A Centennial History of the AAEA

A CENTENNIAL HISTORY OFTHEAAEA Copyright 2010 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association. All rights reserved. No part of chis publication is to be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission in writing from the copyright holder. Contact [email protected] for permissions and/or more information. TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD ...... vii PREFACE ...... ix CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning ...... l CHAPTER TWO • From the American Farm Management Association To the American Farm Economics Association: How Mergers Happen ...... 15 CHAPTER THREE • The Association Finds a Voice: The Journal ofFarm Economics ...... 25 CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy ...... 35 CHAPTER FIVE• The Inconvenience ofWar ...... 51 CHAPTER SIX • The Contest ...... , ...65 CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business ...... 71 CHAPTER EIGHT• Some Major Problems ...... 87 CHAPTER NINE• Progress - the 1950s ...... 99 CHAPTER TEN • Celebrating Fifty Years ...... 109 CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years ...... 117 CHAPTER TWELVE • Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests ...... 131 CHAPTER THIRTEEN• Reaching.for Maturity ...... 143 CHAPTER FOURTEEN• Interactions and Alliances ...... 159 CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members ...... l 73 CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark ...... 187 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN • Many Acronyms, One Association: AA.EA at One Hundred ...... l 99 APPENDIX I • Membership Numbers ...... 209 APPENDIX II• The Constitutions ...... 213 APPENDIX III• Presidents ofthe Association ...... 215 APPENDIX IV• Fellows ofthe Association ...... 219 APPENDIX V • Annual Meeting Locations ...... 223 INDEX ...... 225

V To enhance the skills, knowledge, andprofessional contributions ofeconomists who help sociery solve agricultural development, environmental food and consumer, natural resources, regional rural and associated applied economics and business problems.

AAEA Mission Statement, 2008 FOREWORD

Speaking in 1959 O.B. Jesness, President of the American Farm Economics Association in 1937 and still in 1959 a faculty member at the University of Minnesota, called attention to the importance and relevance of history by saying, "[Before dismissing] what has gone before .. .let us recall that the present would be as impossible without a past as it would be hopeless without a future." Few statements describe the connection between past, present and future in such succinct and eloquent terms. The occasion for Jesness' comment was the Golden Anniversary celebration of the American Farm Economic Association - a forerunner of today's Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. Jesness was concerned that members of the 50-year-old organization had lost touch with their past and as a result would have difficulty divining a future for their work. Now, fifty years later, a related concern is worth contemplating: have we heeded the lessons of our Association's past sufficiently well to more effectively divine our future? The future will always remain uncertain, but the members of the association are fortunate that Paul W. Bar­ kley, longtime faculty member in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Washington State University, has taken time from his retirement to collect the information needed to write a history of the first 100 years of the organization's life. We can all now be satisfied that Barkley's focus on the past has provided insight into the present - into what the Association is today. In doing this he helps fulfill at least a part of Jesness' admonition. Barkley is a leader in our profession in his demand for correctness and his skill in the use of language. In this book, he sets the stage by going back to the time of the American Civil War. He brings us quickly to the formation of the American Economic Association in 1885. He does not shy away from or apologize for the notion that we are related (cousins, perhaps) of the members of that larger and older association. The formation of the American Farm Management Association in 1910 was not a split from a hostile or uninterested group. It was a new alignment designed to accommodate the needs of a growing number of economists interested in agriculture and its related industries. These new economists were a diverse lot. The group included horticulturists, farm crops specialists, mathematicians, and managers who came together at summer schools sponsored by the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, forerun­ ner of today's Association of Public Land Grant Universities. In 1910, the participants in the summer schools with interests in the cost and returns side of farming met and agreed to form the American Farm Management Association. This meant that many economists with little interest in farm management but strong interests in other aspects of agriculture were "stranded" in the American Economic Association. They quickly moved to form the American Association of Agricultural Economists and the two organizations lived an arm's­ length existence for nearly a decade until they merged into the American Farm Economics Association in 1919.

Vil Barkley uses the 1919 merger to open a dialog on communication that continues (with some interruption) to the end of the book. He reasons that fostering communication is one of the major purposes of the organization. The Journal came immediately after the 1919 merger; an essay contest in 1945 saw the popularity of the Association soar as it communi­ cated ideas to the general public; various strategies were developed to enhance communica­ tions within the membership; but efforts to popularize (to make general use of) the messages emanating from agricultural economics research sometimes failed to reach their intended audiences. Barkley comes back to and explains this theme repeatedly as he works through the decades of the association's life. The lessons of these sections provide lessons as well as a basis for discussions among contemporary AAEA members. Other themes are present. The gradual expansion of the list of publications. The dif­ ficulty that attended finding a method of preserving the literature of the profession. The competition and cooperation with other societies and groups interested in agriculture. All are present and explained. In my opinion, some of Barkley's best work comes near the end of the book. In chapters 15, 16, and 17 Barkley tackles what may be the most difficult aspects of the association's life as it enters its 100th year. Chapter 15 reveals the need for change in some of the governing documents, management practices and organization of the association. It tells of the move to "sections" to satisfy the need to deal with the increased specialization and diversity of the members. It tells of the development of a strategic plan to guide future activities, and it ad­ dresses the fact that many agricultural economists were having difficulty finding a comfort­ able home in the organization. Chapter 16 tells of substantial efforts to change the organization and of the complicated path taken prior to changing the name to the Agricultural and Applied Economics Asso­ ciation. Chapter 17 provides some plausible explanations of why the association had been losing members. These may not be exhaustive but surely, they identify major reasons - and reasons that will require continued attention in the coming years. This last chapter is seri­ ous and daunting business but Barkley does not allow it to become negative or maudlin. I cannot say that the book ends on an entirely happy note, but there are also many positive threads of logic here and readers are challenged to grasp them, learn from history, and be inspired to carry the association forward in a positive and successful way into the next cen­ tury of its life. All things taken, Paul W Barkley has lived up to the dictum established by O.B. Jesness in 1959. The present is possible and it is what history has made. Although difficult to fully contemplate, the future is opportunity, and the understanding of our history facilitated by this book will assist members of the AAEA in avoiding some past pitfalls that could distract us as well as facilitate identifying and exploiting opportunity. Barkley deserves congratula­ tions for a job well done. The book is "advised reading" for anyone who belongs or who may belong to the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

- Ron Mittelhammer, AAEA President 2009 - 2010

Vlll PREFACE

In 1910, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association came into being as the American Farm Management Association - a society devoted to expanding the extent and usefulness of knowledge related to the efficient use and operation of farms, farm products, and farm-re­ lated resources. Although any interested person could join, the young association drew most of its members from government agencies and from the nation's colleges and universities, especially the Land Grant Colleges established through the provisions of the Morrill Act of 1862. The Association grew slowly and somewhat erratically for seventy or more years, with membership reaching a high of nearly 5000 in the 1980s. Increased membership, rapidly changing technology in agriculture, severe poverty in rural areas, two World Wars, the Great Depression, the emergence of government as an important factor guiding the path of agricultural development, and a lasting drought forced members of the Association to continually rethink the scope of the organization's activities. The changing nature of the members' interests caused continual frustration over the associa­ tion's name. No fewer than three times during its first century, members tried to rectify this by asking for the Association to adopt a more descriptive name. It seemed the name could never be broad enough to encompass all of the members' interests. Since the 1980s, membership has dropped rapidly and, while not abandoning interest in farms and food and agriculture, the organization's focus gradually changed toward "ap­ plied economics" - the use of economic theories, concepts, and methods to solve real-world problems. In most respects the members have always been applied economists, and they continue to this day to use the tools of economics to solve real problems. In 2008, the time of the last name change, the hope was that the new name and new emphases within the or­ ganization would revitalize the membership and make the AAEA an organizational home for additional scholars, academicians, and policy makers. It is far too early to tell if the gambit has been successful. While the future path of the Association is not at all clear, the past is. This book is the story of the first one-hundred years in the life of the AAEA. It centers on the paths taken by the Association's members as they developed and arranged their organization to make it a tool of communication among them. To a lesser extent, the story recounts the efforts made to establish useful and continuing communication between members and non-members, some of whom could make use of the research findings coming from this collection of agri­ cultural and applied economists. By any of its names, members of the Association brought focus to their work through the application of the tenets of economics - a discipline with a long and prominent history. While the book from time-to-time touches on issues pertinent to the economics discipline, its emphasis is almost entirely on the association that members used as a means of commu­ nicating with each other. The story told here is one of establishing lines of communication, modifying them to make them (and, hence, their users) more effective, and finding ways to make the results of disciplinary activity more useful to non-scientific users.

ix X PREFACE

The story centers on a number of sub-themes easily defined by questions. How have members used the Association to improve their technical skills? What kinds of meetings have held the members' interests? What institutional ch_anges brought enough revenue to keep the Association alive? What has lasted for a century? Are these and related questions still important to the members, to the leaders, and to the various clientele that use the As­ sociation's products? This is not a story with a moral. The book does not attempt to change readers' views on subjects related to economics, agriculture, or economic analysis. It is a story of how an organization behaved through a century of rapid changes in society, in economic theory, in research methods, and in agriculture - the economic activity that proved so fascinating at the time the Association was organized. Reading the book should provide two major insights. First, it should reveal how difficult it has been (and is!) for agricultural and applied economists to make the public, or small parts of it, hear and absorb the messages formed and clarified by applied economics research. Second, it should offer an indication of the dif­ ficulty surrounding institutional change even in a small and relatively homogeneous group such as the membership of a modern scholarly association. Within the MEA, for example, ideas regarding publications, libraries, collections of work, and collaboration with similar organizations came up year after year after year without the leaders embracing an activity or taking action to appease the members' desires. No formal tally exists, but it seems that the most frequently used phrases in the minutes of official meetings were "motion tabled" and "no action taken." Apparently, the leadership of voluntary organizations has, often to the detriment of the group or to its purpose, a great reluctance to act. This tells about the subject of the book. Nothing has yet been said about the actual circumstances surrounding its being written. How did the book come about? Who thought it was a good idea? Where did the basic information reside? Answering these questions is a story of its own. In early 2002, Jean Kinsey, then President of the American Agricultural Economics Association, visited the Department of Agricultural Economics at Washington State Uni­ versity. Jean had come to WSU to present seminars related to her work at the University of Minnesota. During a lapse in the official schedule, she stopped by my office to "visit." With no particular agenda, we talked of things related to the Association and of things related to our respective academic departments. As the visit was ending, our conversation turned to the fact that the MEA would be celebrating its centennial year in 2010. Jean mused that someone should write a "centennial history'' of the organization. At that time, I was completing 35 years of service on the faculty at WSU and had already sent to the Dean of Agriculture a letter indicating my intention to retire. Although I had some unfinished business to take into retirement, I was concerned that retirement would not be satisfying if it meant giving up professional work in and with agricultural economics. I am unsure whether Jean Kinsey or I made the suggestion first, but there was a strong intimation that I should take on the task of writing the Centennial History. I was flat­ tered, and I agreed ... and began what proved to be the most demanding and most difficult research and writing task ever brought to me by my profession. There were no rules. There was no budget. There was no "advisory committee." The only specification relating to the task was that the book had to be completed and ready for distribution at the 2010 summer meeting scheduled for July 25-27, 2010 in Denver, Colorado. At the time, that seemed a long way off. PREFACE xi

Soon after accepting the assignment, I retired from WSU, moved to Corvallis, Oregon and established an informal relationship with the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department at Oregon State University. By late 2005, most other tasks reached completion and attention turned to full-time work on the history project. The work should not have been hard. The American Agricultural Economics Associa­ tion began in 1910 as the American Farm Management Association. In 1919, it merged with another group of economists and became the American Farm Economic Association. Importantly for those who depend in part on publications for their professional lives, in 1919 it began to publish a journal: The journal ofFarm Economics. In addition to the schol­ arly papers, the journal included minutes of meetings, committee reports, and newsy notes regarding the activities of the members - the kinds of things that provide a glimpse of an organization's history. It soon became clear that the information provided in the journal and other regular publications of the Association provided a very limited view of the As­ sociation's aspirations, efforts, and work. More than this, the Association did not maintain a systematic way of keeping track of its own activity: there was no archive! The journals and other publications of the Association provided many notebooks filled with my notes. I contacted all living past presidents of the Association asking them to com­ ment on things that happened during their stint in leadership. Some replied; others did not. I contacted archivists at the libraries that serve the Land Grant Colleges. Many were very helpful. The greatest help came from materials the Mann Library at Cornell University has online at http://chla.library.cornell.edu/ and from 133 boxes of uncatalogued materials held as a "special collection" for the Association at the National Agricultural Library at Beltsville, Maryland. The librarians at the National Agricultural Library were especially helpful dur­ ing the five weeks that I spent searching the boxes of materials. EDI, (Executive Director, Incorporated, the management firm that handles business affairs for the Association), made significant contributions related to membership, budgets of the Association, and finding most of the photographs and illustrations that appear in the text. The manuscript began to take form in mid-2007. In late 2008, it went to the formal re­ viewers Otto Doering (Purdue), Ken Farrell (University of California, Berkeley), Jean Kinsey (University of Minnesota), and Mary Marchant (Virginia Tech). Several other individuals - too many to mention - read chapters or parts of chapters at various times during the pro­ cess. All helped strengthen the manuscript and the story it intends to convey. After review and repair, the chapters went to Mr. Kenrieth Hall in Cleveland for technical editing (Hall had earlier served as technical editor for the last few hard-copy issues of Choices Magazine). Ken not only helped put the prose in order, he added significantly to the organization and message of the book. I also received on-the-spot advice and help from the Agriculture and Resource Economics Department at Oregon State University, from Emery N. Castle and Steve Buccola in the Department, and from Lela Barkley, a cheerful helpmate and a sensitive critic when the spoken word is transferred to the written page. Many, many thanks to all who contributed. CHAPTER ONE The Beginning

The Agricultural and Applied Economics Association is the fourth generation - the great grandchild! - of The American Farm Management Association (AFMA) born in Ames, Iowa, on July 27, 1910. The interests of its members quickly evolved and the name of the Association changed to The American Farm Economic Association in 1919. In those days, members were mostly practical physical scientists applying economics to real world observa­ tions in a maturing rural sector of the economy. As the principles of microeconomics and the theory of the firm developed, scientists began to study the economics of individual farms and farm enterprises. By 1968, changing political, economic, and academic conditions led to another name change, and the Association became The American Agricultural Economics Association. The organization continued and prospered until 2008, when once again a shift in interests and a desire to add descriptive power to its name caused the Association to change its name, this time to The Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. In each case, the key words "farm management," 'Jarm economics," "agricultural and applied economics"were suit­ able descriptors that identified the meaning and purpose of the organization in its various eras. Members as well as interested non-members knew that regardless of the name(s) on the letterhead, the Association welcomed for membership anyone who was interested in the broadly defined economics of agriculture, food, and natural resources. Even as the organiza­ tion's name changed in search of greater "truth in packaging," the activities of those in the Association continued to extend over more themes than the names implied. And it remains that way today: the name "Agricultural and Applied Economics Association" does not reveal all of the ways that members use economic data, theories, and methods to study the food system and the resources and institutions used to support it. Although the word ''American" was a part of the name for many years, the Association is truly international in membership, interests, and influence; and the work and records of the Association continue to grow. The one-hundredth anniversary of the organization's formation provides a unique op­ portunity to pause and ask how the organization started, what it was intended to do, and whether or not it has been successful in its efforts. Two separate stories help explain the origins of the group that eventually became the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. One story deals with the development of the discipline of economics as practiced in the United States in the years before the Asso­ ciation was organized. A second, and in some ways parallel, story tells how early American economists applied the insights of the discipline to the study of the production, processing, and marketing of farm commodities, and to the consumption of food.

