An important component of the current interests in environmental problems concerns solid waste. Not only has public interest in solid waste disposal been substantial, but legislators have restricted ways by which solid wastes may be disposed. New Hampshire's State Legislature, for example, has passed a law requiring municipalities to cease all open burning by 1975.

Responsible and informed individuals and groups now view the prospective balance between the world's demand and supply for food for the next decade quite differently. There are those who view the recent short-falls in production relative to desired consumption as relatively temporary in nature and that the most likely course of events is stocks of grain will be rebuilt and grain prices will decline to more usual levels over the next year or two. Those who argue this position consider the present situation as primarily a temporary aberration, of which there have been several others in recent history. At the turn of the present century the British were concerned that the demand for wheat was going to outpace the supply; after World War II there was deep concern about the problems of rebuilding agriculture in Europe and, somewhat later, meeting the increased demand for food due to the sharp increase in birth rates that occurred in both industrial and developing countries, and in the mid-1960's, following unfavorable crops in the Soviet Union, China and South Asia it was feared that the world faced famine on a large scale. Yet, following each, the course of events was feared that the world faced famine on a large scale. Yet, following each, the course of events was quite the opposite and grain and food prices fell and the concern of governments was to protect their farmers from the consequences of supply growing more rapidly than demand.

This paper is an outgrowth of an Economic Research Service study undertaken in 1974 with the cooperation of the Foreign Agricultural Service and the Agricultural Marketing Service. Many individuals, including the authors of this paper, were involved in the comprehensive study of the impact of dairy imports on the U.S. dairy industry (Agricultural Economic Report No. 278, January 1975). This presentation reflects one part of the overall study.

The energy crisis has awakened interest in delivery systems, efficient fuel utilization, and alternatives for reducing delivery costs. Inquiries into the potential for energy and cost savings that exist within our economy are of immediate concern.

Apple production in Connecticut averaged 49.4 million pounds a year during the last decade. Most of these – approximately 80 percent of the total production – are sold for fresh use.

Cochrane has described the shape of modern agriculture as a world with highly productive, commercial farmers at one extreme and the world of poor, low-production farmers at the other. In the highly productive world, technology and farm expansion have resulted in increased yields and production on many farms. In contrast, many low-production farms provide no more than poverty level incomes for the farm operators and their families. Their problems stem largely from the fact that many of these farm operators are old, poorly educated and have limited and poor quality resources. Many have been unable to take advantage of the exploding technology and the scale economies accompanying increases in farm size. A third group, the “transition” group, forms the continuum between the two extremes. Some of its members, like young farmers just getting started, are improving their operations and moving into the “commercial world.” For others, who perhaps lack the financing or managerial capacity to compete in a modern agriculture, the transition is in the opposite direction.

American agricultural production is viewed by starving masses in the world as a great white knight; it can come charging into their lives and rescue them from starvation, malnutrition, and misery. Over the years we have maintained a granary that fed many millions of starving people. Now that these granaries are essentially depleted, there is a demand on the part of the World Health Organization, members of Congress and others that we replenish these reserves and continue to serve this role, rescuing people from starvation.

Resource economists and the federal government have shown a growing awareness of the role of non-structural measures (such as floodplain zoning) as an important part of an overall flood damage reduction program. This awareness has come in part with the realization that structural measures often provide a false sense of security to floodplain occupants and, as such, often result in increased flood damages contrary to their intended purpose. To be sure, restrictions prohibiting all development in flood prone areas could eliminate all damages. There are no a priori reasons, however, to believe that all uses should be prohibited from all floodplain areas. Through sound land use management practices, some of these areas can, in fact, be put to economic use such that the benefits derived outweigh the costs associated with such development.

The farm price of much of the milk produced in the Northeast has been under government regulation for a long time. Although they have not applied to all markets at all times; two principal economic criteria have generally been used as bases for setting minimum producer prices; (1) costs of production in the regulated area, and (2) the costs of obtaining milk from sources outside the area. Which of these criteria was paramount at any particular time and location was related to the effectiveness with which barriers to the inflow of milk could be maintained, and the political power of milk producer groups relative to other interests. Thus, as is well known, criteria other than the economic have also been important determinants of farm prices.

Milk has both suffered and enjoyed from more price and quality regulation than almost any other farm product in the United States.

Despite these regulations, or perhaps because of them, competition among producers still closely approximates a competitive model. In New England, milk price fluctuations are dampened but production is primarily a matter of economic survival. No government regulation limits entry, exit, or volume of production as long as minimum quality standards are maintained.

