RETURNS TO PUBLIC IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT AND THE CONCOMITANT COSTS OF COMMODITY PROGRAMS

William E. Martin

No 277609, 1979 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, Pullman, Washington from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association)

Abstract: Development of agriculture, and associated agricultural problems, have had a prominent place in congressional deliberations virtually throughout the history of the United States (Benedict). Early policy stressed land development, and the Reclamation Act of 1902 was in such spirit. It was "An Act Appropriating the receipts from the sale and disposal of public lands in certain States and Territories to the construction of irrigation works for the reclamation of arid lands." With later modifications of policy to provide greater sources of income for works construction, Congress continues to support the Bureau of Reclamation's water development, output increasing activities. Yet, since 1929, with time out for war, the federal government also has effected commodity programs designed to reduce the supply of major agricultural commodities so as to maintain product prices "at levels that would be above the market price in a free and reasonably normal market situation"(Benedict, p. 517). Such a situation would tend to strike most economists as peculiar (inefficient). Howe and Easter estimated the annual costs of commodity programs directly related to reclamation irrigation in the range of $83 million to $179 million during the period 1944 to 1964 (p. 143). Some of the "facts" generated by these apparently contradictory policies are the subject of this paper.

Keywords: Demand; and; Price; Analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22
Date: 1979-07
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/277609/files/aaea-1979-006.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea79:277609

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.277609

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 1979 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, Pullman, Washington from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().