·1 2 CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning

Time warps and flashbacks complicate the stories, but, as told here, both begin in the United States at the close of the American Civil War in 1865. 1 The stories merge into one in 1910. The Economics Line of Descent The American Civil War (1861-1865) imposed, as wars will, massive burdens on the U.S. economy. During the conflict, both North and South put all available energies and resources into military equipment and activities. Efforts to develop a non-war-related in­ frastructure halted and did not resume until the rebound from the war brought improved transportation and communication networks. The nation's small pre-war cadre of econo­ mists, or political economists, expanded rapidly in number. Although no accurate count exists, nearly all major universities and colleges in the nation had the capacity to teach eco­ nomics or political economy by the end of the 1860s.2 Most American economists of the late 19th Century embraced the economics of Adam Smith and taught the merits of specialization, free trade, and limited government activity (laissez faire). Smith's iconic notions relating to the "invisible hand" fit well with the political and economic thinking of American scholars, policy makers, and students of the era. However, while the mainstream of economics embraced in the United States was es­ sentially "Classical" or "Smithian" economics, a small number of U.S. students who stud­ ied in Germany returned to the United States advocating the economics of the German or Historical School's approach to economic problems. The differences were striking. The Classical Economists - the Smithians - developed theories and explanations about how the economy worked, and then used deductive lines of reasoning to apply these explanations to governments and industries. The Historical School viewed economic affairs as being cultur­ ally specific and in a constant state of evolution. The School's adherents accumulated data, searched for patterns of behavior in the data, and used inductive reasoning to explain why the economy behaved as it did. This would be of little importance except that many of the individual economists who were influential in forming the early associations of economists obtained their training and degrees in Germany and were advocates of the very liberal ap­ proaches to economics and methods taught by the Historical School. Regardless of their theoretical training and their own special interests, the economists of the post-Civil War era took advantage of the new forms and easier modes of communica­ tion. They began to talk among themselves about the advances in understanding of the way the economy functioned, its strengths and weaknesses, and the potential for the formulation of policies that could improve various parts of the system. Scientists' understanding of the economy continued to evolve as theories, hypotheses, and hard data became available. The period between 1865 and 1900 was a time when people got together in groups for social, religious, intellectual, and political purposes. The telephone and the automobile were not widely available, so people enjoyed such leisure as they had by gathering in clubs, societ­ ies, and associations for face-to-face discussions and to exchange ideas. The list of organiza-

1 The choice of 1865 as a starting place is acbiuary. Some writing and some policy rdating to the economics of agriculture in the United Scates traces to much earlier times. However, these very early efforts usually reflect the work done by individuals working independently. There was no broadly-based group or association to help unify their efforts. 2 In the early years of rhe discipline, the terms "political economics" and "political economy" were used to describe the study of producing, disuibucing, and consuming goods and services. As the 19"' Century progressed, "econom­ ics" gradually took over as rhe term used to describe rhe discipline. CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning 3

tions with origins in this post-Civil War era is extensive. The Patrons of Husbandry (more commonly known as the Grange) began in 1867. The American Bar Association organized in 1878, and the American Red Cross in 1881. The American Historical Society dates from 1884, the Chautauqua circuits started in 1874, and the Association of American Agricul­ tural Colleges and Experiment Stations held its first meeting in 1886.3 Economists were no different. They saw value in discussions and debates about the progress of their discipline, and its increased role in advising policy makers. Discussions regarding the formation of an asso­ ciation or a society of economists began in the early 1880s, and in 1884, Dr. Edmund]. James (University of Illinois) and Professor Simon N. Pat­ ten (University of Pennsylvania) proposed, and even drafted a constitu­ tion for, an organization to be called The Society for the Study ofNational Economy. Agriculture was the specific theme in two of the proposed con­ Dr. Edmund J. James Photograph courtesy of stitution's eight major articles.4 However, though the proposed society the University ofIllinois received widespread notice among economists, the idea failed to yield a at Urbana-Champaign Archives. club, a society, or an organization. 5 By 1885, though, dispositions among opinion leaders in the disci­ pline had changed. In September of that year, several prominent econo­ mists met at Saratoga, New York, to outline the purposes of and write a platform for an association of economists. 6 Richard T. Ely Qohns Hop­ kins University), a highly trained German School economist, consented to serve as recording secretary and spokesman for the group.7 Somewhat

later, Ely wrote about the meeting: Professor Simon N . . . . it was not proposed to form a society of advocates of any po­ Patten Photograph courtesy ofthe University litical opinion or set of opinions .... Likewise, it was not aimed ofPennsylvania. to form a society to champion any class interests, either of rich

3 Although dealing mainly with social organizations of the 20"' Century, Robert D. Pucman's Bowling Alone (N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, 2000) provides a detailed analysis of the rise and fall of clubs and organizations in the United Scates. 4 The constitution and platform for the proposed society were all pare of one complex document. The constitu­ tion called for discussion, publication, and collaboration among economises. The seventh of eight "articles" listed numerous problems specific ro agriculture (settlement, tenancy, credit, soil erosion, crop selection, etc.). The pro­ posed constitution ended with a list of" ... obvious methods of serving the common interest ... " which called for comprehensive surveys of agriculture, establishment of experiment stations, and subsidies ("bounties and excep­ tions") ro encourage progressive farming. The proposed constitution appears as Appendix III in Richard T. Ely's Ground Under Our Feet: An Autobiography (N.Y.:Macmillan Company, 1938). 5 The James/Patten proposal is discussed in Richard T. Ely, "The American Economic Association 1885-1909: (Wich Special Reference ro Its Origin and Early Development), an Hisrorical Sketch," American Economic Review Quarterly, 3,d Series Vol. 11, No. l, Papers and Discussions, April 1910. 6 The meeting at Saratoga was not a "by chance" or a "special" meeting. The economises in attendance were there because many of chem were members of che American Historical Society chat was holding its second annual meet­ ing in the Bethesda Parish Building in Saratoga. The economises cook the opportunity offered by the meeting co outline an organization of their own. 7 See Richard T. Ely, "Report of the Organization of the American Economic Association," Publications of the American Economic Association (1:5-32) March 1886. Ely recalls chat 20 named individuals as well as "several och­ ers" were at the inaugural meeting. 4 CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning

or of poor, either of employer or employe[e]. ... The ideal of this new so­ ciety, as it presented itself to the minds of its projectors, was to seek light, to bear light, to diffuse light - ever the highest aim of all true science. 8

Ely went on to state specific objectives of the new Association: I. The encouragement of economic research. II. The publication of economic monographs. III. The encouragement of perfect freedom in all economic discussion. IV The establishment of a Bureau of Information designed to aid all members with friendly counsels in their economic studies.9

The statement of objectives preceded a lengthy platform that expanded the themes mentioned in the objectives. In the platform, Ely admitted the desirability of personal ini- tiative and markets that are free of interference. Even so, he wrote " ... we hold that the doctrine of laissez faire is unsafe in politics and unsound in morals .... " He continued by commenting that" ... the conflict oflabor and capital has brought to the front a vast number of social problems whose solution is impossible without the united efforts of Church, state, and science." 10 Ely's provocative comments elicited controversy among those in attendance, but he and his followers made the compromises needed to satisfy the dissenters. After minor changes, the group accepted the objectives as well as the platform. The American Economic Association (AEA) formally came into be­ ing on September 9, 1885. Those in attendance elected Dr. Francis A. Walker of MIT (who was not present) as President, and asked Ely to continue as Secretary. They also established seven standing committees to conduct the work of the new Association. 11 The committees related to broad segments of the economy that were, at the time, somewhat prob­ lematic for economic theorists, analysts, and policy makers. The list in- cluded committees relating to: Dr. Francis A. Walker • Labor Transportation • Trade Public finance • Exchange General questions of economic theory

8 Richard T. Ely, "The American Economic Association 1885-1909: An Historical Sketch" 9 The meaning and rationale of the first three objectives seem obvious. The fourth is somewhat vague. Was Ely suggesting that the proposed association create a clearinghouse for what we now call "networking," or a repository for information or data? The four objectives are mentioned in several writings from the era. Some slight differences in wording appear in the various lists. 10 Richard T. Ely, "Report of the Organization of the American Economic Association," Publications ofthe Ameri­ can Economic Association (1: 17) March 1886. 11 The standing committees were much like the "sections" in today's AAEA. Their status as committees insured that the topics could have a place on the program at each annual meeting, and they formed the nucleus of a network for economists interested in a particular subject. Having the committees and encouraging all members to be a part of at least one committee was important to the early Association. CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning 5

• Statistics12

Two additional standing committees came later: • Industrial and technical education • Teaching political economy

Biography: Richard T. Ely (1854-1943) Richard Theodore Ely was born in Ripley, New York, in 1854. He was educated at Fredonia Normal School, Dartmouth College, and Columbia University before earning the PhD at Heidelberg University in Germany in 1881. His first academic appointment was at Johns Hopkins University (1881-1892). Following this, he spent many years as Director of the School of Economics, Political Science, and History at the University ·ofWisconsin. In the mid 1880s, he was instrumental in establishing the American Economic Association. Ely was a controversial figure. Many thought chat he helped establish the AEA as a means of furthering the German Historical School's Photograph courtesy of University ofWisconsin­ inductive approach to economic research and as an organization chat would further the Madison Archives. importance of the "Liberal Christianity" of the era. He spoke out about the dangers of the doctrine of laissez faire. He and his followers and many of his former students advocated increased government involvement in economic and social affairs. Ely was a devout Christian who thought that religious teachings - individual and group - should guide economic thought and policies. His radical views moderated in his lacer years, as he evolved from being an outspoken and activist labor economist to being a less radical but very insightful teacher ofland economics. His major contributions ro agricultural issues include a 1917 volume on the conservation of natural resources and a 1924 textbook on land econom­ ics. He finished his academic career as a research professor at Northwestern University. ·Ely's last published work was "The Founding of the American Economic Association'' published in the American Economic Re­ view in 1936. He died in 1943.

The AEA's failure to appoint a standing committee on agriculture is surprising, given the ongoing importance at the time of agriculture to the national fabric. While agriculture was not the nation's largest commercial industry at the time, over 70 percent of the popula­ tion lived in rural areas plagued by economic and social problems. 13 The settlement of the Western lands was not yet complete; transportation was lacking; and the frontier towns did not provide the infrastructure needed to provide living conditions suitable for any but the hardiest settlers. The crops grown in quantities beyond that needed for domestic consump­ tion traded in international markets, and were subject to the trade regulations imposed by importing countries. Credit was available at usurious rates when it was available at all, and even domestic markets for domestic products operated at low levels of efficiency. The most prevalent agricultural (and rural) problem was the widespread poverty that stemmed from low prices commanded by agricultural products. The problem was a substan­ tial imbalance between supply and "direct" demand: too many sellers trying to sell too much to too few buyers, exacerbated by a steady flow of new settlers who brought additional land into agricultural production. The result, coupled with technical advances in production, was a continuing increase in the supply of commodities, even though there was no commen­ surate increase in demand. Commodity prices remained low or even worsened and poverty

12 The "Statistics Commitree" was more concerned with the collection and availability of data than with formal methods used to draw inferences from available information. This committee as well as its successor committees worked closely with the Census Bureau in collecting and publishing relevant information about the population and the economy. 13 Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial Edition, Part 2, Washington, DC, 1975. 6 CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning continued in rural areas. The problems in the industry were self-reinforcing. Individual farmers struggled to generate additional products, but in so doing, they contributed to the surpluses that helped drive prices even lower. Even though the early leaders of the AEA did not think it necessary to appoint a stand­ ing committee for agriculture, agricultural and agriculture-related themes found prominent places on the programs of the AEA's annual meetings. Between 1885 and 1910, the AEA's journals published thirty-one papers devoted to agricultural matters. 14 The first of these was "Three Phases of Cooperation in the West" by Amos G. Warner Qohns Hopkins) in 1887. The paper, 110 pages in length, provided a careful analysis of the cooperative movement, especially as pursued by the Patrons of Husbandry (the Grange). The effort to establish cooperatives was viewed as a way to rid commerce of the "middlemen'' who were widely thought to be raking large profits from rural-urban trade. Farmers felt that if they themselves controlled the transactions in buying or selling, the profits and other advantages would accrue to the owners and operators of the cooperatives. Warner raised a hand of cau­ tion against such endeavors. He reasoned that the farmers' isolation, and their concentration on the difficult bur limited tasks associated with farm production did not qualify them for the myriad tasks associated with the successful operation and management of complex coopera­ tive businesses. In general, Warner thought they lacked the skills of commerce. 15 By 1893, AEA members with special interests in agriculture were presenting major papers in important time slots at the AEA'.s annual meetings. These contributions served to show the broad family of economists that the interest in the economics of agriculture was legitimate. The presentations also enhanced the confidence and the reputations of the schol­ ars who made them. Even without a society of their own, the early agricultural economists were proving their legitimacy among their peers. C.S. Walker (Massachusetts Agricultural College) was among the early speakers. In 1893 he spoke on "The Farmers' Movement: The Movement in the Northern States" in which he capably pointed out that the rapid increases in land in farms and in production technology had contributed to the oversupply of com­ modities and, therefore, to the low prices that brought poverty to the agricultural sector. 16 E.W Bemis (University of Chicago) followed with "The Discontent of Farmers," which compared the politically active farmers of the United Stares with the cautious and conserva­ tive farmers of Europe.17 One important feature of early AEA programs was the "roundtable," a forum dedicated to the discussion of a topic that was found to be interesting and important to a significant number of the Association's members. In 1897, the economists interested in agriculture put together a discussion session that had all the characteristics of a roundrable, even though it was not formally designated as such by the program planners. The issue was whether agri-

14 The American Economic Association did not publish a "journal" until 1911. Prior to that time, the Association published Publications of the American Economic Association (1886-1907) and the American Economic Association Q}larterly (1908-1910). Proceedings of most annual meetings are recorded as are membership lists for most of the early years. The pre-journal papers (1885-1910) are indexed in index of Subjects," American Economic Review, (7:5-24) Supplement, December 1917. 15 Amos D. Warner. "Three Phases of Cooperation in the West," Publications ofthe American Economic Association, (2:9-119) March 1887. It was not unusual in this era for certain volumes of the AENs publications to include only one or rwo lengthy papers or articles. 16 C.S. Walker. "The [Farmers'] Movement in the Northern States," Publications ofthe American Economic Associa­ tion (8:62-74) January 1893. 17 Edward W Bemis, "The Discontent of Farmers," Publications of the American Economic Association (8:74-76) January 1893. CHAPTER ONE• The Beginning 7 culture was unique enough to warrant special study by economists. Liberty Hyde Bailey, a widely recognized and respected horticulturist at Cornell University, organized the program tided "Is There a Distinct Agricultural Question?" He focused the conversation around seven "theses." Bailey himself was unable to attend the session, but the theses, listed below, formed the basis for a discussion led by WA. Scott (University of Wisconsin).

