Ohio's Challenge

In This Issue

By Lynn Forster

My image of Ohio agriculture over the past quarter century is an industry that has made continual adjustments to unrelenting technological, economic, and political changes. This issue touches on causes of change in agriculture: prices, exports, the environment, and nonfarm neighbors.

Volatile prices have had producers ricocheting between optimistic and gloomy expectations of long-term trends in agricultural prices. Will worldwide population growth and increased standards of living cause an upward trend in agricultural prices? Or will technological change and the industrialization of agriculture expand supplies to such an extent that price trends will continue downward? Luther Tweeten offers some interesting perspectives on long-term supply and demand forces and what they might mean for long-term trends in food prices. Readers will find some surprising implications from Luther's analysis.

Japanese customers purchase nearly one-fifth of U.S. soybeans. Wen Chern and Suresh Persaud discuss some alarming trends in Japanese substitution of canola for soybeans. For a variety of reasons, Japanese soybean oil consumption has stagnated while canola oil consumption has expanded, and Japan now consumes more canola oil than soybean oil. What are the causes of the decline in U.S. producers' share of the Japanese oil seeds market? What is the outlook for the future? Wen and Suresh furnish interesting answers to these questions.

Society's demands for a cleaner environment and improved natural resource stewardship have gained momentum. Brent Sohngen and Jon Rausch provide a brief overview of our water pollution control efforts and then focus on a relatively new agricultural program, the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, or EQIP. This program is innovative in that it awards cost-share dollars to those who can provide environmental benefits at the least cost. Readers will be interested in the outcomes of the first round of bidding, including the practices that were funded and the regions in the state where funds were directed.

Tom Stout and Chia-Yu Yeh address conflict in the countryside. How well do farmers and nonfarm-ers get along? Are there conflicts in the countryside between farmers and nonfarmers? Are these conflicts growing? Do farming practices irritate nonfarmer neighbors? Do nonfarmers move to rural areas to enjoy tranquility, but instead discover nuisances? Readers will appreciate the findings of this research, which point to a more compatible relationship than we might expect.

Finally, Bernie Erven wraps up this issue with an article that addresses the core issue: how do we respond to unrelenting change? Effective management is the key ingredient to firm survival in times of rapid change. Since 1971, Bernie and his Ohio State University Extension colleagues have provided management education to almost 2,400 farm and agribusiness managers in a program called ManagementExcel. Bernie offers some perspectives on mind-sets that many of us use when facing change. Also, he summarizes the functions of management, and lessons he has learned about the importance of these functions as he has observed ManagementExcel participants.

Ohio's Challenge, the magazine of agricultural economics, in conjunction with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center and Ohio State University Extension, is distributed throughout agricultural industry to growers, agribusiness leaders, legislators, education facilities, and mass media. Published fall, winter/spring, and summer by the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, The Ohio State University, Copyright © 1998, The Ohio State University.

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Ohio's Challenge, Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, The Ohio State University

2120 Fyffe Road, Columbus, Ohio 43210.

Editorial Committee: Lynn Forster, Chair; Wally Barr, Leroy Hushak, Constance Jackson, Larry Libby, Norman Rask, and Tom Stout

Technical Editor: Kim Wintringham
Graphic Designer: Mary Hoffelt
Photographer: Jodi Miller
Web Master: Ted Hattemer

The Ohio State University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity institution.