Curse of American Abundance: A Sustainable Solution, The

NACTA Journal, Mar 2005 by Roberts, Owen

The Curse of American Abundance: A Sustainable Solution By Willard W. Cochrane, University of Nebraska Press, 2003, 156 pages, cloth-bound, $35.00

Stop me if you heard this one before: An agricultural economist bravely bursts into a meeting of the Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Agriculture, wild-eyed with excitement. "Eureka!" he says, "I have a solution for the curse of agricultural abundance! We'll turn the High Plains cropland back to pasture, and diversify the Corn Belt!" As security hauls him away he's heard shouting "Less pesticides!" and "More niche markets" in a fading voice. The secretaries shake their heads, mutter something about Utopian society, and get back to business.

Solutions to agricultural abundance have intrigued Willard W. Cochrane described in the foreword to The Curse of American Abundance: A Sustainable Solution as having "the mind of an economist...and the heart of an environmentalist" throughout his 50-plus year career. During that time, he's certainly had the ears of leading officials. He was an advisor to President John Kennedy, and an architect of that administration's poorly received supply-control plan for wheat. The ensuing political fall-out from that plan led to his departure from Washington, but didn't damper his zeal for arguing for a sustainable, less productive American agriculture system. In The Curse of American Abundance: A Sustainable Solution, he suggests overproduction will look after itself, if his (radical) suggestions are followed.

First, he wants the High Plains to revert back to grass, not crops, and he wants the farmers there to switch to livestock (including buffalo). He wants them to stop irrigating, because the Ogallala Aquifer is likely going to dry up, and they might as well make the switch voluntarily before they run out of options, he says. Those who can't adjust, or don't want to, should be relocated to where they either can keep crop farming, or do something else.

Second, he thinks the Corn Belt should stop growing so much corn. Diversify, he says. Raise some livestock there, too. And third, use less pesticides. He says they cost a lot, and harm the environment. They're contributing to intensive cultivation practices, which, he says, "are poisoning the land and water." He wants an army of extensionists and researchers hired and trained to help farmers understand sustainability and make this transition.

Cochrane says the bill for his sustainable vision won't exceed the $30 billion a year the U.S. government puts into its farm support programs. And, he thinks, this level of support of "green payments" would only last about five or 10 years, while farmers adopt sustainable practices.

This book would be good fodder for promoting discussions on sustainability, analyzing alternatives to ongoing farm support, the creating and implementing programs. It has some historical perspective as well; Cochrane walks readers through the problems of abundance as they emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, and offers some comparisons to the situation today. Students who understand agricultural politics will revel in Cochrane's naivety. At one point, he suggests the implementation of his program be so swift that once its announcement is made, all support payments be cut-off in one year. But students will also be challenged to come up with their own ideas for addressing critical matters such as the Ogallala situation. It's easy to criticize Cochrane and call him a wild-eyed idealist; it's much harder to come up with plan B, as our leaders continue to find.

Owen Roberts

Director, Research Communications

University of Guelph

Guelph, Ontario, Canada