1. The rapid increases of the system of land renting, the absorption of small holdings by wealthy land owners, and the abandonment of the farms are changes that will benefit the farming class of the country at large. These changes are similar to those that have taken place in other lines of industry. 2. Mortgage statistics are of slight importance in determining the agricultural status. 3. The common system of unvaried cropping has been very detrimental to the mental aptitude of the farmer, and has thus put him into a position of the unskilled laborer. 4. The efflux of the young people from the farms has been due in good part to the rapid development of manufacturers, which has furnished the opportunity to work under supervision. The tendency will be checked under the new system of farming which affords the same opportunity to those not competent to direct their own work successfully. 5. The new system will restore to the farms the scholarly, influential farmers of the earlier days. 6. The best effects may be expected to follow the rural delivery of mails and the exten­ sion of electric railroads into the rural districts. 7. The farmer is ready for a better education; and through educational means chiefly, working in harmony with normal economic changes already begun, the status of the farmer will be much improved. 18

There is no available record of attendance at Bailey's session, but nine individuals made publishable comments. The nine chose to respond by expressing their individual views re­ garding agricultural economics and the agricultural economy.

Biography: Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858-1954) Liberty Hyde Bailey was an important figure in American agriculture, the Land Grant college system, and the early organizations of economists interested in agricul­ ture. Born in Michigan in 1858, Bailey soon became active on his father's apple farm. He entered Michigan Agricultural College with an insatiable curiosity about botany and horticulture. After graduation and two years of newspaper work, he enrolled at Harvard University to complete his studies. With studies complete, he came back to ' Michigan Stare (as Michigan Agricultural College had become known) as an assistant professor of horticulture. Three years lacer, he joined rhe faculty at Cornell University Photograph courtesy of and began a prodigious life of teaching, experimentation, and writing. In 1901, he Liberty Hyde Bailey Museum, A National developed and edited a 32-volume set of books published as a "Principles of Agricul­ Historic Site. ture" series. Bailey became rhe Dean of Agriculture at Cornell in 1903. He was among the first of the nation's Deans of Agriculture to treat agriculture as a business as well as a subject of scientific study. Before his tenure as Dean was completed, he put in place rules insisting that all students in Cornell's College ofAgriculture spend some rime learning practical applications in farming. He also insisted that all students in the College take at least one course in political economy before leaving Cornell. In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt chose Bailey to chair the important Commission on Country Life. Bailey died in 1954.

18 Liberty Hyde Bailey. "Is There a Distinct Agricultural Question?" American Economic Association: Supplement to Economic Studies (2:52-67) February 1897. 8 CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning

Several themes run through these comments, as follows: First, if there is a villain that bedevils agriculture, it must surely be the railroads. Not only do the railroads charge exorbitant rates when getting farm products to market, but in selling their land grant lands, they roll back the extensive margin of cultivation and en­ courage additional land to become commercially productive. Second, Bailey's question with respect to mortgage rates does not have a definitive answer. The scholars discussing Bailey's work viewed agriculture as a highly diverse industry. This diversity allowed some parts of the industry to be very profitable while other parts suffered from the general recession that was gripping the nation during the 1890s. If this is true, a single "explanation" resting on the rate of foreclosure is an inadequate indicator of the industry's health. Third, those participating in the discussion could not come to consensus on whether rural areas are good or bad places to reside. Fourth, the problems of agriculture arise because of an imbalance between capital and labor with high rewards often going to the capitalists (landowners) while day laborers, itinerant laborers, and tenants suffer low incomes and poverty. Finally, the commentators, without significant knowledge regarding the required kinds of policies or regulations, noted that the tension between owners and laborers could only be relieved through government intervention and policy. Although a scattering of articles related to agriculture appeared in the following years, the next major appearance of agriculture in the AEA's annual program came at the 1903 meeting in New Orleans. Perhaps influenced by the location of the meeting, six papers deal­ ing with three southern crops - rice, cotton, and tobacco - appeared on the program. The papers were interesting and comprehensive but they showed no special focus on economic problems in a fashion similar to the discussions of Bailey's "seven theses." While agriculture and the agricultural industry had found its way onto several early AEA programs, Agricultural Economics had not. The program planners would not fully recognize the subject, or sub-discipline, until 1907 when the program included a round­ table, called simply "Agricultural Economics." T.N. Carver (Harvard University) organized the session. He and 12 other economists struggled with the always-difficult task of defining agricultural economics and providing an outline for a college-level course on the subject. Carver opened the roundtable by suggesting that, "The question for the economist and the statesman [has become] how to make the whole country prosperous. We are ... looking at the agricultural industry from the public point of view. We are concerned to know the con­ ditions which will make for national prosperity through the prosperity of ... agriculture." 19 Carver's 12 respondents held diverse views. Some wanted to discuss economics, while others wanted to discuss agriculture. Two course outlines appear in the comments. R.P. Teele, an employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, offered one of the outlines. He noted that many units within the USDA were conducting economic studies but, as of 1907, no generally accepted definition of agricultural economics had evolved. He reported that the Office of Experiment Stations in the U.S. Department of Agriculture had settled on a definition:

19 T.N. Carver, "Agricultural Economics," Publications ofthe American Economic Association, 3"' Series (9:59) 1908. The other speakers or commentators were Kenyon Butterfield, E.D. Jones, R.P. Teele, F.W Blackmore, H.C. Tay­ lor, J.M. Glenn, J.C. Thompson, WA. Peck, E.C. Parker, David Kinley, B. H. Hibbard, and W D. Hoard. Nine of these can be identified as members of AEA in 1907. CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning 9

Rural economics treats of agriculture as a means for the production, pres­ ervation, and distribution of wealth by the use of land for growing of plants and animals. It may include the development of agriculture as a business (history of agriculture), as well as the facts and principles of farm management under present conditions.20

Teele's outline included sections that dealt with the history of agriculture and sections that dealt with farm management. Under the latter heading, he focused on the traditional factors-of-production approach. He ended his course outline with one section on marketing and one section on farm records and accounts, but provided no indication regarding the relative importance accorded each of the several topics in the outline. B.H. Hibbard (University of Wisconsin) provided an alternative course outline. Like Teele's, it focused on the neoclassical factors of production: land, labor, and capital. Hibbard suggested that students should learn that the farmer is a coordinator, in the sense that he is at once an entrepreneur, a landlord, a capitalist, and a laborer. Hibbard followed this important introduction with a series of nine specific questions based on the farmer's relationships to other firms and industries in agriculture and in the outside world.21 The very existence of the first Agricultural Roundtable should be seen as a mark of suc­ cess. It showed that a number of economists were recognizing that the economic problems of agriculture deserved special consideration. The session also revealed a lack of unity among the economists interested in agriculture. Some core themes would need to be identified if the subject were to progress as a legitimate part of the family of economists. During the same period, agricultural marketing began to develop as a topic of interest. John Lee Coulter (Harvard) introduced marketing as a major theme, although he likely did not think of it as such, when he spoke on "Cooperation in the Marketing of Agricultural Produce" at the 21 st annual meeting of the AEA in Atlantic City in 1908.22 This was a new development. Prior to this, agricultural economics had been essentially a study of produc­ tion, farm administration (farm management), and the relationship between agriculture and the remainder of the economy. A second Agricultural Round table came in 1909. This time, the theme was "The Prob­ lems of Country Life." In it, James Bryce and T.N. Carver (both from Harvard) responded to an opening statement given by popular Irish agricultural reformer Horace Plunkett. Plun­ kett was a strong advocate of small-scale farming, halting or slowing the flow of population to the cities, and rural residents forming cooperatives to counteract the growing economic power and control held by the urban population. Carver laid out three main reasons why this Irish model was inappropriate for agriculture in the United States: (1) "geometry," indicating that the large scale (size) of individual farms caused manag­ ers and overseers to lose control oflabor; (2) "seasonality," indicating that farm laborers cannot perform the same tasks all year, and (3) "temperament," which means that the farmer (or supervisor) must give and change orders very frequently- an activity that requires interpersonal skills when dealing with workers.

20 Ibid., page 65. 21 Ibid., pages 78-79. 22 John Lee Coulter, "Cooperation in the Marketing of Agricultural Produce," American Economic Association Quarterly, 3"1 Series (I 0:258-265) April 1909. 10 CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning

These three factors made the close cooperation experienced in urban settings impossible to attain in rural areas. Carver held some sympathy with Plunkett, but he saw differences between rural and urban populations that would hinder the end of the rural-urban Bow of population that Plunkett abhorred. Carver also saw the small-scale farming apparent in the settled areas of the United States as a factor that would provide incentives to encourage farm children to remain in or return to rural areas. 23 By 1910, agricultural economics had become a recognized sub-discipline of economics, and agricultural economists continued to appear on the programs of the annual meetings of the AEA. However, the general disposition was similar to that stated by Carver in 1907: Agricultural economics was a sub-discipline of economics that focused on agriculture's role in making the nation prosperous. In general, this required concentrating on the macro as­ pects of the industry. If Carver was correct, the individual farm was not an important object of inquiry. This was not a satisfactory position for those scientists and economists who were interested in the management or administration of individual farms. The disaffected group was increasingly concerned with developing an opportunity to discuss on-farm problems with other like-minded economists. This led to a second line of inquiry leading to the development of modern agricultural economics, one which might be profitably called "the agricultural line."

The Agricultural Line of Descent The period between 1865 and 1900 brought confusion and anxiety among the nation's farmers. While economic output in a number of sectors of the economy increased dramati­ cally, heavy industry most of all, agriculture wrestled with low commodity prices and im­ balance between supply and demand. Farmers tried to respond to the problems of poverty and isolation by organizing, in the hope that collective action, with the weight of numbers, would be more effective than individual action. Accordingly, farmers organized the Grange, the Agricultural Wheels, the National Farmers' Alliance(s), and scores of other organizations in an effort to influence legislation. They tried to develop cooperative buying and selling firms that could eliminate intermediaries so that agriculture could compete more favorably with big businesses like banking, transportation, and warehousing.24 In 1888, several of the farmers' organizations united with organized labor to form the People's Parry (also known as the Populist parry), whose grand hope was to generate enough political power to make the federal government more responsive to the problems faced by agriculture. Although the Grange and then the Populists had modest successes in some areas and in some years, reaching perhaps its high water mark in 1896 with the nomination of William Jennings Bryan as the Democratic Parry's Presidential candidate, organizing- even when done on a national scale - did not seem to answer the problems faced by individuals and firms in the agricultural industry. 25

23 Sir Horace Plunkett, et al., "The Problems of Country Life," Publications ofthe American Economic Association, 3w1 Series (I 1:171-83) May 1910. 24 Cooperatives and cooperation were prominent themes in the literature and politics of agriculture in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Grouping into cooperatives had been somewhat successful in England and the hope was that the success could be transferred to the New World. The Grange had sought to develop cooperative buying and selling activities as early as the 1870s. Other groups followed with varying degrees of success. The popular and technical journals of the era are filled with articles about cooperation and cooperatives. Most spealt of advantages; few spealt of the problems associated with this form of business organization. 25 For an explanation of the "farmers' movement" in the late 1800s, see Murray R. Benedict, Farm Policies ofthe United States, 1730-1350. New York:The Twentieth Century Fund, 1953, especially Chapter 6. CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning 11

Much of the agricultural industry was in economic turmoil as the 19th Century ended. Even so, economists at the older and established institutions of higher learning did not de­ vote significant attention to problems faced by individual farms or farmers. 26 Instead, they concentrated research efforts on broad themes like railroads and rail rates, city gas compa­ nies, tariffs, land settlement, the role of money, and other wide-ranging topics. While some of these broad studies were of critical importance to the agricultural industry, few if any of the results of economic research provided advice for an individual farmer regarding how to increase his annual profits or the capital value of the farm. In contrast, economists and "agriculturalists" at the Land Grant colleges began to notice and investigate the economic problems and characteristics of individual farms, and took an increasingly "hands-on'' approach to addressing them. In 1874, Isaac P. Roberts moved from Ames, Iowa, to Ithaca, New York. In each location, he was manager of the farms operated by the state agricultural college. His approach to management began with a complete inventory and mapping of all assets available on the farm. He used this as the basis for a plan showing how a shift in the use of the farm's assets could yield increased returns for the farm opera­ tion. In 1874, Roberts began to teach "farm accounting" to students at Cornell. Roberts required his students to become acquainted with the actual practices associated with farming as well as the necessary scientific knowledge that supported or justified various management decisions. 27 Other teachers followed this hands-on method of inventorying farm assets and adjusting production accordingly. 28 WJ. Spillman (USDA), one of the chief organizers and the first president of the American Farm Management Association, was a trained horticulturist. In 1894, he be­ came head of the experiment station at the Washington State Agricultural College. For several years thereafter, Spillman sought out the most pro­ ductive farms in the surrounding area, learned as much as possible about them, and made recommendations to other farmers using the experiences W.J.Spillman Photograph courtesy of of the elite farmers as an information base. His work became a practical Manuscripts, Archives application of the science that he had mastered. 29 and Special Collectiom, Washington State Liberty Hyde Bailey was doing much the same thing in and around University Libraries. Tompkins County, New York. Like Isaac Roberts before him, Bailey insisted that students enrolled in Cornell's agricultural curriculum have some hands-on

26 The "established institutions of higher learning" were beginning to call themselves "universities." This group included such schools as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, and Penn. The land grant schools continued as "col­ leges" and generally endured the criticism that they could not match the high quality of scholarship found in the universities. Regardless of those differences, few if any academic economists of the era were studying individual firms in any industry. The "theory of the firm" did not find its way into economics until after Alfred Marshall had introduced and amplified the theory in his remarkable 1890 book, Principles ofEconomics; an Introductory Volume. After its publication and given enough time to absorb its meaning, economists began to research and write about individual firms in many industries. 27 Isaac Phillips Roberts, Autobiography ofa Farm Boy. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1946. Esp. Part Three. 28 There is no direct evidence that others copied Roberts' methods. Interest and activity relating to farm account­ ing, "farm management," or "farm administration" seems to have developed simultaneously at several of the larger and established colleges of agriculture. 29 Laurie Winn Carlson, William]. Spillman and the Birth ofAgricultural Economics, Columbia: University of Mis­ souri Press, 2005. 12 CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning experience with farming. 30 Other faculty followed similar patterns in other states, and as the relationship between the physical and biological sciences and economics deepened, the usefulness of a new area of focus - farm management, or farm accounting, or farm admin­ istration - acquired legitimacy, and became an integral part of the agricultural curriculum at Cornell and other colleges and universities. This science-based manner of facing the eco­ nomic problems of agriculture and farming firms eventually gained favor among individual producers as well as among those interested in the technical aspects of the industry. The period 1895-1910 saw farm management or agricultural economics introduced to the curricula at many- perhaps most - Land Grant (agricultural) colleges. Table 1 provides examples of the spread of coursework in the new academic field.

