The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

260 THE FREEMAN Maycurbed agricultural feedgrain exports,.threatening a permanentloss of markets that took years todevelop. Thus, agriculture, one ofour few industries still able tocompete, has been partially shutoff from world markets. Our family-basedagriculture, the strongestin the world, has a tremendousability to compete if only permittedto do so.liThe Farm Problem"Agriculture is over-crowded, asare most other businesses in theUnited States. We have too manydrug stores, too many hardwarestores, too many grocery stores,too many insurance salesmen, toomany barber shops, and so on•.This is the American way. Businessmenare supposed to be freeto enter any field of productionand trade in which they think theycan make a profit. The result iskeen competition in most businesses.The consumer benefits fromcompetition by getting better serviceand lower prices. Competitionalso has resulted in numerousbusiness failures. The typical businessearns a slim profit, if any.Only the best managed firms(those that serve the consumerbest), reap a substantial profit.Such is the nature of our cherishedsystem of competitive enterprise.The·agricultural business is especiallycrowded because it wasthe original and only way of lifefor many Americans. The movementof workers out of agriculturehas not been rapid enough toprevent this over-crowding. Farminggenerally is a wholesome,healthy, and satisfying work, andmany people are willing to accepta lower standard of living ratherthan give up such a way of life.Farming, because of its appeal,will always be crowded, and profitmargins for the "average" farmerwill always be low. Only the wellmanagedfarm, operated with ajudicious amount of modern toolsand the latest know-how, will yielda good profit. This is as it shouldbe, for this type of farm operationis serving the consumer best.Time and again we hear direpredictions of the take-over offarming by corporations. It is truethat the family farm has changedand tends to look more like a factoryevery day. My neighbor usedto be one of the largest poultryfarmers in the county with 3,000layers - and quite successful. Butprogress has left him behind.Those in the vicinity who intendto stay with chickens are building500-foot-long houses to hold 43,000birds in wire cages, wall-to-wall.These are still family-owned and-operated farms, but they are largeand efficient. Likewise, the dairyfarms of 30 years ago with 12 cows