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This report provides an item-by-item description and explanation of the new Act, which will guide agricultural programs from 1996-2000. Signed into law in April, the act makes significant changes in long-standing U.S. agricultural policies. Major changes in U.S. commodity programs are included in the Act's Title I, known as the Agricultural Market Transition Act.

Agricultural economists are appropriately concerned about their profession's contributions to policy decisions. An examination of alternative approaches to transforming policy analyses is in order. There are opportunities to (a) focus on income and wealth distribution, (b) give attention to the public as a primary client, (c) avoid advocacy, and (d) adjust institutions in ways that encourage participation in policy analyses including the development of data systems.

An interview with Csaba Csaki, Rector, Budapest University of Economics.

In early February, the Administration presented its proposal for the 1990 Farm Bill. Because of its great relevance to the ensuing debate and the eventual choices made by the Congress and the Administration, we are pleased to include this interview with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Clayton Yeutter.

Table of Contents: Summary; A dramatic transformation, by Lyle P. Schertz; the major forces, by Lyle P. Schertz; A preview of the future, by Lyle P. Schertz; Livestock Production: Beef, by J. Rod Martin; Dairy, by Robert H. Forste and George E. Frick; Poultry and Eggs, by George B Rogers; Port, by Roy N. Van Arsdall and Henry C. Gilliam; Regional Contrasts in Farming: the Northeast, by Lyle P. Schertz; The North Central, by Lyle P. Schertz; The South, by W.C. McArthur; The Grain Plains, by William Franklin Lagrone; The Southwest, by Stanley S. Johnson and Edward V. Jesse; The Northwest, by Donn A. Reimund.

Fifteen major world food studies published in the past 20 years indicate: (1) a dominance by FAO and ERS in analyzing prospective' world food conditions, (2) an increasing sophistication of the modeling Capacity undergirding the projections, with more complex econometric models that include demand and supply relationships and consider prices explicitly, and (3) substantial differences in projections of U.S. production but, as a whole, limited attention to U.S. production capability.

In the past 25 years, agricultural economists have made significant progress in research but they have also experienced substantial inner turmoil and great anxiety about the profession— its direction and substance. Self-criticism has taken two major forms. Some people have argued that a larger share of staff time and funds should have been devoted to problems of the majority of the rural population. Others have contended that the research completed on such problems could have been done better. The practical problems of agriculture and rural Americans will be changing in the future at an accelerating rate. To help agricultural economists and others keep up, midcareer opportunities and experiences in which people learn new skills to prepare for different activities must become more common. Future research techniques will also emphasize multifield and multidisciplinary work more. Increasingly, analyses will incorporate multiple-objective concepts, such as those recently used in water resource planning. Issues of conflict among rural people—in use of land, for one—will become more important. To further complicate the work, equity considerations will increasingly favor rural and urban groups over commercial farmers. Questions on commercial agriculture must not be ignored, though, when doing research on communities with natural resources and on rural people. Similarly, questions on the equity of certain conditions or actions, for example, must be raised in research on commercial agriculture. Agricultural economic research of the next 25 years will carry a strong streak of practicality. The profession particularly needs to focus on major national issues that private and public decision-makers cannot avoid. Agricultural economists must also avoid the false dichotomy of skills used in economic work related to U.S. problems and skills used to work on problems of other countries or on concerns that are international., This publication is based largely on a presentation made at the annual meeting of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, February 3, 1975. It is the result of the author's continual exchange with colleagues in the Economic Research Service, other agencies of the Department of Agriculture, and persons throughout the profession.

Inflation, a rise in the general price level, affects agriculture in four basic ways. It increases prices of farm products and inputs, encourages farmers to purchase more capital inputs, increases the wealth of those who own the land, and strengthens the relative economic position of high-income people, farm and nonfarm, in buying land. Since the late sixties, changes in prices paid for farm inputs and changes in prices received for farm products have closely corresponded to changes in the general price level. Under inflationary conditions, gains by some often depend on losses by others. This report provides a basis for understanding the causes and effects of inflation as related to agriculture and the conflicting objectives of aiding clientele groups and stopping inflation.

The main purpose of the project was to secure comprehensive price data at all levels of the marketing system of three types of capital goods [fertilizer, tractors, tubewells] used in agricultural production. Secondary objectives were to obtain related information on how the goods were priced and to gain an idea of the distribution system for them. A third objective, institutional in nature, was to stimulate an interest in these matters and in survey work by a Pakistan institution. This summary brings together some of the key price and cost tables and supplements them with a few remarks.