Table 1: Examples of Early Course Offerings in "Farm Economics"• STATE FACULTY NAME OF COURSE YEAR Ohio T. Hunt Rural Economics 1892 W. Virginia T.C. Atkinson Rural Economics 1897 Rhode Island Fred W. Card Farm Management 1898 Cornell (N.Y.) George Lauman Economics of Agriculture 1901 Minnesota Andrew Boss Cost Accounting 1902 Wisconsin H.C. Taylor Agricultural Economics 1902 Iowa Benjamin Hibbard Agricultural Economics 1904 Harvard T.N. Carver Economics of Agriculture 1904 Cornell (N.Y.) G.F. Warren Rural Economics 1907 Georgia J.R. Fain Farm Management 1907 Oregon H.D. Scudder Farm Management 1907 Massachusetts K. Butterfield Agricultural Economics 1908 Wisconsin D.H. Otis Farm Management 1909 • Earlier courses did exist. The University of Illinois, for example, listed a course in ''Agricultural Economy" in 1868, the same year in which Cornell University listed a course in the "Economics of Agriculture." Additional information regarding these early courses and their instructors can be found in Henry C. Taylor and Anne Deweese Taylor. The Story ofAgricultural Economics in the United States, 1840-1932. Ames: Iowa State College Press, 1952.

With so many similar courses developing at the Land Grant colleges and agricultural schools, it was perhaps inevitable that the scientists, teachers, and administrators would want to establish communications amongst themselves, and perhaps develop a degree of consistency and uniformity in course content. The Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations (AMCES), founded in 1887, provided the forum in which these discussions could take place.

30 In the 1930s, G.F. Warren, another leader in the formation of the American Farm Management Association, wrote that people like Roberts, Spillman, and Bailey were what gave farm management (and later agricultural economics) its strength. These men all began their academic careers as "practical scientists" (botanists, chemists, horticulturists, and the like) and as such, learned their lessons through a combination of study in the laborarory, study in the field, and study in the lecture hall. On the other hand, many general economists at the time learned entirely through textbooks and lectures with very little contact with the real world. Combining the teaching strate­ gies provided the hybrid vigor that has served agricultural economics very well. See G.F. Warren, "The Origin and Development of Farm Economics in the United States," Journal ofFarm Economics (14:2-9) January 1932. CHAPTER ONE • The Beginning 13

At the 1899 meeting of the AMCES, Professor Thomas F. Hunt, Dean of the College of Agriculture and Domestic Science at The Ohio State University, proposed a "Summer Graduate School" for the agricultural faculties of the nation's colleges and universities. The plan called for a month-long summer session at which existing faculty members from all agricultural and related disciplines could learn the latest issues and findings in their respec­ tive fields.31 The faculty presiding over the summer sessions was to include the top scientists from universities, colleges, and government agencies. The proposal gained approval in 1900, with the first Summer Graduate School scheduled for The Ohio State University from July 7 until August 1, 1902.32 Once the school was underway, thirty-five faculty taught classes to 75 "students," who were themselves actually faculty members from agricultural colleges in other parts of the United States. The original plans for the Summer Graduate School called for a session each two years. However, the second Summer Graduate School was held at the University of Illinois in 1906, where 35 faculty taught a student enrollment of91.33 Neither the first nor the second Summer Graduate School included courses devoted to agricultural economics, farm man­ agement, or rural sociology. 34 However, Spillman, by this time head of USDA's Office of Farm Management, gave three lectures about economic problems on individual farms, and Liberty Hyde Bailey gave several informal talks on a number of rural problems. The third Graduate School convened on the Cornell University campus in July 1908. As in 1902 and 1906, no formal lectures were devoted to agricultural economics, farm man­ agement, or rural sociology. Even so, interest in these subjects ran high, as did attendance at informal evening sessions led by H.C. Taylor (Wisconsin), G.N. Lauman (Cornell), and L.H. Bailey (Cornell). Planners for the 1910 Summer Graduate School noted this level of interest, and agreed to put courses related to rural economics and rural sociology into the school's curriculum. G.F. Warren (Cornell) spent some time at the 1908 Summer Gradu­ ate School urging all those interested in farm management or farm re­ cords to attend the Summer Graduate School scheduled for Iowa State Agricultural College in the summer of 1910. Warren's objective was transparent. He, with help from others, wanted to use the 1910 Summer Graduate School as a sounding board for organizing a society of profes­ sionals interested in farm management. In 1909, the Iowa State College of Agriculture invited all interested George F. Warren Photo­ graph courtesy of Come!! colleges and universities to send their agricultural faculties to the fourth University. Summer Graduate School. The Iowa College ofAgriculture offered excel­ lent physical facilities and suggested that the Summer Graduate School faculty (57 scholars, of whom 11 were leading administrators in the United States Department of Agriculture) would give lectures and seminars on plant physiology and pathology, agronomy, horticul-

31 A.C. True, A History ofAgricultural Education in the United States, 1785-1925. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1929. 32 The Summer Graduate School's financing came from assessments against all schools in the AAACES and by a tuition charge paid by each student. In 2009 dollars, the charge against the school would be about $235 and each student would pay about $135 for the month-long sessions. 33 While 91 students were "enrolled," class lists indicate that as many as 131 "srudenrs" attended the classes. The extras were primarily faculty members from the University of Illinois and nearby schools. 34 During this era, rural sociology was frequently associated with agricultural economics and farm managemenr. Taken together, the three made up the social science aspects of the agricultural curriculum. 14 CHAPTER ONE • The Begi.nning

ture, animal husbandry, poultry, dairying, rural engineering, rural economics, and rural sociology. Total enrollment in 1910 was 207, of whom three were African-American, and three were women. In addition to the usual classes in physical and biological sciences, Kenyon L. But­ terfield (Massachusetts Agricultural College), B.H. Hibbard (Wisconsin), W J. Spillman (USDA), and H.C. Taylor (Wisconsin) offered courses under the heading "Rural Econom­ ics." On Tuesday, July 26, 1910 a "considerable number" of persons - students and others - interested in farm management investigations and teaching met to discuss the possibility of forming an association to be known as the American Farm Management Association."35

Townshend Hall at The Ohio State University, site of the first Summer Graduate School in 1902.

35 Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, Proceedings ofthe Annual Convention of the Association ofAmerican Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations (25:19-29) Washington, DC, 1911. These proceedings note that some individuals other than Summer Graduate School students had come to the Ames cam­ pus to show their support of the formation of a farm management association. CHAPTER TWO From the American Farm Management Association to the American Farm Economics Association: How Mergers Happen

As the 1910 Iowa State College Summer Graduate School was ending, a number of indi­ viduals interested in farm management met to discuss the possibility of forming a national association. At an organizational meeting held the evening ofJuly 26, the group asked G.N. Lauman (Cornell) to act as temporary chairman and G.F. Warren (Cornell) to serve as temporary secretary. After discussing issues relating to the formation of an association, the group voted unanimously to proceed. C.W Pugsley (University of Nebraska), E.H. Webster (Kansas State Agricultural College), and M.E. McCullock (Iowa State Agricultural Col­ lege) served as a "Committee on Organization," and WJ. Spillman (USDA), D.H. Otis (Wisconsin), and Harry Hayward (Delaware), later joined by B.H. Hibbard (Wisconsin) and G.N. Lauman (Cornell), served as a "Committee on Scope and Cleavage." 1 The group also appointed standing committees on Investigation (Research) and on Courses of Study.2 The Committee on Organization gave its report the following afternoon, July 27. The report was accepted and a Constitution adopted. WJ. Spillman was elected President, while Warren was confirmed by election as Secretary-Treasurer. The Constitution (appended at the end of the book) called for an annual meeting and allowed for "active" (voting) members and "associate" (non-voting) members. The dues for membership, active or associate, were $1 per year. 3 The first full meeting of the newly organized American Farm Management Association (AFMA) followed, the afternoon ofJuly 28, 1910.4 The meeting was devoted to discussions of the report prepared by the Committee on Scope and Cleavage, which had been charged with defining the intellectual and scholarly boundaries for the new association. While doing this, it also tried to rationalize the differences between the AFMA and the American Eco­ nomic Association (AEA). This was no mere foolish excursion, born of jealousy or arrogance. For several years prior to 1910, economists interested in agriculture had split into two broad groups based on what might be termed "level of analysis." One group was interested in providing infor­ mation of immediate use to decision makers at the farm level - to farmers. The other was

1 Interestingly, neither Hibbard nor Lauman appear on the early membership lists of AFMA. 2 The term "investigation" refers to what is now called research. The AFMA used this term well into the 1930s. 3 The "Cost of Living Calculators" available on line indicate chat the 2009 purchasing power of a 1910 dollar hov­ ers around $24. Quite clearly, the organization's dues (now $125 per year for a regular member) have outstripped inflation! 4 Some differences exist as to when the association was actually formed. The three sessions held in conjunction with the Graduate School did three things. The first session was a general discussion resulcing in a decision to move ahead. The second session dealt with organizational matters and the election of officers. The third - a more formal meeting of the group - provided the opportunity for members to discuss important issues that faced the new or­ ganization. The brief discussion of the organizational process appearing in the proceedings of the first meeting says the AFMA was "organized July 27, 1910." The American Farm Economic Association, Report ofthe First Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, 1910. 15 16 CHAPTER TWO • From the AF.MA to the AFEA: How Mergers Happen concerned with theoretical economics and with the relationship between agriculture and broadly defined political economy. The more recently arisen farm management group want­ ed to be very careful about the range of themes that would be appropriate for its members, in order to set off the new association from other collections of economists. After all, many potential members of the new association were already members of the American Economic Association. Thus, the Scope and Cleavage Committee had to tread very carefully to avoid alienating members or potential members who might feel more at home with the AEA, and to avoid the perception that the new association was in any way redundant. The Committee on Scope and Cleavage began its report by recall­ ing Kenyon Butterfield's (University of Massachusetts) address, ''Analysis of the Rural Problem," given on the opening day of the 1910 Summer Graduate School.5 Butterfield offered definitions of five characteristics (he called them "aspects") of agriculture useful to a college faculty as it sought to understand and solve problems associated with farm firms and the agricultural industry. They were: The technical aspect: "Farm Practice" or ''Agriculture." How Kenyon Burcerlield Photograph courtesy of can the individual farmer most efficiently and economically uti- Special Collections lize the laws of nature in the growing of plants and animals? Department, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University 2. The business aspect: "Farm Administration," or "Farm Man- ofMassachusetts Amherst. agement." How can the individual farmer so organize the factors of production - land, labor and capital - on his farm, so adapt farm practice to his particular environment, and so dispose of his product, as to yield him the largest net return, while still maintaining the integrity of his land and equipment? 3. The scientific aspect: ''Agricultural Science." How can we learn more of those laws of nature which control the growth of plants and animals for human uses, how apply those laws of procuring of an increased food supply, and how at the same time conserve the natural resources upon which the food supply depends? 4. The industrial aspect: ''Agricultural Economics." How can farmers as a class se­ cure the largest financial success, while giving to the consumers an adequate food supply and maintaining the soil resources? How [can farmers] adjust systems of land tenure, means of transportation, methods of marketing, systems of taxation, institutions of credit, and protective and stimulative legislation, to the legitimate industrial needs of the farming class? 5. The community aspect: "Rural Sociology." How can the people who farm best utilize their industrial and social environment in the development of personal char- acter, best co-operate for their common welfare, and so best maintain permanent institutions which are to minister to the continued improvement of the common or community life? How best organize- the personal and community resources of the rural people for the purposes of contributing most fully to national welfare?6

The Scope and Cleavage Committee used these aspects, especially the second, fourth, and fifth, as general terms to be followed as they defined the boundaries of the field. In its final report, the committee said very simply

5 Butterfield delivered a somewhat longer plenary talk earlier in the 1910 sessions. The new Association ordered this portion of his talk printed along with the Constitution and the committee reports. 6 American Farm Management Association, Report ofthe First National Meeting, Ames, Iowa, 1910, pp.3-4. CHAPTER TWO • From the AF.MA to the AFEA: How Mergers Happen 17

The field covered by Farm Management is: 1. The organization of the farm, in which we deal with such questions as types of farming, equipment, labor, etc. 2. Farm operation, in which we deal with the various types of farming as they are conducted in the various regions where they occur.

The committee continued: Farm management deals with the rural problem from the individual or private point of view. It differs from agricultural economics or rural economics and from rural sociology in that these subjects view the rural problem from the national or public point of view. 7

The Committee on Scope and Cleavage thus accepted the then-popular and easy-to­ understand convention that economists (including agricultural economists, rural economists, and rural sociologists) devote attention to how agriculture affects and is affected by the per­ formance of the overall economy. The Committee referred to them as economists interested in "public problems." The farm management economists work with the agricultural and rural economists, but quite clearly, their focus was the individual farmer or the farm firm. The Committee saw them - and they saw themselves - as "private economists." Even though the suggested boundaries of the new Association seemed to fit with long­ held ideas, the AFMA was not yet satisfied that it had defined itself as being significantly different from the AEA. The Scope and Cleavage Committee immediately sought support and validation of its recommendations by asking the American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations (AAACES) to appoint a committee to define the subject matter of farm management and to provide sample course outlines for teachers of the sub­ ject. The AAACES responded to the request by appointing the "Committee on Instruction in Agriculture."8 The committee was asked to report its findings in 1911.9 When the Committee on Scope and Cleavage completed its report, the newly orga­ nized AFMA's Committee on Course of Study presented the results of its own delibera­ tions, a report necessarily limited because only two days had passed since the formation of the Association. The committee recommended that each college determine the appropriate place in its curriculum for a course in farm management. It further suggested that such a course should be available to a student only afrer he or she had decided to major in a pro-

7 American Farm Management Association, Report ofthe First National Meeting. Ames, Iowa, 1910, pp.4-5. 8 Committee members were A.C. True (USDA), T.F. Hunt (University of California), J .F. Duggar (Auburn Uni­ versity), W.E. Stone (Purdue University), H.C. White (University of Georgia), and H.J. Waters (Kansas Stare Agricultural College) Of these, only T.F. Hunt contributed to the discussions surrounding the question of cleavage. 9 The 1911 report included statements and suggested definitions submitted by ten leading figures employed in agricultural colleges or in the United States Department of Agriculture. The report is not conclusive, but it is in general agreement with the AFMA's Committee on Scope and Cleavage's belief that farm management refers to the study of individual farms while rural economics (or agricultural economics) refers to studies of the way agriculture firs into the entire or macro economy. In its report, the AAACES Committee on Instruction in Agriculture said: " ... there is a general consensus of opinion, although nor entirely unanimous, that there are two classes of subject matter in rhe field of economics. One class of subjects deals with the farm as a unit; the other deals with the com­ munity as a unit. When differentiated, the course of study dealing with the first class of problems has been usually, but nor always, called farm management; the course of study dealing with the second has perhaps always been called rural economy or economics or agricultural economics, unless further subdivision has taken place." Report of the Committee on Instruction in Agriculture, 1911. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Experiment Stations, Circular 115. Washington, DC, 1912. 18 CHAPTER TWO • From the AF.MA to the AFEA: How Mergers Happen duction field in agriculture (agronomy, horticulture, animal husbandry, etc.), taken at least one course in the chosen production field, and taken one course in "rural economy." The committee recommended that after meeting these requirements the student should devote at least three hours per week for one-half of the school year to laboratory studies in one (or more) of nine specified subjects shown in Table 2-1. 10 Most of the lab studies helped the student understand the physical layout of a farm and record keeping. The Committee on Investigations did not submit a report at the 1910 meeting.

