American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century by Bruce L Gardner

American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century by Bruce L Gardner

American agriculture in the 20th century has given the world one of its great success stories, a paradigm of productivity and plenty. Yet the story has its dark side, from the plight of the Okies in the 1930s to the farm crisis of the 1980s to today's concerns about low crop prices and the impact of biotechnology. Looking at U.S. farming over the past century, Bruce Gardner searches out explanations for both the remarkable progress and the persistent social problems that have marked the history of American agriculture. Gardner documents both the economic difficulties that have confronted farmers and the technological and economic transformations that have lifted them from relative poverty to economic parity with the nonfarm population. He provides a detailed analysis of the causes of these trends, with emphasis on the role of government action. He reviews how commodity support programs, driven by interest-group politics, have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to little purpose. Nonetheless, Gardner concludes that by reconciling competing economic interests while fostering productivity growth and economic integration of the farm and nonfarm economies, the overall 20th-century role of government in American agriculture is fairly viewed as a triumph of democracy.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780674007482
ISBN 10	0674007484
Title	American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century
Author	Bruce L Gardner
Condition	Unavailable
Publisher	Harvard University Press
Year published	2002-07-31
Number of pages	480
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable