FOREWORD 
The Department of Agriculture, from time to time, receives re- 
quests for information on the losses incurred in the production 
of crops. In response to these requests, the Research Administrator, 
in June 1953, appointed a committee to survey this subject. The come 
mittee undertook to work up as reliable and well-cocumented estimates 
as possible on current losses to agriculture from insects, diseases, 
fire, ercsion, floods, etc., especielly losses that might be con- 
trollable through more general application of methods already know 
or methods that might be worked out by additional research. 
This report includes such information as the Department now has 
on the average annual losses to agriculture incurred during recent 
years, especially the peried 192 to 1951. The estimates are neces- 
sarily incomplete, since no opportunity was given for undertaking 
any special field surveys to obtain new data. They represent the 
best judgment of the Department specialists on crop and forest pro- 
duction, soils and soil conservation, livestock and mimal products, 
end agricultural economics. 
The summary indicates that such losses, evaluated at 19l2—-S1 prices, 
avereged about 13 billion dollars’ worth of goods per year, nearly 
one-third of the potential production. Some 120 million fewer acres 
of cropland (ignoring pasture and range requirements) would have pro- 
duced the 192-51 volume of food, feed, and fiber production if all 
these causes of loss had been eliminated. 
The committee points out that the dollar valuation assigned to these 
losses is not to be interpreted as meaning the financial loss to the 
farmers themselves resulting from the damages described. The com 
mittee gave no consideration to the price reductions that might have 
resulted from the larger crops that cculd have been produced if these 
losses had not been incurred. The only reason for placing a dollar 
valuation on these losses is that the financial value of the quantity 
destroyed or injured is the only common measure that could be used. 
The dollar figures represent the Department's evaluation of the losses 
incurred by the general public at the price levels of 192 to 1951. 
The specialists who made the estimates stated that many of them 
represented only the individual judgment of the staff members with 
little scientific or survey data as a basis. Accordingly, the report 
is issued for review by experiment station staffs and others inter- 
ested. It is released to the public with the ceution that future 
estimates may modify the figures very materially. 
B. Te. Shaw 
Research Administrator 
Agricultural Research Service 
