Globalization, Technological Advances, and Other Threats to American Agriculture: Discussion

Both Blank and Debertin start from the premise that technology increases agricultural productivity. As a result, supply increases faster than demand, driving down commodity prices and returns to factors used in agricultural production. Blank emphasizes how farmers respond to this situation by moving to higher risk, higher return commodities until eventually graduating out of agriculture entirely. These changes are accommodated by globalization which allows low-cost imports to substitute for abandoned agricultural production in the U.S. Debertin focuses on the contention that price depressing gains in productivity are due, in part, to publicly-supported agricultural research at Land Grant universities.