important from yet another perspective. We're a state 

 greatly involved in tourism. We feel ttiat visitors, when 

 they come, should have a good experience and we 

 must have a lot of the open space and must maintain 

 that open space. And because we don't have that 

 much land, agriculture provides a use of vacant land, 

 land that is open space, productive land that pro- 

 duces dollars and jobs. 



I think, in connection with the comment about farm- 

 ers getting older, if we assume that every farmer, and 

 those who follow them will want to get into agriculture, 

 I don't think it will be the kind of problems we would 

 be facing today. But, we need to recognize that not 

 all children of farmers want to become farmers. You 

 have a problem of new farmers trying to come in who 

 don't have the land and who don't have the capital to 

 get started. We think that it's important for that to be 

 addressed 



What we have attempted to do in our state is try to 

 provide some government land We have state land 

 that is not being used productively today, wasteland, 

 and we have attempted to put in some water and 

 some of the amenities, roads, in order that we can tell 

 farmers to come and they can farm as long as they 

 want to. The land will be used for agricultural pur- 

 poses, and it will be an agricultural rate so that they 

 can, indeed, farm these lands. And we think that is 

 very important. 



We think also that a very cruel thing for us to do is 

 to bring farmers on and not have them be able to 

 market what they produce. We believe that it's very 

 essential for the marketing side to also be addressed. 

 Growing the right crops and growing them at the right 

 time, and not having everybody going at the same 

 thing and having everything mature at the same time, 

 and have the bottom price drop out We think that 

 cooperatives are very important for this effort. We 

 think that it's important for government to get involved 

 in some of the marketing efforts, and this way we can 

 attract many people. 



We have in our state many young people who want 

 to get involved, but they find it difficult to get involved 

 because of the non-availability of land, and because 

 when farmers don't have their children who will take 

 on their business, they start looking at their retirement, 

 and land that is used agriculturally They start looking 

 at how they can get more out of this land now that 

 they are retiring. How can they maybe get it urban- 

 ized so that returns will be greater. And we feel that 

 is a problem that is very important and needs to be 

 addressed. 



(Governor Lamm): Yes, Governor King. 



(Governor King): Dick, I think that the panel did an 

 .excellent job. All of you ought to be complimented. 

 I'm sorry that the Secretary of Agriculture, John Block, 

 was not able to be here today to go through this fine 

 panel and also make his presentation of the problems 

 that he sees and is trying to solve. But I think there 

 are two things that we certainly should transmit to the 

 Department of Agriculture 



One is the strengthening of the dollar as it affects 

 and applies to imports or exports So, I think that we 

 definitely need to try to resolve this as much as possi- 

 ble. I know that it's a long-term type of problem and 

 situation, but we want to continue to point that out. Dr. 

 Castle, that we understand the situation 



Another subject that was pointed out also today, 

 was the fact of the high cost of money and need for 

 capital to operate agriculture. This again is a 

 long-term situation that will be difficult to resolve, and I 

 hope that as we discuss the budget we will try to 

 encourage the Congress and the administration to 

 resolve and come up with a budget, because I think 

 this does have a long-term effect. 



Those are two things that I specifically think we will 

 have to address and we will have to reckon with if we 

 are going to improve the economy of aghculture. 



(Governor Lamm): Yes, Dr. Castle. 



(Dr. Castle): I would like to comment on that As 

 an agricultural economist who also studied some 

 about macroeconomic policies, it has always seemed 

 to me that this is one of the most neglected areas in 

 public policy. We go about setting macroeconomic 

 policies with very little concern to the regional impact, 

 to the industry impact. 



In this country since World War II, we have had 

 eight business cycles and if you trace the history of 

 those business cycles, you will find, I believe, that 

 each time we have increasingly depended on mone- 

 tary policy as a way of controlling inflation Now that 

 may be necessary if we have nothing else But it 

 seems to me that we do have something else, and I 

 feel that unless we break this trend that we're going 

 to have tremendous effects on forestry and on 

 agriculture. 



As a matter of fact, I would argue that in the for- 

 estry and housing area, the impact this time has been 

 permanent. It has not been temporary There has 

 been a permanent long-run impact of the present 

 monetary situation, so I do think you put your finger 

 on an exceedingly important problem and one which I 

 think needs lots of attention and one which I think has 

 been neglected both in the public policy arena, as well 

 as in the academic arena. 



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