Table 2-1: Possible Laboratory Topics for a Minimum Course of Study I. Learn farm accounting 2. Inventory the property on a farm 3. Inspect all farm property using a map 4. Develop a plan for the use of farm property 5. Develop drawings to show proposed arrangements of fields, fences, and buildings 6. Develop comparative "score cards" for different farm purposes 7. Plan cropping and feeding systems 8. Make trips to successful farms 9. Keep records of one year's activity on home farm

Having gotten itself off the ground, the Association held its second annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio in November 1911. Some of the meeting's sessions were held jointly with the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Sciences, the American Society of Agronomy, and the American Society of Animal Nutrition. 11 The first joint session was given over to improvements in methods of agricultural investigation (research). The second joint session was tided "What is Farm Management and What Will Be its Contribution to Agriculture?" WF. Spillman opened this session, with Lipman (Rutgers University), Taylor (Wisconsin), Hayward (University of Delaware), and Warren (Cornell) providing additional comments before the session was turned over to discussion from the floor. 12 Much of the second and third annual meetings (the third meeting was held in Washing­ ton, DC) were devoted to reports from the Association's two standing committees, the Com­ mittee on Investigations and the Committee on Teaching. The two committees presented counts and descriptions of activities under way at each of the approximately 45 schools that had a College of Agriculture or other administrative unit devoted to the subject. The reports also discussed departmental structure (Table 2-2) and the types of on-going investigations. The Teaching Committee encouraged teachers of farm management to use on-farm experi­ ences during the course of study, and the Committee on Investigations strongly advocated college-sponsored farm records (accounting) projects and cost-of-production studies.

10 The committee adds an interesting note suggesting that "more time is recommended whenever this department in a college is well organized." Report ofthe First Annual Meeting, July 1910. 11 The Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science was an exclusive "by-invitation-only" association orga­ nized in 1879. Membership included forty scientists, all in physical or biological fields. The Society's purpose was ro exchange ideas and to extend information regarding agriculture. In 1882, I.F. Roberts, the Cornell farm manage­ ment expert, was asked to join. In 1892, the membership list was expanded to 100. Spillman was asked to join in 1903 and by 1906, L.H. Bailey, Andrew Boss (University of Minnesota), and Kenyon Butterfield were tapped for membership. 12 Neither the speakers' comments nor a record of the discussion survive. CHAPTER TWO • From the AF.MA to the AFEA: How Mergers Happen 19

Table 2-2: Location of Parm Management in College Administrative Structure, 1911 Administrative Arrangement Number Farm Management not taught 3 Separate department 3 Combined with another department 41 Combined with Agronomy 25 Combined with rural or agricultural economics 3 Combined with agricultural extension 1 Combined with animal husbandry 1 Not stating department with which combined l

The AFMA did not publish a journal, but beginning with its fourth meeting, held in Washington, DC, in 1913, the Association published a proceedings issue that carried the full text of papers and addresses given at the annual meeting. The proceedings issue from 1913 is 125 pages long, with only five pages devoted to the business aspects of the Association. The articles (papers) concentrate on classroom teaching (lectures, laboratories, and field work), as well as problems associated with gathering and using data. During the Association's 1913 business meeting, the members passed a resolution asking the President of the Association to appoint a committee "to consider the standardization of terms and the desirability of projects." Although the resolution was adopted, the committee was not formed until 1915. However, once it was assembled, it continued to meet well into thel940s. 13

Biography: Henry C. Taylor Henry C. Taylor was a huge figure in the early years of the American Farm Manage­ ment Association and later in the American Farm Economics Association. He was born on an Iowa farm in 1873. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Iowa State Agricultural College in 1896 after undergraduate work at Drake University and Iowa State. His studies continued until he earned a PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1901. After rwo years of study in Germany, Taylor came back tO Wisconsin to es­ tablish the University's first course in farm economics. He went on to help organize i:he University of Wisconsin's Department of Agricultural Economics in 1909. Photo courtesy ofFarm In 1919, Taylor left Wisconsin to help integrate and coordinate the USDA's work Foundation. in economics. The result was the Bureau of Agricultural Economics - a powerful and 1 highly diversified research unit that made great strides in the 1920s and 1930s. Taylor left the USDA in 1925 to join the Land Economics Research Institute at Northwestern University. After rwo years at Northwestern, he went to Vermont's Country Life Commission. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made him a member of the U.S. delegation to the International Institute for Agriculture in Rome, and in 1935, he ac­ cepted the invitation to become the first Managing Director of the Farm Foundation, a position he held for a decade. Although his contributions to the discipline were many and well recognized, the work that is perhaps the most lasting is his encyclopedic book on the development of agricultural economics, The Story ofAgri­ cultural Economics, which he authored with his spouse, Anne DeWeeseTaylor, in 1952. Taylor died in 1969.

Not all economists with interests in agriculture joined the AFMA, however. Those with interests in such topics as agricultural policy, marketing, transportation, international trade, and land settlement chose instead to maintain membership in the AEA and to meet with other agricultural economists at the annual meeting of that organization. There appear to

13 The need to consider terminology was a holdover from the earlier work of the Committee on Scope and Cleav­ age. The earlier committee noted that different schools and different individuals used different terms ro describe the same phenomenon. The Committee on Terminology was instructed ro develop a consistent and standardized glossary of terms for the profession. 20 CHAPTER TWO • From the AFMA to the AFEA: How Mergers Happen have been about 40 economists in this group. In 1913, a number of these agricultural econo­ mists joined or met with the National Conference on Marketing and Farm Credits. This was a loosely held organization that argued for the coordination of agricultural societies in an effort to force unity in American agriculture, similar to the unity found within industrial labor and capital. 14 By 1915, it became clear that the Conference on Marketing and Farm Credits was not fulfilling the needs of the agricultural economists, so a committee of three: Paul Vogt ( The Ohio State University), WO. Hedrick (Michigan State University), and J.L. Coulter (Wis­ consin), inquired into the possibility of forming a separate organization. Meeting again with the Conference on Marketing and Farm Credits in 1916, the economists decided to organize the American Association of Agricultural Economics (AAAE). 15 Alexander E. Cance (Mas­ sachusetts) served as President and WO. Hedrick served as Secretary and Treasurer. The new organization devoted itself to five purposes: 1. To unite the interests of agricultural economists. 2. To promote the study of various phases of agricultural economics. 3. To disseminate information relating to the subject of agricultural economics. 4. To collect and disseminate information concerning agrarian legislation. 5. To hold an annual meeting.

Though it was a separate society, the AAAE scheduled its annual meetings to coincide with those of selected host organizations, usually the Conference on Marketing and Farm Credits or the National Association of State Marketing Officials. While the AAAE was organizing and trying to hold onto ab our 40 members, the AFMA grew to include 255 individual and 21 institutional members. 16 The August 1915 meeting of the AFMA in Berkeley, California, was a joint session with the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science and the American Society of Agronomy. The Association appointed two additional members to the 1913 Committee on Terminology and, in response to the growing interest in outreach, it added a standing Committee on Farm Management Exten­ sion.-

14 The National Conference on Marketing and Farm Credits, sometimes referred to as just "Marketing and Farm Credits," was a Chicago-based organization devoted to organizing agriculture to give the industry more political power. The conference was organized mainly by journalises and the leaders of farm commodity organizations. The annual National Conference Convention was very popular and could attract as many as 2000 to the meetings held between 1913 and 1917. The membership lists include some individuals identifiable as agricultural economists. The forward to the proceedings of the 1915 meetings reads "In presenting chis volume to the public the committee believes that a new note has been sounded in the lit­ erature ofagricultural economics. In the three years of its existence the National Conference on Marketing and Farm Credits has interpreted the changing thought of American Agriculture. That thought, in chose three years, has progressed from the individualistic viewpoint to the social concept." Marketing and Farm Credits; Proceedings of the First National Conference on Marketing and Farm Credits in Chicago, April 8, 9, and 10, 1913. Published by cooperating farm papers, page x. (Emphasis added.) 15 The AAAE is sometimes referred to as the National Association ofAgricultural Economists (NAAE). 16 The term "institutional member" most often referred to libraries chat joined the organization in order to receive the organization's publications - especially the journals and proceedings issues. Somewhat later, the term "insti­ tutional member" designated industrial firms or foundations interested enough in agricultural economics to pay significantly more than the annual dues charged to individual members. CHAPTER TWO • From the AF.MA to the AFEA: How Mergers Happen 21

Another Society: The American Association of Agricultural Legislation "The American Association of Agricultural Legislation" (AAAL) was formed in Philadelphia in 1917. It did not intend to compete with other ag-related organizations formed at about the same time. It saw a future in which agriculture would have the same power in the law as labor and capital did in the early 1900s. In 1919, Ely spoke about the new Association at the annual meeting of the AFMA. He estimated that the AAAL would eventually have 25,000 members. See Richard T. Ely, "American Association for Agricultural Legisla­ tion," Journal ofFarm Economics (1:109-114), October 1919. A more detailed discussion of the AAAL and its platform is in Liberty Hyde Bailey, "Field and Purpose of the American Association for Agricultural Leg­ islation," Presidential Address given before the AAAL at Chicago, 1919. Bailey's address is online at

In 1916, the Committee on Extension reported rapid increases in the number of states with farm management extension agents and programs. This was good enough news, but the committee also reported that one of the main problems facing farm management extension was the limited farm management background of the agents. Several states were using their entire extension budget to train their agents. More important to the AFMA, the Commit­ tee on Extension raised questions regarding the usefulness of the Association to professional agents who worked day-to-day with an on-farm clientele. In response, the members voted in favor of publishing a popular-level magazine (along the lines of Choices in recent years) to provide technical information to a lay audience. A majority of those voting was in favor of su_ch a publication, but the low turnout for the vote led to the Executive Committee's deci­ sion not to move ahead with the suggestion. 17 The groups that usually served as annual-meeting hosts for the American Association of Agricultural Economists began to weaken in 1917 and 1918. The National Association of State Marketing Officials decided not to hold a meeting in December 1917 and the Na­ tional Conference of Marketing and Farm Credits decided that its work was completed. It decided not to meet in 1917. As a result, the MAE chose to hold its annual meeting with the AEA in Philadelphia. The AFMA was also planning its 1917 annual meeting to be in Philadelphia - also with the AEA. This seemingly coincidental meeting provided the op­ portunity for these two groups of economists to discuss the desirability and possibility of a merger. 18 At the beginning of the AFMA's December 29 business meeting, President H.W Jeffers (a New Jersey farmer) appointed a "Resolutions Committee" made up of F.W Peck (Uni­ versity of Minnesota) as chairman, G.F. Warren (Cornell), and H.R. Cox (a publisher from the Curtis Publishing Co.). After hearing reports from the committees on investigation, reaching, extension, and terminology, the business meeting turned to the report prepared by the Resolutions Committee. Two of this committee's resolutions were among the most important items to come before the AFMA and its successor associations. The first was for a rule that established the Association's relationship to political activity. It said:

17 In accordance with Article N of the Association's Constitution, the Executive Committee included the Presi­ dent, the Vice-president, and the Secretary-Treasurer. 18 A comprehensive account of the Association of American Agricultural Economists is in H.C. Taylor, "The De­ velopment of the American Farm Economic Association," Journal ofFarm Economics (4:92-100) April 1922. 22 CHAPTER TWO • From the AFMA to the AFEA: How Mergers Happen

"[Resolved] that the American Farm Management Association as such should not pass resolutions expressing opinions on public questions, but that individ­ ual members of the association will be doing their patriotic duty if they make public the results of their investigations on public questions." 19 (The members voted to adopt this resolution.)

The second resolution was a straightforward recommendation to change the name of the American Farm Management Association in order to reflect the broadening interests of its members: [Resolved that] in view of the fact that the American Farm Management As­ sociation since its organization, has dealt largely with the problems in the field of economics as related to agricultural production, the committee recommends that the word "Management" be changed to the word "Economic" so as to read American Farm Economic Association. 20

This proposed resolution proved to be controversial. During the discussion H.C. Taylor (Wisconsin) called the AFMA's attention to the group of economists who had formed the American Association of Agricultural Economists. He noted that they would likely join an association interested in furthering the economic interests of agriculture. After additional discussion, Taylor offered a motion to the effect that three members of the AFMA be ap­ pointed to meet with a committee of three members from the MAE to consider the merger of the two groups. The motion passed, and a merger committee, including H.C. Taylor, J.A. Foord, (University of Massachusetts), and K.C. Livermore (Cornell), was appointed to represent the AFMA. 21 Taylor was an active member of both associations - and of both merger committees. After the joint merger committee had met, the AFMA merger committee recommended to the membership that the merger should take place. Taylor and his colleagues did the same for the members of the MAE. Somewhat later, Taylor inserted a brief note in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Farm Economics indicating that the members of the MAE would likely join the newly renamed association.

19 The American Farm Management Association, Record ofthe Proceedings ofthe Eighth Annual Meeting, December 1917 Published by the Association, 1918, page 195. 20 Ibid., page 195. 21 Ibid., page 195. CHAPTER TWO • From the AF.MA to the AFEA: How Mergers Happen 23

Reflections on the Merger In a 1959 handwritten personal Jeerer to R.G. Bressler (University of California-Berkeley), Taylor, writing from his home in Washington, DC, described the merger as follows:

August 8, 1959 Dear Dr. Bressler: In 1917 rhe Farm Management Association and rhe Agricultural Economic [Association] discussed the matter of consolidating the two organizations. Each organization appointed a committee of three to constitute a joint committee of the two organizations for the purpose of formulating a plan for uniting. G.F. Warren had taken the lead in bringing about this idea in the Farm Management As­ sociation and I had taken the lead in the Association of Agriculrural Economists. I was a member of both associations. Warren and I were close friends. He was a member of the committee from Farm Management. I was a member of both branches of the joint committee, hence there were bur five members and I was asked to serve as chairman of the joint committee. We readily agreed upon a plan. [N]ormally the meeting for presenting rhe report would have been held in 1918 bur because of the flu the meeting was put off until early in 1919. I presented rhe report and Warren supported the idea of union. There were bur two persons present who objected co the name Farm Economic Association. Ir was a cordial meeting. Ir was decided to publish a Journal and call it the Journal of Farm Econom­ ics. For several years Warren and I agreed in advance as to who should be the next president. [O]ne year the president was chosen from the membership of the old Farm Management assn. and the next year from the roster of the agricultural economists. Bur after the association was of one mind Warren and I stepped aside and something like the present system [of elecrions] was set up which has worked well. The growth of the Farm Economic Association has been rapid due to the acceptance of state and federal officials of the economic point of view in reaching, research, and extension work. I hope chis statement may prove useful. Cordially yours, (s)Henry C. Taylor22

The AFMA did not meet in 1918, so it was not until the January 1919 meeting that the members ratified the name-change and became the American Farm Economics Association. Before the final vote was taken, a motion from the floor suggested a name that included both terms, "management" and "economics," but the motion failed to generate widespread support. Eventually, over two-thirds of the members voted to change the name. This was a sufficient number to allow the necessary changes in the Constitution.23 At its first meeting, the newly merged association elected J.R. Fain (University of Geor­ gia) as President, L.A. Moorhouse (USDA) as Vice-President, and F.W Peck (University of Minnesota) as Secretary-Treasurer. It also named standing committees to deal with Inves­ tigation, Teaching, Extension, Experiment Station Funds and Work, States Relations, Cost Investigations, and Terminology. The group also voted unanimously to begin publication of a journal called The Journal ofFarm Economics (JFE). L.A. Moorhouse (USDA) agreed to serve a three-year term as the journal's first editor.

