Farm Adjustments and Income on Typical Corn Belt Farms

Excerpts: How well can we expect typical farmers to adjust to new demands and changed conditions? This is a crucial question in this war. It will be equally important during the post-war adjustment. Taking the Corn Belt as an example, we now have a 33-year record of farm adjustments and income on typical farms, through war and peace and through good years and bad, as measured by prices, costs, drought, depression, and demand. From a study of this record, prognostications as to appropriate adjustments and as to farmer reaction, at least in the Corn Belt, to changes yet to come, might perhaps be figured with some feeling of certainty. This circular is therefore devoted to: (1) Analyzing the farm organization and changes in production of typical family operated farms in the Corn Belt from 1910-42, (2) ascertaining the degree to which types of farms are mechanized and the influence of technological developments on farm organization, and (3) analyzing the effects of shifts in production and changes in farm organization, farm practices and efficiencies, mechanization and adjustment, on the income and the economic well-being of operators on typical family farms in the Corn Belt.