Projections and the Organization of this Report


 The capacity of U.S. agriculture to produce in 2030
should be at least 60 percent above 1980 levels. To be
safe, however, we need up to a 100 percent increase in
capacity. The amount we should actually produce will
depend on export opportunities, population and income
growth, demands for biomass as an industrial feedstock,
foreign exchange needs and the military conflicts that
may occur.

 U.S. agricultural output expanded between 1880
and 1980 by over six times 1880 levels (see Fig. 1,
below). A 60 percent increase in capacity (3V2 times
1880 levels) by 2030 is easily within range. Six times
1880 levels is possible, which would enable us to double
1980 output by 2030 if we then find it desirable to pro-
duce that much.

 Our land resources were much more fully utilized in
1980-81 than in 1950, and we have already made many


of the easy technological advances and institutional
changes. The six- to sevenfold growth in agricultural
output during the past century was accomplished with
varying combinations of more land, then less land, im-
proved capital embodying better technology, less un-
skilled labor, more skilled labor, institutional im-
provements, incentives and a vastly improved infrastruc-
ture, which has helped us exploit the changing com-
parative advantage of various farming regions and
subsectors of both the farm and non-farm sectors of the
United States (Johnson and Quance, 1972; Johnson,
1955). In the early 1930s, the acreage of land in use
-reached a peak, then declined and increased again in
1981 and 1982 to near the earlier peak. Currently (1983),
we have again reduced our crop acreages to help solve
problems of overproduction, surpluses and low prices.
We will have to resume cultivation of these and even
larger acreages in the years ahead.


Figure 1. Agricultural Output, 1880-1982


300 T


 Source:
 Linked indices (con
 1947-49 base) from
.... ...- Strauss and Louis Be
 Farm Income and I
 Farm Production and
 the United States 1
 USDA Technical Bu
 703, December 1940
 -. ---.. 1909, Ralph Loomis
 Barton, Productivity o
 ture. USDA Technica
 No. 1238, April 1961
 55: Agricultural Statis
 p. 546 for 1956-64: Ag
 Statistics 1980, p. 440
 77; and Agricultural
 ERS, USDA. Decemt
 p. 26 for 1978-82.


verted to
Frederick
an, Gross
ndices of
Prices in
869-1937,
lletin No.
for 1880-
and Glen
'f Agricul-
I Bulletin
for 1910-
tics 1967,
agricultural
for 1965-
Outlook,
ber 1982.


*1 I I I I I I
1880 1900 1920 1940 1980


I I
 1960


250-



200-



150-



100-


1880


1900


1920


S 1940
 1940


1980