Land Utilization and the Farm Problem

Excerpts from the Foreword: An economic program of agricultural production that will contribute substantially to agricultural betterment must cope with three major problems: (1) The adjustment of supplies both in quantity and quality to world competition and market requirements, (2) increasing efficiency in production and resulting lower costs of production, and (3) the elimination of submarginal land from cultivation and the maintenance of an economic balance between agriculture on the one hand and other economic activities on the other. In the following brief summary the authors present, graphically and in a simple way, some of the high lights of existing conditions and tendencies in the use of land. No attempt is here made to formulate a concrete and specific policy of land utilization. The essential elements in such a policy are perhaps fairly well established, but there are many questions still to be answered. Are low farm incomes, tax delinquency, and farm abandonment in particular areas due to hopeless handicaps or can agriculture be restored through some form of reorganization? What lands now in farms are best adapted to supply the requirements of future agricultural expansion and under what conditions of utilization? What lands not adapted to crop production can be profitably reforested by private enterprise? What lands not adapted to crop production or to reforestation through private effort could advantageously be acquired by the public? We need a land policy that will yield greater economic and social values from the use of our lands, and at the same time stay soil erosion and wasteful depletion of our natural resources. The Nation should replace without further delay the present policy of planless agricultural development with a program of research, education, and legislation that will facilitate essential adjustments in our agriculture and help to eliminate submarginal lands from the production of crops.