Demand Enhancement as a Sink for Excess Crop Production

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Abstract
The USA needs to develop an agricultural policy that is enabled by science and in harmony with environmental and human values. Such a policy must provide direction to those involved in agriculture, to move U.S. agriculture in the direction of long-term need, and to be as economical as possible to implement. It should also take into account other problems impinging on agriculture such as the increase in atmospheric CO2, budget and trade deficits, rural area decline, etc. The alternative policy discussed is the development of a sink for excess production. The sink is a way to use excess grain. Such a concept may offer an alternative to subsidized exports and much of the acreage reductions for crop commodities. Crops should be planted only on land not susceptible to excess erosion. It is better to pay farmers to produce a renewable resource by growing a crop that increases the gross national product than to pay them to take land out of production if the cost is the same or less. Cooperation with other exporting countries may be possible under such a policy. Policymakers must see agriculture as a way of solving problems facing the USA rather than being a problem.

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