Apple production in Massachusetts has remained relatively stable for the past sixty years at about 2.7 million bushels annually, while output of most other agricultural enterprises in the state has declined. For a variety of reasons, Massachusetts apple growers have been better able to compete with other producing regions. Among the technological adjustments which have occurred, has been an expanded use of semi-dwarf rootstock resulting in a higher density of trees planted per acre. Changes also continue to be made in varieties of apples planted, reflecting both changing consumer tastes and improved varietal selections.

Since land accounts for more than 23 percent of the wealth in the United States, information concerning who ultimately makes decisions about how the resource is used and claims returns or benefits from the resource assumes great importance. Land ownership effects land use decisions, including all activities on the land, and influences the distribution of wealth, income, and other measures of well-being. Additional knowledge of who owns the land and his attitudes, goals, and objectives of ownership is needed to analyze the effectiveness of existing policies and to develop new policies for application in guiding the development and use of the land resource.

It is generally recognized that the goal of achieving acceptable river basin planning in New England has been elusive. This is especially true in regard to the Connecticut River Basin (7). Ten government agencies have spent more than 10 years and over $4 million in inventorying and planning the Connecticut River Basin but have not yet produced a plan acceptable to the people of the Basin.

The Commodity Economics Division of ERS has recently embarked on the development and implementation of a systematic approach to the construction and maintenance of agricultural enterprise data. This paper describes this system, its objectives, dimensions, some problems anticipated in its operation and some of the potential direct and indirect benefits expected for the profession.

The public has an abiding interest in land and its use. This interest is reflected in a long list of publicly sponsored programs and policies which directly or indirectly affect land. A segment of the public policy arena deals with the conversion of agricultural land to non-farm uses. Necessary ingredients for policy in farmland conversion include some understanding of conversion trends, the forces influencing these trends, and the likely outcomes of specific policy instruments designed to intervene in the conversion process and register public or communitywide interests in private uses of farmland.

The question of the operational objectives of small holder, “peasant” farmers has received considerable attention in the literature of agricultural development and production economics. Justification could not be made for rehashing this old issue, were it not for almost universal incomplete specification by most writers on the subject. No writer denies the dual nature of the peasant household, but few have made a serious attempt theoretically, and even less empirically, to integrate consumption activities into an analytical framework of the small farm.

The Housing Act of 1954 authorized the federal government to subsidize municipal planning programs. As a result, planning firms produced “comprehensive plans” for rural towns at an increasing rate. After a decade of experience with these HHFA “701” “comprehensive” town plans, it became evident that there was a wide variation in quality and content of the plans. Plans varied from useful tools for guiding growth to useless documents containing no meaningful recommendations. The latter situation resulted when urban planners drafted plans for rural areas based on urban concepts with no significant input by local people. Also, administrators of the “701” program and students of regional planning had no accepted criteria to distinguish an acceptable rural town plan from a useless compilation of data. This situation allowed planners who lacked rural planning know-how to use urban planning concepts to develop nonrelevant “shelf” plans in performance of their “701” contracts. By 1968 this problem was generally recognized. As a result, a research project was developed at the University of Vermont (Hatch 212), to study town plans and planning. The project had two objectives: (1) to evaluate adopted rural town plans by measuring the quality and content of plans, thus separating implementable plans from nonimplementable plans, and plans with considerable content from plans with little content, and (2) to develop planning concepts and procedures relevant to rural areas. This paper is a progress report on the first objective—a proposal of a town plan analysis and evaluation system.

The expanding volume of solid wastes generated in the United States, with its accompanying health hazards and pollution dangers, has led to concern among public agencies and private citizens alike. It has been estimated by, for example, that the combined effect of increasing population and increasing per capita consumption in the United States has been an increase from 70 million to 175 million tons of solid waste generated annually during the period 1940 to 1970. In Massachusetts, an estimated 7.5 million tons of non-agricultural wastes were generated in 1970, and this volume is projected by to double by the year 2000. Nationally, public expenditures for solid waste collection and disposal services for most communities are exceeded only by spending on the two categories of education and roads.

Problems in the delivery of community services to rural areas have received increasing attention in recent years. One concern has centered on questions of use, availability, accessibility, satisfaction, and problems in use by consumers, while a second focus has been on provider organization. A third important focus has been on the role of services in development of a community. Does service “mix” (amount of services provided in a community) have an effect on growth or decline of the community? Conversely, does growth or decline of the community have an effect on service mix? These are at least three more specific dimensions of the larger complex issue of service delivery for rural areas.