Discussion

The past decade has witnessed renewed uncertainty about the ability of American agriculture to sustain continued increases in productivity. ¹ This concern draws on three sources. One is a perception that agricultural land resources are being rapidly lost to nonagricultural uses. A second is a perception that the land use practices of modern agriculture are leading to excessive loss of soil resources. The third is a perception that a pattern of technical change induced by declining energy prices, which so dramatically enhanced agricultural productive capacity over the past fifty years, is no longer sustainable.