22' The letter is in rhe AAEA Archives, held in the National Agriculrure Library. The rexr of the letter shown here is complete. The letter was slightly modified and printed as a "Nore" in volume 41 (1959) of the JFE. See Henry C. Taylor, "A Nore on the Early History of Our Association," Journal ofFarm Economics (41 :941-42) November 1959. 23 Article III of the AFMA and rhe AFEA Constitutions suggests char the Association is an appropriate organiza­ tion for academics and governmenr researchers. Other economists working with problems of the agriculrural indus­ try can become members, bur they do not receive the top treatment char the academics and government workers receive. 24 CHAPTER TWO • From the AF.MA to the AFEA: How Mergers Happen

Standing Committees The AFEA began life with seven standing committees approved by a vote of the membership. Each had five or six members. There were committees for Investigation (research), Teaching, Extension, Experiment Station Funds and Work, States Relations, Cost Investigations, and Terminology. The Investigations Com­ mittee busied itself cataloguing the kinds of research underway at each location where agricultural economists (members or non-members) worked. The Teaching Committee continued to develop course outlines to help make introductory courses reasonably uniform across colleges and universities. The Extension Committee worked for more funding at state and federal levels and developed materials that could be shared by agents in many states. The Committee on Terminology has been discussed. It was charged with developing a single technical language for all workers in the field. The Committee on Experiment Station Funds and Work had the complex task of working with Congress and political agencies in an effort to secure additional funds, particularly for investigations. Its first efforts were devoted to expanding the scope of the Hatch Act and generating matching funding schemes for use between state and federal funding agencies. The States Relations Committee is not defined; it never submits a report to the Executive Committee, and it does not appear in the list of standing committees after 1921. Then as now, the Association's commi trees did not report on a rigid schedule. Moreover, while seven standing committees are listed in Volume 1, No. 1 Qune 1919) of the journal ofFarm Economics, only five remained on the list one year later. The States Relations Committee and the Experiment Stations Funds and Work Committee lasted only one year.

At the time of the merger, 349 farm management economists along with a number of agricultural economists became members of the American Farm Economic Association. It is likely that no one member's daily activities changed as a result of membership in the merged group, but now all economists interested in agriculture could sit at the same table and seek to understand and to assist individual farmers and the industry as a whole. Working as a group enabled members of the Association to develop new interests and skills as they dealt with production agriculture and the processing and marketing sectors. It was also especially valuable as they interacted with the political forces that brought increasing pressures and changes to the industry. 24

24 A systematic treatment of the early years and the change from AFMA to AFEA is in H.C. Taylor, "The History of the Development of the Farm Economic Association," Journal ofFarm Economics (4:92-100) April 1922. CHAPTER THREE The Association Finds a Voice: The Journal ofFarm Economics

The American Farm Economic Association (AFEA) entered the 1920s with a balance of approximately $3,500 in its bank accounts. The new Association possessed the confidence of youth, and it had a small amount of money. Most of all, however, the AFEA was seek­ ing a larger role in developing a comprehensive policy for American agriculture. This more ambitious and larger Association did not hesitate in its decision to publish a journal. The members knew that a journal would be costly, and would require their individual efforts as authors and as reviewers. Even so, the Association went forward on the assumption that the proposed journal would be the organization's most important way to distribute practical and technical economic information to members and other interested parties. The inaugural editorial staff included volunteers L.A. Moorhouse (USDA) as Editor-in-Chief, and As­ sociate Editors H.M. Dixon (USDA), H.B. Munger (Iowa State Agricultural College), and Frank App (Rutgers). All had been members of the American Farm Management Associa­ tion (AFMA) since 1915 or before. The three issues ofVolume I published in 1919 constituted a remarkable achievement. The decision to develop and publish a journal came in January. The first issue appeared in June, and issues two and three followed in September and October, respectively. Combined, the three issues included 138 pages. There were 15 articles, as well as several pages of notes and announcements regarding the new Association and its new journal. The second issue, September 1919, included reports made by some of the Association's committees and the third issue, October 1919, included several pages of "Farm Economic Notes" telling of changes in members' employment, promotions, new assignments, retirements, and the like. These personal notes became a regular feature in the journal. 1 The Association's Executive Committee set the tone for the Journal with a foreword in its first issue. In part, it read: The fundamental purpose of the JOURNAL will be to serve those interested in the economic forces and influences as they operate to affect the business of farming.

[The JOURNAL] will aim to be a seeker for and an expounder of the scientific facts as they are made known and can be classified and interpreted in the inter­ est of sound farm practice.

The finances of any association are usually the sum and substance of its success or failure. The American Farm Economic Association is no exception .... The condition of its treasury at the end of 1918 and at the present time ... is such as to allow only a small number of pages in the first issue of the JOURNAL. It means to grow, to increase and prosper and the source of its sustenance need not be more than mentioned. The association needs more members. [The asso-

1 The Table of Contents of the October 1919 issue lists "Farm Economic Notes." Each issue of the Journal other than the proceedings issues from that date until November 1978 included a section for personal notes. The name of the section changed from time to time. 25 26 CHAPTER THREE • The Association Finds a Voice

ciation] must be believed in, talked about, advertised, invested in, and boosted by every legitimate means. This will soon create a larger publication, and will add strength and enthusiasm to our enterprise.

While the finances of the association are low, it will be the aim of the Editorial Staff to publish as many of the papers presented at the annual meeting of the association, as space will permit.2

The final sentence of the excerpt offers an ominous and frequently repeated warning: In the absence of adequate funding, the journal ofParm Economics could become nothing more than a proceedings issue; it could not be a journal. The first issue of the journal carried four articles. Two, one by G.F. Warren (Cornell), the other by H.W Hawthorne (USDA's Office of Farm Management), were papers given at the January 1919 meeting of the AFMA. One of the other papers was actually the text of an address by G.A. Billings (USDA), the 1918 President of the American Farm Management Association. Oddly, the Billings address bore no tide other than "Presidential Address" and made no reference to either the new journal or the recent merger of the two associations.3 The fourth paper, written expressly for the introductory issue, was by G.I. Christie, the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. Although not a member of AFMA or AFEA, Christie's paper, "The Farm Labor Outlook for 1919," discussed a problem that occupied many agri­ cultural economists of the era (and one that continues to occupy agricultural economists and practitioners to this day, for that matter).4 Money was a critical matter. Each of the three issues in Volume I included calls for new members and dunned existing members to pay their dues. Although the Association did not publish its budget, the officers and editors began the January 1920 issue with a two-page statement indicating that 95 of the Association's 656 members had not paid their dues (the delinquent members remained anonymous). Receipts in 1919 were $770, and disburse­ ments for that year were $880. The appeal for prompt payment of dues stemmed in part from the negative carryover and part from the added expenditures required to publish four rather than three issues in Volume II (1920) of the journal. World War I ended in 1918, but the European demand for food produced in the Unit­ ed States continued to rise through 1919 and into 1920. This golden age of agriculture in the United States ended in the autumn of 1920 when farm commodity prices broke and fell rapidly and precipitously. 5 Thousands of farm operators, especially those in the mid-west and in the Plains states, had to consider giving up farming because they could not meet the

2 "Forward," journal ofFarm Economics (1: 1-2) June 1919. 3 Billings's paper was undoubtedly prepared for the 1918 meeting of the AFMA, his year as President. The flu epidemic in 1918 required cancellation of the usual AFMA meeting, so Billings read the paper at the January 1919 meeting - the meeting at which the AFEA was formed. 4 The recently ended war in Europe, World War I, greatly diminished food production in many European nations. Foodstuffs produced in the Americas helped eliminate, or at least reduce, the shortages. American farmers met the increased demand by adding acres and by farming existing acres more intensively. The Assistant Secretary outlined the difficulties chat agriculture would face in attracting an adequate labor force for chis expansion. He predicted chat the need for additional labor would become increasingly severe, labor costs would increase demonstrably, and U.S. farmers would need to find new ways to adjust to labor shortages. 5 Although British authors refer to 1850-1875 as the "Golden Age of Agriculture," U.S. writers and observers most often refer to 1900-1920 as the "golden age." This name stems from the face chat during chis period, yields, acreage, prices, and farm family incomes were rising. The rise was so dramatic chat by 1920, there was almost no difference between the average farm family income and che average non-farm family income in che United Scares. CHAPTER THREE • The Association Finds a ¼ice 27 payments on their heavily mortgaged land and equipment. Although some observers un­ doubtedly saw this coming, and were actively studying the problem of a return to low com­ modity prices and low farm incomes, the results of their studies did not reach the journal until 1921 when H.C. Taylor (USDA) authored "The Adjustment of the Farm Business to Declining Price Levels," published in Volume III. 6 Six papers presented at the tenth meeting (1919) of the American Farm Economic As­ sociation appeared in the January issue of Volume II.7 The issue also included committee reports from three standing committees. The Extension Committee reported results of a detailed questionnaire sent to state-level extension administrators and to extension agents and demonstrators. By the committee's own admission, the results were too scattered and too complex to summarize, beyond noting that all of those who replied commented on the paucity of funds and other resources available for extension programs The Committee on Experiment Station Funds fared little better. The committee worked directly with Congress in the hope that future appropriations bills and extensions of the Hatch Act would bring funding levels up to where they had been in earlier years. The authors of the committee report did not mention any immediate results. The Committee on Membership and Journal Policy recommended abolishing the as­ sociate level of membership and keeping the dues of active members at $2.00 per year. 8 The committee also recommended removal of a person's name from the membership list if that member had not paid his dues by the end of the calendar year. The committee suggested that the journal continue as a quarterly publication and that a general policy of the Journal should be " ... to have each [issue] contain articles relating to investigation, teaching, exten­ sion, and other farm economic interests."9 This recommendation was adopted at the end of 1921. By that time, the journal pub­ lished its issues on a well-defined quarterly publication schedule. Each issue included papers from the annual meeting, papers submitted by members, and reports from at least some of the Association's committees. The editor still felt obliged to apologize for the lack of funds, and the consequent inability to publish larger issues and more articles. This problem reached crisis proportions when the lack of funds limited Vol. 2, No. 4 (October 1920) to just two articles and 27 pages, including the organization's Constitution. Editor Moorhouse com­ mented:

6 H.C. Taylor, "The Adjustment of the Farm Business to Declining Price Levels," Journal ofFarm Economics (3: 1- 9) January 1921. Taylor explained that post war problems for agriculture were not new. He noted that agricultural recessions developed after the Napoleonic Wars and after the American Civil War. He went on to suggest that the post-WWI period would be no different. This problem oflag time between economic events in the real world and the discussion of them in technical journals has remained with the Association since publication of a journal began. The same problem likely affects many other academic and professional societies. 7 Strengthening the argument that the AFEA was simply the AFMA with a new name is the fact that the officers, editors, and members counted the organizati~n's meetings from 1910 (when the AFMA was organized) rather than from 1919 when the name of the Association was changed and publication of the Journal began. 8 The Associate Membership category is a mystery. Article III of the Association's original Constitution distin­ guished "Active Members" from "Associate Members" by saying "The active members shall be persons engaged in the teaching and investigation of farm economic problems. The associate members shall be persons interested in the study of farm economics. The associate members shall have all the privileges of the Association except voting." After the merger of the Associations, the dues for Associate members dropped to one dollar per year. The Associa­ tion eliminated the tide "Associate Member" in 1921. 9 Report of the Committee on Membership and Journal Policy, Journal ofFarm Economics (2:60) January 1920. 28 CHAPTER THREE • The Association Finds a Voice

This issue is reduced to twenty-four pages [excluding the Constitution] because the funds in the treasury of the Association will not permit the publication of the regular-sized Journal. It is doubtful if the priming of this issue can be paid for out of this year's collections unless those who are in arrears pay their dues and subscriptions. 10

Some authors of papers selected for publication were quick to point out the conse­ quences of the funding problem. John A. Hopkins, Jr. (Delaware) inserted the following as a footnote to his article in the April 1921 issue: "Paper presented for publication in the Journal ofFarm Economics, 1920. Owing to a lack of funds in the Association Treasury, this paper was not printed last year." 11

The Journal, Money, and Articles The Journal depended on the financial condition of the Association. During its first three years, almost every issue included reminders regarding dues and money. The availability of money dictated rhe number of pages in an issue. This, coupled with the early editors' promises to publish all papers given at the annual meeting, brought interesting consequences. Beginning with Vol. III, No. 4 (October 1921) the editors published the tentative program for the annual meeting scheduled for the coming Holiday Season. The authors received assurances regarding the publication of their papers in the next volume of the Journal. They received no indication, however, about which issue in rhat volume would include their paper. Constraints placed on the editors forced them to separate papers presented in a single session. The prob­ lem this caused is obvious in Vol. VI (1924). The first paper in the January issue is "A National Agricultural Program -A Farm Management Problem" given by the Secretary of Agriculture, Henry C. Wallace. Wallace's paper, scheduled for a relatively minor spot in the program, was a part of a session that included several papers on farm management. The publication limitations of the Journal moved Wallace's paper away from its com­ panion farm management papers and made it the issue's lead article. Putting Wallace first moved rhe Presi­ dential Address from its usual prominent spot. President Thomas P. Cooper (University of Kentucky), an­ ticipating the future, gave an address that provided insightful glimpses of what is now called "agri-business."

Even given severe financial limitations and the consequent reductions in pages, the Journal continued to publish on a quarterly schedule. In January 1921 (Vol. III, No. 1), Moorhouse noted that papers given at the annual meeting would continue to be published in any or all of the four issues planned for that year. The 1921 issues also began to include reviews of books, bulletins, and monographs, and for the first time, the volume carried an article that was distinctly agricultural but which had no references to or applications on an individual farm - it was not "farm management." R.H. Wilcox (USDA) authored "Economic Conditions Causing the Two-Day Cattle Mar­ ket at Chicago and the Effect of the Zoning Law" to describe how changes in the location of cattle feeding, cattle slaughter, and rail lines were affecting the decisions of producers and the management of Chicago's Union Stock Yards. 12 This article had wider importance than

10 L.A. Moorhouse, "Have You Paid Your Dues?" journal ofFarm Economics (2:200) October 1920. 11 John A. Hopkins, Jr., "Wages of Management," Journal ofFarm Economics (3:82-90) April 1921. 12 R.H. Wilcox, "Economic Conditions Causing the Two-Day Cattle Market at Chicago and the Effect of the Zoning Law," journal ofFarm Economics (3:176-182) October 1921. CHAPTER THREE • The Association Finds a Voice 29 its tide implied. It discussed marketing as an important aspect of agricultural economics. 13 Prior to this time, marketing had not been a subject pursued by a large number of the As­ sociation's members. While the Journal was the most costly- and likely the most influential - activity of the Association, many other actions were also having an effect on the professional activities of the members and on the agricultural industry at large. Available records of these activities appeared primarily as committee reports, or as notes in the non-article pages in the journal. During the 1921 business meeting, the Association's officers decided to write letters to high officials in the federal government about a number of items of concern to agriculture and to the Association's members or both. Among the topics addressed in these letters were: • Federal support of the International Institute of Agriculture. 14 • The number of Agricultural Attaches posted to other countries. • The resumption of publication of three discontinued USDA's Bureau of Agricul­ tural Economics periodicals, ( The Crop Reporter, The Market Reporter, and The Ex­ periment Station Record}. • The retention of agricultural marketing research in the Department of Agriculture rather than transferring it to the Department of Commerce.

