U.S. agriculture is the envy of the world. Although output from U.S. farms is high, there is a growing gap between what is being produced and what could be produced, partly because innovation and production are constrained by a growing maze of environmental regulations.
"It has become increasingly clear that markets are the best system for improving resource allocation, prosperity, and environmental quality, and this is especially true for agriculture," write Hoover senior fellow Terry L. Anderson and coeditor Bruce Yandle in the prologue to Agriculture and the Environment (Hoover Press, 2001). They point out that "the federal government, responding to many interest group pressures, has implemented programs that disrupt the efficiency of the market and reduce environmental quality."
To address this problem, the Political Economy Research Center (PERC) and the Hoover Institution "brought together a group of scholars to explore how more reliance on market forces can improve both land-use efficiency and environmental quality," explain the editors. Agriculture and the Environment, "addressing the key areas in which agriculture and the environment intersect," is the result of these scholars' work.
The chapters, authored by leading experts in their fields, focus on the major environmental constraints that limit U.S. food production without necessarily improving environmental quality. In challenging these constraints, the authors address the most difficult questions facing agriculture today: How is urban sprawl affecting agricultural lands? Is the use of agricultural chemicals harmful to the environment? Are genetically modified crops dangerous to human health? How do taxes affect land use? Are we really running out of prime famland?
"In spite of the vast array of environmental and other constraints that affect productivity, U.S. agriculture is still the envy of the world," write Anderson and Yandle. "By eliminating the constraints of governmental regulations and harnessing market incentives, agricultural productivity can be improved even more and scarce environmental resources can be made more productive."
Terry L. Anderson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the executive director of the Political Economy Research Center, a think-tank focusing on market solutions to environmental problems, and professor emeritus at Montana State University.
He is the author or editor of 20 books, including Breaking the Environmental Policy Gridlock (Hoover Institution Press, 1997), which he edited, and Enviro-Capitalists: Doing Good While Doing Well (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997), coauthored with Donald R. Leal.
The Hoover Institution, founded at Stanford University in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, who went on to become the 31st president of the United States, is an interdisciplinary research center for advanced study on domestic and international affairs.
