ABSTRACT
For those with tidy minds favouring neat theories and orderly patterns of behaviour a study of the world's agricultural economy can only be a source of disillusion and despair.
In the fiscal year of 1983 the US Treasury contributed over 20 billion dollars to the support of the US farm sector. The main slice of that expenditure went on a single programme - the Payment in Kind scheme which took grain acreage out of production and compensated farmers by releases of stocks from the overfull public granaries. Though stocks of coarse grain fell, by 70 million metric tons worldwide according to the International Wheat Council, few of the benefits went to the American farmer. Grain production rose in Argentina, Europe, Australia and the Soviet Union and the rewards of partial stabilisation of the market for corn if not for wheat accrued to farmers far distant from the American Mid-West.