The letters, written on AFEA letterhead and sent to the President of the United States, the Secretary ofAgriculture, the Secretary of Commerce, and to the Chairs of the House and the Senate Committees on Agriculture, represented a break from the well-understood As­ sociation policy against using the Association to become directly involved in public issues. 15 The Committee on Terminology had not reported since 1919, when it completed a list of definitions for 20 specialized terms. In 1921, it offered a report that included definitions of four more terms. One of these new terms was "Farm Economics," which was defined as " ... the principles which underlie the farmers' problem of what to produce and how to produce it, what to sell and how to sell it in order to secure the largest net profit for himself consistent with the best interests of society as a whole." 16 The Association's money problems, present from the beginning, persisted into 1922 when Oscar Stine (USDA) became editor of the journal. Money was so scarce that Stine could not possibly publish all of the promising manuscripts that came to him. Stine helped the authors in the gentlest possible way. He sent useful and interesting submissions back to the colleges, universities, or agencies where they had originated and urged the appropriate administrative officials to publish the articles as institutional publications.

13 The work and publicarions of the American Farm Management Association dealt almost entirely with activi­ ties on an individual farm, especially production and resource use problems. The merger and the change of name opened or legitimized new areas of investigative work for members. The marketing of farm products had received almost no attention by members of the AFMA. Nor had the institutions relating ro handling farm commodities after they had left the farm. The AFEA, and particularly the JFE, changed that, making marketing an important part of the discipline. 14 Founded by David Lubin in 1905, the International Institute of Agriculture was a clearinghouse for crop data, prices, markets, international trade, and other agriculture-related information. 15 In 1921, the U.S. Department of Agriculture gathered most of its units doing work in agricultural economics into a single agency, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics or "BAE." There was considerable controversy over whether the research done in agricultural marketing should be kept in USDA (with BAE) or shifted to the U.S. Department of Commerce. 16 Report of the Committee on Terminology,fournal ofFarm Economics (4:49) January 1922. 30 CHAPTER THREE • The Association Finds a Voice

Stine also presided over the publication of two groundbreaking articles. First, in 1923, C.C. Taylor (Iowa) authored an article that used correlation and regression analysis to show the relationships among (1) size of business, (2) proportionment of the business elements, (3) efficiency as to physical productivity, and (4) bargaining efficiency as they related to the profitability of a farm. 17 The article was complex for its day, but it provided cogent explana­ tions of the technical aspects and usefulness of the regression and correlation techniques in particular and quantitative analysis in general. 18 The second was a paper by Mordecai Ezekiel (USDA) appearing in the next issue. Ezekiel was a BAE administrator and a man of uncommon skill in using mathematics and statistics to solve economic problems. In the summer of 1923, he read a paper, "The Use of Partial Correlation in the Analysis of Farm Management Data," to an audience of BAE econo­ mists. The Ezekiel paper dealt with the same general issue as the Taylor paper, but Ezekiel was concerned that too many agricultural economists would expect too much from regression and correlation analysis. As a re­ Mordecai Ezekiel Photograph coum,y of sult, he asked Stine to publish the paper in the journal, and Stine obliged. MEA. The Ezekiel paper stands today as a cautionary note to all who wish to apply new analytical methods to empirical data. At its core, the caution tells analysts to identify the economic problem first, then select the appropriate method or analytical tool to use in attempting to solve ir. Put another way, Ezekiel is suggesting that solving the problem is more important than selecting the tool. In 1924, the Agricultural History Society proposed that the two organizations cooper­ ate in publishing a jointly sponsored journal. 19 The AFEA Executive Committee considered the possibility, but eventually decided to retain the JFE as the Association's sole journal. In the same action, the Executive Committee recommended against turning the JFE over to a professional editor/manager. The Committee also agreed to let the editor solicit "judicious advertising" for publication in the journal. While the journal usually took up the greatest part of the time available to the Executive Committee, the Committee had time in 1924 to reject a suggestion that the Association establish an agricultural economics honorary. The Presidential Address given by E.G. Nourse (Institute of Economics in Washington, DC) was a high point of the 1924 meeting. Nourse was a traditionally trained agricultural economist who became an authority on the legal aspects of cooperatives while serving on the faculties of the University of Arkansas and the Iowa State Agricultural College. He held

17 "Proportionment of the business elements" refers to the proportions or ratios among the factors used in produc­ tion. The term was not generally used by early writers in the field. 18 C.C. Taylor, "A Statistical Analysis of Farm Management Data," Journal ofFarm Economics (5:153-162) July 1923. Taylor was not the first agricultural economist to use correlation and regression analysis. A footnote on page 157 of his article cites the early work of H.R. Tolley. "The Theory of Correlation as Applied to Farm Survey Data on Fattening Baby Beef," USDA Bulletin 504. Some may also argue that the publication of the Taylor article, or any other individual article, is not a part of the history of the Association, bur is, rather, an artifact of the profession of agricultural economics. This is an argument that has no end, bur it must be realized that the Association and its journal provided a context within which an article of this kind could be published. This article and others like it are what define agricultural economists as being "applied economists" who use the tools of economics and statistics to solve real-world problems - in Taylor's case, the profitability of agricultural resources. 19 The Agricultural History Society, organized in Washington, DC in 1919 did not have a "predecessor organiza­ tion'' like AFEA's AFMA. One supposes that in its early years, it hoped to avoid some of the expenses of a journal by publishing jointly with AFEA. The Agricultural Hisrorical Society started its own journal, Agricultural History, in 1927. Agricultural economists have been frequent contributors to this journal. CHAPTER THREE • The Association Finds a Voice 31

strong convictions that the Association should not become too academic, so he planned the format of the December 1924 meeting to include his own address, "Some Economic Factors in American Farm Policy," to be followed by two papers, one authored by a farmer, or a farmers' representative, and one by a businessman involved in a business related to ag­ riculture. The remainder of the program was to build on the content of these opening talks. After Nourse spoke, George A. Fox, Secretary of the Illinois Agricultural Association, made a presentation under the title "The Platform of Organized Agriculture." The program then called for A.W Douglas, president of the Simmons Hardware Company, to follow Fox with a talk titled ''A Businessman's View of Agriculture." In the event, Douglas had to withdraw from the session, but remarks attributed to him appear in the January 1925 issue of the Journal 20 In many respects, the remainder of the meeting followed Nourse's wishes. The papers and discussions dealt with topics that would become important in coming years as the federal government moved closer and closer to developing a comprehensive policy for agriculture. In the years between 1925 and 1929, articles selected for publication in the journal moved increasingly toward papers addressing problems that might affect the economic health of the agricultural industry. An increasing number of these made explicit or implicit reference to existing or emerging federal farm and agricultural policies.

Governing the Association Since the Association's formation in 1919, an Executive Committee made up of only the organization's three elected officers had made all of the organization's management and budget decisions. By 1925, the organization had grown sufficiently in size and complexity to make it difficult for a three-person, volunteer Executive Committee to handle the workload. The Association chose to reduce the burden on the committee by asking the two most recent past presidents to remain as part of the Executive Committee. This done, the Association turned its attention to the planning of events in cooperation with other agencies and institu­ tions. For example, AFEA planned to co-sponsor with the Michigan Agricultural College an "International Rural Life Conference" for the summer of 1926. In 1927, the Executive Committee learned that the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) was interested in becoming involved with the management of agricultural research. The SSRC was, from its founding in 1923 and continuing to the present day, an indepen­ dent, not-for-profit research organization intended to take an active part in coordinating research in various social science fields. By 1927, the Council turned to agriculture, with an eye to helping coordinate agricultural economics research. The AFEA Executive Committee responded quickly and forcefully to this seeming encroachment on its prerogatives, indicat­ ing that AFEA was already playing this role. The AFEA then formed a committee consisting of J.I. Falconer (Ohio), G.F. Warren (Cornell), Thomas Cooper (USDA), and two others who were to be named later, to work with SSRC on the problem of research coordination. Eventually, the AFEA committee sent a strongly worded letter to SSRC to assure the Coun-

20 "Two Urban Views of Agriculture," journal ofFarm Economics (7:31-33) January 1925. 32 CHAPTER THREE • The Association Finds a voice cil that the coordination of agricultural economics research was already taking place under the auspices of the AFEA. The SSRC responded by allocating $12,500 to AFEA to be used for activities related to the coordination and administration of research. 21 H.R. Tolley (USDA) became editor of the journal in 1927 and im­ mediately asked the Executive Committee for a budget to support 500 printed pages in four issues each year. Once the Executive Committee agreed, Tolley made an interesting second move. He began to discour­ age JFE submissions from BAE employees on the assumption that if too many of their papers appeared in the journal, readers would begin to think of the Journal as a BAE publication. Tolley wanted to avoid this erroneous notion, preferring to preserve the journal's pages for articles H.R. Tolley Photograph courtesy of USDA His­ authored by state-employed and other agricultural economists.22 tory Collection. Special The 1927 volume (Volume 9) carried only 472 of the approved 500 Collections, National Agricultural Library. pages. The shortfall, though, was not necessarily due to Tolley's limit on BAE use of the journal, but came in part from his impression that the quality of many sub­ missions was too low to warrant publication. Tolley substantiated his position by making frequent use of reviewers, and by returning submissions to their authors for revision and re-submission. 23 Tolley continued to ask for additional funding to pay the costs of an ever-expanding journal. He asked for funds to pay the aurhors of book reviews and to make 100 copies of all articles available without charge to their authors. 24 Tolley argued that the Association should pay the editor's and the associate editors' expenses for travel to the annual and Ex­ ecutive Committee meetings. The 1927 Executive Committee approved providing authors with reprints and paying expenses for the editors to attend meetings, but took a strong stand against paying authors for writing articles or reviews. Undaunted, Tolley pressed for even more changes. With the help of Associate Editor J.D. Black (Harvard), Tolley initiated a "Notes" section intended for the publication of new ideas, new methods, and other themes that were in various stages of development or completion. These notes were limited to 1,000 words, and subjected to very little review or

21 The mo;,ies received from SSRC helped an AFEA committee conduct a state-by-scare survey of research under way in the field of agricultural economics. The Spring 1927 survey was summarized and published in four mimeo­ graphed volumes. Fifteen prominent agricultural economists eventually served on the committee and wrote various sections of the preliminary report. Volume I was a statistical summary of data from the survey. Volume II reported on research in farm management and Volume III was devoted to research in the marketing of farm products. Vol­ ume IV was a detailed narrative used to integrate dispositions about the research in a number of topics frequently pursued by agricultural economists. See American Farm Economics Association, Preliminary Report ofa Survey of Economic Research in Agricultural in the United States During the Year July 1, 1926 to June 30, 1927. Volumes 1-4, 1927. 22 Tolley was not entirely successful in this effort. In 1927 (Vol. 9), 17.2 percent of the published articles had BAE authors. In 1928 (Vol. IO) the figure had climbed to 27.8 percent, and in 1929 (Vol. 1 I) 30.8 percent of the authors were affiliated with the BAE. 23 "Report from the Editor," Journal ofFarm Economics (10:132-33) January 1928. 24 Tolley's argument to pay the authors of book reviews stemmed from the fact that the editorial staff had asked the reviewers to contribute the review. CHAPTER THREE • The Association Finds a Voice 33 editing. Black was placed in charge of these submissions, and for many years, he selected for publication "Notes" that included some of the most intriguing ideas produced by agricul­ tural economists.25 Tolley ended his three years as Editor at the Executive Committee meeting in January 1930. He left behind a decade-old journal that could have as many as 700 pages in four is­ sues each year. Although not all features appeared in each issue, the journal that Tolley left included: Articles - submitted, invited, or presented at an annual meeting. Notes (very short articles). Lists of books received. Book reviews. Book notes (very short reviews). Lists of relevant state publications. • Lists of BAE publications . News Notes.26 Names of candidates for the PhD degree in Agricultural Economics at U.S. col­ leges and universities. • Names of candidates for the MS (MA) degree in Agricultural Economics at U.S . colleges and universities. Names of candidates for advanced degrees in Agricultural Economics at foreign universities. 27

In the last years of the 1920s, the Executive Committee allocated funding for the edi­ tors to expand the journal to as many as 750 pages per year. As the Association moved into the 1930s the journal was sent to 862 members as well as to 275 libraries and corporations - many in foreign countries. Henry Erdman (California) became editor in 1930 and struggled with maintaining the journal's larger page count in the face of the coming depression. He made no significant changes in the format of the journal, but he did convince the Executive Committee to add 50 more pages to each volume. A precise writer himself, Erdman cautioned young (first­ time) writers to work with their manuscripts until they were certain that what they actually wrote matched what they wanted to write. O.B. Jesness (Minnesota) took over from Erdman at the conclusion ofErdman's term in 1933. He was encouraged to make the journal more readable and more technically correct. He moved quickly to tell authors to be more careful and rigorous with their submissions, and he informed authors that he (the journal) would not pay for any changes in substance made after the editors returned the galley proofs to the authors. In 1935, the Executive Committee gave the President-elect and the Vice-presidents authority to tell program par-

25 The "Notes" section was introduced and explained by a full-page editorial comment in the April, 1929 issue of the journal. That issue also used eight pages to publish six notes written by well-known members of the Association. "Notes," journal ofFarm Economics (11:330-338) April 1929. 26 The "News Notes" section began to dwindle in the I 930s. The profession had grown so large that the editors could nor keep up with the derails and personnel matters. An effort was made to appoint one "corresponding edi­ tor" in each state to be responsible for news items, bur rhe effort was nor highly successful. 27 The lists of candidates were developed and published only once each year. 34 CHAPTER THREE • The Association Finds a Voice

ticipants that their papers would not automatically be included in the ]ournal.2 8 An even bigger change in journal policy gave the editor the option of setting a maximum number of pages for any article. An author insisting on publishing additional pages was responsible for the added cost. The 1936 Executive Committee faced some major problems related to the journal. At the end of the first year of his term as editor, H.C.M. Case (Illinois) expressed a desire to resign because of the workload the editorship engendered. After some persuasion from the Executive Committee, Case agreed to remain for a second year, after which T.W Schultz (Iowa State) would take over the job. During his short time as editor, Case actively solicited articles to fill pages that would otherwise go blank. The same heavy workload argument con­ vinced President J.S. Davis (Stanford University) to suggest that the Association eliminate the Presidential Address because it required too much time to write and it filled too many pages of the journal Schultz took over as editor for Volume XX (1938) of the journal. One of his first ac­ tions was to designate the February issue as the annual Proceedings issue, and to use as many pages as needed to publish papers given at the annual meeting. 29 Three assistant editors and a 10-person editorial council assisted Schultz during his tenure as editor. During the Schultz years, controversy arose over sending the journal to individuals who were delinquent in their dues. The issue centered on the problem caused by sending an issue of the journal to delinquent members when they finally paid their dues. Many had already received a copy so the editor was sending a second copy when the dues were paid. In 193 7, the 72 persons who were delinquent received 144 copies of the journal. In future years, the Secretary-Treasurer stopped sending copies of the Journal as soon as delinquency in an individual's dues became apparent. After eleven years of existence, the American Farm Economic Association had become a wide ranging group of scientists with diverse interests in the broadly-defined economics of agriculture. The Journal had become a similarly diverse but disciplined publication that published articles authored by scores of authors writing about scores of agricultural and agricultural-related topics.

