Using this as a sandbox, in effect. For background, see my blog at[1]. I've been looking at the farm programs/USDA entries and getting up my nerve to provide articles on things like "marketing quota programs" and editing some of the other entries.
Possible articles:
Seaman KnappBio of Seaman Knappwho was instrumental in creating the agricultural extension.
==Farm problem ==
The "farm problem" is USA terminology, but refers to the basic economics of farming, at least once farmers start producing commodities for the market. Economists say that the demand for agriculture products is inelastic (you don't increase your consumption of milk or eggs if their prices drop). But the supply is relatively elastic--farmers can increase their production by adding land, using more fertilizer, working longer hours, and so forth. Indeed, because farmers in a market economy typically do not have the power to set their price (they are price takers, not price setters) they have had to take the prices being offered. These factors, inelastic demand, elastic supply, and lack of pricing power meant that prices in the classic free market were subject to big fluctuations, doubling or halving was common. When prices fall, farmers respond by expanding production as long as their out-of-pocket costs are less than the market price. Given the lag time between the decision to produce (i.e., plant the crop or raise another animal) and the time to market (at harvest or maturity of the animal) farmers typically hope for the best and expand production if possible so long as their hoped-for market price exceeds their out-of-pocket costs. Farmers are usually not able to switch easily between crops.
create economics of farming stub?
Production adjustment programs in the context of U.S. Department of Agriculture legislated programs include acreage allotment programs and marketing quota programs. Public and farmer support for the programs varied widely, with their constitutionality being challenged early and the wisdom and fairness always questioned. They were first authorized by the AAA of 1933, then by the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1935, and finally by the AAA of 1938. The programs applied to the basic field crops: wheat, corn, barley, oats, grain sorghum, cotton, rice, tobacco and peanuts. The programs evolved and changed over the years, finally being eliminated with the tobacco buyout and peanut phaseout.
Acreage allotment refers to the result of subdividing (alloting) an overall product, such as a national target of growing x million acres of a crop, down to state, country, and farm shares (in acres). An acreage allotment program usually meant conditioning some program benefits (i.e., money, eligibility for loans) upon limiting one's farm acreage to the allotment.
Marketing quota refers to the result of su create price support programs edit the agricultural extension stub?
edit and create the AAA/WFA/PMA/CSS/ASCS/FSA sequence. Need some rule for handling successor agencies.
A cartel or a government can control how much commodity goes to market in an attempt to reduce supply and increase prices. Methods of production adjustment include quotas for the quantity that can be marketed, allotments to govern how many acres can be grown, or annual or long term diversion programs that pay farmers to devote acreage to other uses.
For agricultural policy
"Farming sometimes refers to subsistence agriculture, the production of enough food to meet just the needs of the farmer/agriculturalist, his/her family and local. It may also refer to industrial agriculture, (often referred to as factory farming) long prevalent in developed nations and increasingly so elsewhere, which consists of obtaining financial income from the cultivation of land to yield produce, the commercial raising of animals (animal husbandry), or both."
Farming can refer to subsistence agriculture, the production of food for the immediate needs of the farmer, the farmer's family, and bartering/giving to local bigwigs. This was the earliest form of agriculture.
