urbanization, increased demands for community services, pressure to reduce disparities among urban-rural areas, growing environmental concerns, and “spillover” effects of unplanned growth.

Rapid increases in energy prices, federal policies of energy independence and further projections of energy shortages are encouraging development of sources of energy such as strip mining for coal. A key issue faced by the owner of surface and sub-surface (mineral) rights to land is determination of the price or fee (royalty) that should be extracted from a miner who wants access to the subsurface resource. This is a crucial problem because productivity and income potential of the surface resource may be altered during the mining process. Although extracting coal through strip mining is an obvious example of this phenomenon, the same issue is confronted in surface extraction of other minerals or in placement of easements or restrictions on land use options available to surface property-right owners.

It has become abundantly clear this nation is confronted with a set of issues regarding allocation and use of land resources which present profound challenges to agricultural economists as well as all citizens. The ability of existing institutions to adequately deal with land use policy questions is being increasingly questioned. The theoretical causes of market failure in land policy and alternatives to the market have been dealt with extensively in the literature and will not be repeated here. The purpose of this paper is to comment on research and educational programs and needs in land policy and planning with particular reference to the South.

A public school student is a product of combined influences of the home and his peers, as well as the school. Similarly, the school system within a community represents the combined impact of influence of taxpayers, teachers and administrators. Local elementary and secondary schools cannot operate independently of desires and wishes of residents in the community. This study presents an analysis of linkages between community characteristics and educational service provided by the public school.

The paper by Long, Infanger and Danielson [5] (hereafter referred to as LID) does a good job of presenting conventional rationale for an approach to land use planning. Survey results presented in the LID paper clearly identify the topics currently concentrated upon in land use research and educational programs. Identification of the specific nature of current educational programs in land use is a necessary first step in assessing the effectiveness of these programs. The primary objective of this paper is not to further review current research and extension activities but to take a fresh look at issues involved in land use planning, and point out areas where both rationale and approach of conventional research and extension land use efforts should be subjected to further scrutiny. Comments are not restricted to the LID paper only, but relate also to described land use research and educational programs.

The major premise of this paper is rather simple, but hopefully provocative to those economists concerned with real world problems and willing to enter controversial situations. Economic development, as typically encountered, is often controversial. Seldom in the modern economy do we find a Pareto optimum development that makes some people better off while leaving no one worse off. Even when this ideal is realized in the long-run, lack of instantaneous adjustment to new parameters of development means that new investment or organizational change is threatening to someone. Furthermore, both those threatened by development and those who stand to gain may have recognized relative merits of a particular development long before it comes to an economist's attention. This speaks well of the free enterprise system, but may be disconcerting to the ivory tower economist whose hope is that “my results” will be used by other economists or decision-makers who will, in turn, produce development efforts. Although the domino theory may be valid, all too frequently the dominoes fail to fall because of the scarcity of practicing economists in active development efforts.

Considerable attention has been devoted to understanding factors that influence public service expenditures in rural communities. Much public service research has been focused on the question of whether economies of population size exist for public service delivery systems, and, if so, what are the optimum size delivery systems. Of particular concern to communities is the impact of economic growth on provision of public services. Community leaders need to know how to plan for provision of these services when facing changing economic conditions. They must be able to evaluate whether or not economic growth, especially rural industrialization, should be followed as a strategy for enhancing both quality and quantity of these services.

Solid waste disposal is a significant problem. It has been estimated that almost a ton of solid waste is collected per year per capita in the United States. Solid waste disposal, especially in rural areas, is frequently done in an unsanitary, potentially dangerous and often unslightly manner. To cope with these solid waste problems, both state legislatures and the Environmental Protection Agency are now in the process of requiring communities which presently utilize unsanitary disposal practices to upgrade their facilities and management practices. A sanitary landfill operation1 is usually the least-cost method of accomplishing these requirements, especially in rural areas.2 Quality facilities and management practices are not costless, however. It is estimated that the U.S. spends more than $4.5 billion each year on solid waste management, and more than 80 percent of this amount is for collection.

Traditionally man has used water for domestic needs, livestock, crop production and navigation; now he is also concerned with anesthetics, recreation, industrial production, waste disposal, power generation and aquatic ecological systems. He finds many of these uses incompatible and in conflict.

Florida is encountering similar conflicts and in many ways is typical of other humid eastern states. The situation is especially dramatic because of extreme oscillations in rainfall — torrential tropical storms to droughts lasting many months. Water management in Florida has been primarily for flood protection. More recently, the need for multi-purpose water management to increase usage benefits while decreasing potential damage from quantity extremes, has been recognized. Legislation, the Florida Water Resources Act of 1972 being foremost, has been enacted to create a governmental framework in which water problems can be addressed.

Rapidly rising public sector costs are at issue in a great many communities. Quite often blame has been placed on recent development. This has caused communities to become wary of growth that might result in costs greater than benefits received.

A model is described in this paper that permits ex ante evaluation of the economic effects of community growth. The paper begins with a brief discussion of community growth and previous impact modeling efforts. The Economic Growth Impact Model is then presented. This is followed by a description of the package within which the model is incorporated. Finally, an application of the model is highlighted.