Recent Cost Increases: Their Future Impacts on Agriculture

The impact of rapidly escalating input prices of farm income, agricultural production, production adjustments, the general price level, the cost of living and capital requirements in the agricultural sector is a source of increasing concern to farmers, suppliers of capital to agriculture, and consumers of agricultural products. Record prices for agricultural commodities, such as feed grains and soybeans, partially masked the effects of a 52 percent increase in the index of prices paid for production items on net farm income during the period 1971–74. As agricultural machinery and farm buildings are replaced, world stocks of agricultural commodities are replenished, and domestic prices begin to decline, the magnitude of these cost increases will become more apparent.