ABSTRACT
Some environmental and natural resource problems become social and political “issues” because of the personal perceptions of individuals. People can see the air pollution in Los Angeles or Denver, the water pollution in the Ohio or the Potomac, or the rising price of energy at the gas pump or on a utility bill. Other problems become issues only when statistical data, usually the kind routinely collected by the national government, show that something is awry. The current controversy over the adequacy of the U.S. agricultural land base has origins in both factors, but seems to have been given a major push into public attention by release of the eminently quotable finding that the United States is losing 3 million acres of farmland yearly to nonagri-cultural use.
