U.S. agriculture is a spectacular success story of high productivity growth maintained over an amazingly long period of time. Nevertheless, the industry today suffers from the same problems it has always suffered from: droughts, locusts and market disruptions. In this article, Kevin Kliesen and William Poole explain how monetary policy can contribute to a healthy agriculture sector. The reality is that the fundamental economic forces controlling the destiny of agriculture-high productivity growth, the hazards of nature, the low price and income elasticities of demand, and the instability of conditions in important export markets-are things that the Fed can do nothing about. The main message is that the best the Fed can do to stabilize the agricultural sector is to maintain low and steady inflation.
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Article provided by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in its journal Review.
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