ABSTRACT
Early chapters in this book show that profitability varies across locations, and that the competitiveness of an agricultural producer is now a function of that producer’s comparative and absolute advantage in a commodity market. This subtle change from the traditional focus on a producer’s comparative advantage only is due to shifts in how economic development works in this new era of global markets for agricultural products. This has huge implications for the future development of American agriculture. In essence, it means that each American commodity producer is in direct or indirect competition with producers of that commodity from all over the globe. This new market dynamic, in turn, means that only the most profitable producers will survive in the long run and those producers will be scattered across locations. Thus, it makes references to American agriculture as a “national” industry out-of-date and misleading. In reality, agriculture is a collection of local and regional industries; it is not national.
