AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18203, 2 March 1929, Page 10

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS.

GRADE N(; J 'KOI) L OTI OJS. In the “Economic Record” there is a valuable article on the application of economic research to the agricultural industries. The author of this article is Mr A. E. V. Richardson, of tlie staff of the Waite Agricultural Research Institute Adelaide. Ho points out the example set by the American Bureau of Agricultural Economics, an organisation which administers an annual appropriation of more than one million sterling.

The purpose of this bureau, it is stated, is to inquire into every economic condition of affairs which has an influence either on production or on price. The bureau makes intensive studies of types of farming, farm management, cost of production and factors influencing costs; investigation of land economics with a view to encouraging a wholesome system of land settlement, in relation to production and distribution, and the trend of prices. In Great Britain, Germany, Canada and other countries similar organisations are at work on a smaller scale, and even in New Zeaknd we have our own farm research officers forming the nucleus of a new section of the Department of Agriculture.

The main objective of the research worker in the field of agricultural economics is to “furnish farmers with a background of economics information which will guide intelligent programmes of production, increased farm efficiency, and decreased production costs.”Mr Richardson, in his survey of the position, states that two methods have been developed for the investigation of farm management and farm efficiency. These methods are: (1) Cost accounting on individual farms. (2) Farm surveys, with estimates of receipts and expenditure, combined with a critical comparative summary of farming methods. Another problem which, is engaging the attention of research officers is the question of marketing, a subject bound up closely with K the problem of production. Mr Richardson’s view is that the “working out of a more efficient system of marketing must go hand in hand with an intelligent adjustment of production to market demand, so as to avoid periods of over-production with great loss to the farmer and periods of under-production which are unsatisfactory to the consuming public.’'