IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/motpco/258685.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

North America and the World Grain Market

Author

Listed:
  • Johnson, D. Gale

Abstract

The increase in world grain production in the past half-century was unparalleled in the history of the world. In that same period, the absolute increase in the world's population exceeded that of all previous history--it more than doubled. The supply of grain more than kept up with the rapid growth of demand--the per capita supply of calories in developing countries increased by 27 percent between the early 1960s and the early 1990s while the real price of grain in international markets declined by at least a third. The expansion of grain production since 1960 has been largely achieved through higher yields--the substitution of other inputs for land. Consequently the roles of land and the diminishing returns to land have been significantly attenuated by the results of research and the availability of nonfarm sources of inputs, such as chemical fertilizer. In developing countries, improving the productivity of labor may be more critical in determining the welfare of rural people than any limitation imposed by land. Over the next quarter century, improving the productivity of the world's land by 75 percent will probably meet the increase in demand for grain, but farm labor productivity will need to treble if there is to be rapid economic growth in developing countries. The large differences in the rate of growth of grain production over the past several decades among developing countries have not been due primarily to differences in natural resources, but have resulted from differences in the structure of policies affecting agriculture and grain production. Where governmental policies have been supportive, grain production has not only kept up with demand growth but has exceeded it; where governmental policies have exploited agriculture through low prices for farm products and limited commitment to research, per capita grain production has grown slowly, if at all. Policies count--and count a great deal. The evidence supports the conclusion that national policies, inc
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Johnson, D. Gale, 1997. "North America and the World Grain Market," Conference Papers 258685, Montana State University, Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, Trade Research Center.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:motpco:258685
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.258685
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/258685/files/Montana-State-1997-01-Johnson.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.258685?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tyers, Rod, 1994. "Economic reform in Europe and the former Soviet Union: implications for international food markets," Research reports 99, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Johnson, D Gale, 1997. "Agriculture and the Wealth of Nations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 1-12, May.
    3. Brooks, Karen M. & Braverman, Avishay, 1991. "Decollectivization in East and Central Europe," 1991 Conference, August 22-29, 1991, Tokyo, Japan 183253, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Smith, Vincent H. & Goodwin, Barry K., 1999. "Chile'S Wheat Trade Environment: The Economics Of Price Bands, Import Tariffs And Policy Transparency," Research Discussion Papers 29251, Montana State University, Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, Trade Research Center.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Enrique Ospina G., 1998. "Importaciones Agropecuarias: A Que Responden?," Borradores de Economia 2817, Banco de la Republica.
    2. Yakun Wang & Jingli Jiang & Dongqing Wang & Xinshang You, 2022. "Can Mechanization Promote Green Agricultural Production? An Empirical Analysis of Maize Production in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-24, December.
    3. Keigo Nishida, 2014. "Agricultural productivity differences and credit market imperfections," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(8), pages 1262-1276, December.
    4. Bravo-Ortega, Claudio & Lederman, Daniel, 2005. "Agriculture and national welfare around the world: causality and international heterogeneity since 1960," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3499, The World Bank.
    5. Harvey James, 2006. "Sustainable agriculture and free market economics: Finding common ground in Adam Smith," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 23(4), pages 427-438, December.
    6. Qi Li & Zhijiao Liu, 2024. "The Spatiotemporal Impact of Digital Economy on High-Quality Agricultural Development: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-19, March.
    7. Randy Stringer & Prabhu Pingali, 2004. "Agriculture's Contributions to Economic and Social Development," The Electronic Journal of Agricultural and Development Economics, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, vol. 1(1), pages 1-5.
    8. Anderson, Kym, 1995. "Impacts of New Multilateral and Regional Integration Agreements on Agricultural Competitiveness of Advanced Economies," 1994 Conference, August 22-29, 1994, Harare, Zimbabwe 183378, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Gersbach, Hans & Siemers, Lars-H. R., 2010. "Land Reforms And Economic Development," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 527-547, September.
    10. Wen Yao & Zhuo Sun, 2023. "The Impact of the Digital Economy on High-Quality Development of Agriculture: A China Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-19, March.
    11. Yasar Ersan & Ilhan Can Ozen, 2022. "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia: The Long Run Development Effects of American Missions in Anatolia," ERC Working Papers 2201, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Jan 2022.
    12. Hans Gersbach & Lars-H. Siemers, 2014. "Can democracy induce development? A constitutional perspective," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 177-196, April.
    13. Csaki, Csaba, 1992. "Transformation of agriculture in central Eastern Europe and the former USSR : major policy issues and perspectives," Policy Research Working Paper Series 888, The World Bank.
    14. Alejandro Gutiérrez, 1997. "Public spending and capital stock accumulation in the Venezuelan agricultural sector," Economía, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales (IIES). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales. Universidad de Los Andes. Mérida, Venezuela, vol. 22(13), pages 61-92, January-D.
    15. James, Harvey S., Jr., 2005. "For a Sustainable Agriculture, We Need More Adam Smith, Not Less," Working Papers 26047, University of Missouri Columbia, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    16. Yang, Dennis Tao & Zhu, Xiaodong, 2013. "Modernization of agriculture and long-term growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 367-382.
    17. Timmer, Peter & Weisbrod, Julian & McCulloch, Neil, 2006. "The Pathways out of Poverty in Rural Indonesia: an empirical assessment," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2006 29, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    18. Mundlak, Yair, 2003. "Economic Growth: Lessons From Two Centuries Of American Agriculture," Discussion Papers 14986, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Agricultural Economics and Management.
    19. Kyriakos Drivas & Athanasios T. Balafoutis & Stelios Rozakis, 2014. "Research Funding and Academic Output: The Case of Agricultural University of Athens," Working Papers 2014-5, Agricultural University of Athens, Department Of Agricultural Economics.
    20. Restuccia, Diego & Yang, Dennis Tao & Zhu, Xiaodong, 2008. "Agriculture and aggregate productivity: A quantitative cross-country analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 234-250, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:motpco:258685. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/damtsus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.