use may cause local short-term water shortages. Water resources are valuable 

 to Southwest Florida, and future use and allocation will probably be deter- 

 mined by government action. Seasonal shortages of water may pose a serious 

 challenge to area farmers. To overcome this threat, farmers are likely to 

 seek new methods of irrigation, water retention, and water management. 



AGRICULTURE'S IMPACT ON THE ECONOMY 



Economic indicators that measure the performance or impact of agricul- 

 tural and other sectors range from aggregate indicators to multipliers. 

 Aggregate indicators such as employment and income are measures of economic 

 activity. Multipliers are used to predict economic change as the sector grows 

 or decl ines. 



In a recent study (Loehman and Hsiao 1979), the value of income, output, 

 employment, and import multipliers was calculated for Florida to express eco- 

 nomic change per dollar of final demand. Final demand consists of the demand 

 (purchase) of goods at the retail level. 



OUTPUT AND OTHER MULTIPLIERS 



Output multipliers give an estimate of the change in total output (dollar 

 value) per change in final demand. In 1970, the agriculture and forest prod- 

 ucts processing sector in Florida had four of the top five ranked multipliers 

 (ranked by size of multiplier). These subsectors included frozen package 

 foods, paper products and processing, meat and milk processing, and fish pro- 

 cessing. Primary production multipliers are listed in Table 15. 



Table 15. Agriculture output multipliers (Loehman and Hsiao 1979). 



Commodity Output multiplier 



Agricultural services 1.538 



Livestock products 1.477 



Field crops 1.470 



Vegetables and sugar 1.379 



Fruits and nuts 1.368 



Forest and nursery 1.267 



For each dollar increase in final demand (in and out of Florida), the 



dollar value of output related to farm production (i.e., support services, 

 processing, etc.) will increase 47.7% for livestock, 47.0% for field crops, 



37.9% for vegetables and sugar, 36.8% for fruits and nuts, and 26.7% for 



forest and nursery products. The dollar value of agricultural output will 

 increase 53.8%. 



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