Chicago Stockyards Photograph Cormesyofthe US National Archives, \Vashington, DC

28 This "power" derived from the notion that since the President-elect and the Vice Presidents had the responsibil­ ity of arranging the content of the meeting, it should also be their responsibility to tell the prospective authors about special conditions regarding publication of the papers. 29 Schultz also arranged for the price of the proceedings issue to be higher than the other three issues if purchased singly rather than as part of a membership or a subscription. CHAPTER FOUR The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy

No one can say for sure when the Great Depression of the 1930s began. However, observ­ ers generally agree that the agricultural depression began long before the problems reached other sectors of the economy. World War I, lasting from 1914 to 1918, brought high in­ comes and improved living conditions to much of rural America, but when the war ended, it did not take long for the poverty of the pre-war years to return. Wheat prices, fueled by war-related demand, stood at $2.19 per bushel in 1919, but pursued an erratic downward path over the next few years before finally hitting bottom at 38 cents per bushel in 1932. The story was much the same for other farm commodities. Corn sold for $1.50 per bushel in 1919, 32 cents per bushel in 1931. Hogs sold for $12.92 per hundredweight in 1919, $3.34 per cwt. in 1932. Even agricultural land that was selling for an average of $69.31 per acre in 1920 sold for less than $30 per acre a decade later. 1 H.C. Taylor's 1921 predictions and observations seemed to be coming true. Other sectors of the economy enjoyed reasonable prosperity until late into the 1920s. Although weak spots appeared earlier in some industries, the general feeling was that the economy began its collapse in late 1929 when the stock market fell hard, and on average erased 40 percent of the paper value of all common stock. In spite of reassurances from political and industry leaders, stock prices continued to fall until 1933, when the stock market stabilized at about 20 percent of its pre-1929 value. Agriculture, already in desperate condition, followed the remainder of the economy down until farm income hovered at ap­ proximately one-third of the level it had reached in 1920. The annual income from farming stood at $1,196 per farm in 1920. By 1932, annual income per farm had fallen to $304. The entire economy was in an economic depression, and the policy tools designed to maintain its economic health were not powerful enough to make the needed corrections. Public of­ ficials, industrialists, financiers, and economists were at a loss. 2 Most seemed to agree that if assistance was to come, it would come from the federal government. The American Farm Economic Association (AFEA) was not designed to provide broad­ based assistance to a struggling farm economy. Earlier, while still known as the AFMA, the Association and its members provided information and advice to individual farm operators. When the AAAE, the "public agricultural economists" group, merged with the AFMA in 1919, the new Association became a group of economists with skills and knowledge about individual farms as well as about such matters as cooperatives, land settlement, international trade, and farm debt. No one, though, had a sufficiently broad grasp of the problems of the

1 Prices and years are taken from U.S. Bureau of rhe Census. Historical Statistics ofthe United States, Colonial Times to 1970. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1975. 2 Scores of books exist, and more continue to appear, about the onset and the magnitude of the Great Depression of rhe 1930s. They do nor always agree on causes or effects or both. An easy-to-read and believable account of the onset of rhe Great Depression is by John Kenneth Galbraith, himself a noted agricultural economist. See John K. Galbraith, The Great Crash, Boston: Houghton Miffiin, 1972. 35 36 CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy farm economy to offer general assistance in helping end the suffering of agriculture during the widespread economic trauma. Like other economists, members of the AFEA waited for someone else - likely the federal government - to make a move. 3 In 1929, President Herbert Hoover obliged, signing the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929. In so doing, he renamed and expanded the powers of the existing Federal Farm Loan Board. Ir became the Federal Farm Board, and was given control of a revolving fund of $500 million to use to stabilize commodity prices and expand the international marketing of farm commodities produced in the United States.4 The AFEA general membership learned first-hand about the Federal Farm Board at its 1929 annual meeting. Alexander Legge, Chairman of the newly designated body, delivered the opening talk, "Policies and Programs of the Federal Farm Board."5 At the AFEA's annual business meeting the following day, AFEA President Henry Erdman (California) appointed a "Resolutions Committee" made up ofH.C.M. Case (Illinois), WE. Grimes (Kansas State Agricultural College), and William Allen (University of Saskatchewan) to respond to Legge's talk and to comment on the existence and importance of the Federal Farm Board. The Reso­ lutions Committee reported the next day: Be it resolved: that the American Farm Economic Association express to the Federal Farm Board its willingness to cooperate with the Board in every possible way in accomplishing the objectives of the Act creating the Board, and, That we urge the Board to acquaint the various Federal and State agencies with the research needed in carrying out the plans and pol­ icies of the Board so that these research agencies may develop their pro­ grams of work in ways which will be of greatest assistance to the Board, and, That in developing and extending its program the Board cooperate with existing Federal and State research and extension agencies, and, That the Secretary [of the American Farm Economic Association] transmit to the chairman of the Federal Farm Board a copy of this resolution. 6

The resolution made it clear that the AFEA was interested in the activities of any federal agencies created to act on behalf of a depressed agriculture. The Association had worked for more than a decade to place itself in a position to influence research and policy. The time had arrived when the agricultural economy needed help, and the Association wanted to provide it, but avenues to participation in the policymaking process were not clear. The Association and its members had to be satisfied with little more than a resolution regarding the appropriateness of the actions of others.

3 A policy for agriculture in the late 1920s was not a first move. All through the decade, the government attempted to bolster the farm economy and several "plans," most notably the McNary-Haugen Plan, received careful consid­ eration during several sessions of Congress. 4 The Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916 created the Federal Farm Loan Board and pur in place 12 regional Federal Land Banks. The 1916 Act also used the Federal Land Banks to assist in rationalizing the availability oflong-term credit to agricultural borrowers. The banks had no powers beyond the credit system. The 1929 legislation created the Federal Farm Board - a board of nine individuals appointed by the President. 5 A transcript of Legge's talk is published in the January 1930, issue of the JFE. See Alexander Legge, "Policies and Programs of the Federal Farm Board," Journal ofFarm Economics (12: 1-12) January 1930. Legge himself had been prominent as the President oflnternational Harvester and as Chairman of Woodrow Wilson's "War Industries Board." At his death in 1933, he left a part of his fortune ro create the Farm Foundation. 6 American Farm Economic Association, "Minutes of the Twelfth Annual Meeting," journal ofFarm Economics (12:202) January 1930. CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, DttSt, and Farm Policy 37

Alexander Legge, Frank Lowden, and the Farm Foundation The Farm Foundation stands out among the several founda­ tions and crusts that have contributed to the long-term support and survival of the American Farm Economic Association and the American Agriculcural Economic Association. The Farm Foundation came into being in 1933 after several years of dis­ cussion between Alexander Legge, Frank Lowden, and other in­ fluential political and business leaders who were active in Ameri­ can agriculcure during the 1920s and 1930s. Alexander Legge (1866-1933) was a farm boy who rose through the ranks to become the senior vice-president of Inter- Alexander Legge Frank Lowden national Harvester in 1918. With the United Scates' entry into World War I, he left IH for high-level posi­ tions in various war-related agencies and commissions. After the war, he became President ofIH and in 1929, President Hoover asked him to serve as Chairman of the Federal Farm Board. At his death in 1933, he left $500,000 to help form the Farm Foundation. Frank Lowden (1861-1943), also raised on farms in the Midwest and West, graduated from Iowa Scace College in 1885. Afrer teaching for a year, he became a clerk in a Chicago law firm on the condition chat he continue his education in law school. He subsequently rose through political ranks to become Governor of Il­ linois and then to the national political stage where he was sought as a candidate for a number of positions. At the end of his political career, he turned to studying and attempting to alleviate the problems of agriculcure. Legge and Lowden, along with a number of other interested individuals, sought to form a foundation that would "make a difference" to individuals involved in farming and agriculture. They held meetings and discussed possibilities through the early part of the 1920s. Although not formally organized until I 933, the Farm Foundation traces to a I 927 meeting of the "Business Men's Commission on Agriculture." After reporrs from the meeting circulated among interested and influential individuals, Legge asked William S. Elliott (International Harvester) to draft and print a formal constitution of the "Agriculcural Service Foundation." Elliott's efforrs resulced in a document chat included the following three purposes: 1. To conduct research and experimental work for the study of any social, mechanical, physical, or economic problem of importance to any substantial portion of the agricultural population .... 2. To finance any such research or experimental work conducted by the staff of any university or college, or other institution, corporation, or person calculated, in the judgment of the Board of Trustees, to lead to useful results. 3. To disseminate education and useful information developed as a result of any such study ... to be of practi­ cal value to the farming populacion.7 These purposes expanded and evolved into a constitution for the new organization. Since 1933, the Farm Foundation has been a major benefactor for many activities of the AFEA the AAEA, and their members. It is no coincidence char nearly all of the managing directors of the Farm Foundation have also been members of the AAEA - many of chem have been officers, Fellows, or both.

The articles appearing in the JFE during the late 1920s and through the 1930s provide an indication of what individual agricultural economists were doing in their research and analyses of public policy activities. While many continued the work they had been doing, a significant number addressed the Great Depression and the policy instruments that the federal government put in place to help the farmers cope with the economic calamity. Even before the Great Depression, JFE authors were active in investigating the persistent down­ turn in the agricultural sector. Of the 40 issues of the journal published during the 1920s, 13 carried no article, note, or comment about the economic condition of agriculture, while 21 articles or notes scattered across the other 27 issues carried some information or insight about the depressed state of agriculture. Henry A. Wallace, then editor of the influential Wallaces Farmer, addressed the Association at its thirteenth annual meeting in December

7 The three purposes are taken from David P. Ernstes, R.J. Hildreth, and Ronald D. Knutson. Farm Foundation: 75 years as a catalyst to agriculture and rural America. Electronic copies of the book are available at www.farmfounda­ tion.org. 38 CHAPTER FOUR • The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy

1922. He returned to a seemingly timeless theme and titled his talk simply, "Controlling Agricultural Output."8 The next year, Eric Englund (Kansas State Agricultural College) used the Journal to publish "Fallacies of Plans to Fix Prices of Farm Products by Government Control of Exportable Surpluses." The two papers made clear the serious industry-wide problems associated with overproduction in American agriculture.9 The overproduction theme appeared again in the January 1928 issue of the journal 10 G.F. Warren (Cornell), G.S. Wehrwein (Wisconsin), J.S. Davis (Stanford), and Charles Stewart (Illinois) authored major papers and discussions aimed at providing an understand­ ing of the economic problems ofAmerican agriculture. Their work also included speculation about possible solutions to the problems. There was mild agreement among participating economists that either production controls or price controls would be self-defeating if used as a way to increase farm income and reduce rural poverty. They suggested that the only vi­ able program for agriculture was one that allowed prices to remain at very low levels in order to force people and land out of the industry. 11 The Association's Committee on Resolutions reported at the December 1927 meeting of the Executive Committee. The committee had watched agricultural prices fall and pover­ ty rise as a "malaise," similar to chat experienced in the years prior to World War I, returned to U.S. Agriculture. Identifying the problem - or at least a key symptom - as overproduc­ tion, the committee offered the following resolution consistent with the theme: WHEREAS: Any increase in the cultivated farm area at chis time, or even a reduction of the rate of abandoning marginal land before supply, demand, and price adjustment has been reached is undesirable and is a detriment to all agricultural producers:

Therefore, RESOLVED: That this Association convey its judgment on these matters to the Secretary of the Interior and to the Director of Recla­ mation with reference to their continued efforts to reclaim land through large-scale drainage and irrigation operations, which should be held in abeyance until such time as the incomes of farmers are on a par with the incomes of those in other occupations. 12

8 Henry A. Wallace, "ConrrollingAgriculcural Output," journal ofParm Economics (5:16-27) January 1923. 9 Eric Englund, "Fallacies of Plans co Fix Prices of Farm Products by Government Control of Exportable Sur­ pluses," Journal ofParm Economics (5:86-101) April 1923. 10 The papers in this issue were a pare of a joint session with the AEA at the 18"' annual meeting of the Association. 11 Some years later, Kenneth Boulding (Colorado) made a number of appearances before groups of agricultural economists in the United States. In almost every presentation, he emphasized this same theme: keep prices low and drive surplus resources - land or labor - out of the agricultural industry. 12 Committee on Resolutions, "Report," Journal ofParm Economics (10:133-34) January 1928. CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy 39

The Wallaces: Henry, Henry C., and Henry A. Few families have been as closely associated with American agriculture as the \Val­ laces. The first Henry Wallace - at least the first to appear as a figure in American agriculture - was born in Western Pennsylvania in 1836. He became a Presbyterian minister, then gravitated coward land ownership and management in Winterset, Iowa. He took up agricultural journalism, eventually becoming the owner and editor of~!­ laces Farmer, a highly respected liberal farm magazine. After retiring from active edito­ rial control of the magazine, Henry served in various appointed political positions, the most important of which was as a member of Theodore Roosevelt's "Country Life Henry Wallace Commission." Photograph courtesy of U11iversit;1 Archives, Iowa Henry's son, Henry Cantwell Wallace (Henry C.) was born in Rock Island, Illinois State University Library in 1866. Henry C. graduated from Iowa State College where he later became a profes­ sor of dairy husbandry. Henry C. was active in almost all aspects of agriculture and rural living - extension programs, 4-H clubs, dairy clubs, and the like. He became editor of ~!laces Farmer in 1916 and held that post until 1921 when he joined the Harding administration as Secretary of Agriculture. At char time, he was a member of the American Farm Economic Association. Henry C. was one of the first public figures to suggest openly that overproduction was a major source of agriculture's travail. He died in office in 1924. Henry Cantwell's son, Henry Agard Wallace, (Henry A.) was born in Iowa in 1888. Like his father, Henry A. graduated from Iowa State College and became immersed in Henry C. Wallace many phases of agriculture. Trained as an agricultural economist, he devoted rime to studying corn/hog ratios and corn yields. He served as editor of rhe family magazine from 1924 to 1929. Henry A's political career included serving as Secretary ofAgricul­ ture (1933-1940), Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Vice-President (1941-1945), Secretary of Commerce (1945-1946), and Presidential candidate for the Progressive Parry in 1948. He died in 1965. Henry A. is sometimes given credit for developing hybrid corn. Whether this is true or not, the Wallace family experimented with hybridized corn and began to sell hybrid seed corn in 1924. In 1926, the family, along with other investors, started the Hi-Bred Seed Company in Des Moines, Iowa. In 1935, the company became the Pioneer Hi- Henry A. Wallace Bred Seed Corn Company. The family gave up all direct financial interest in the com- pany in the late 1990s. Although ~!laces Farmer remains a popular and influential farm publication, the \Vallace family lost control of it in the depression of the 1930s.

The officers of the Association seemed to gather strength as the 1920s ended. The As­ sociation itself was - after some fits and starts - doing well financially, and its membership continued to grow. The proceedings papers required only about 60 percent of the available journal pages, and there was no shortage of submissions to fill the other pages. So inundated by submissions was the journal that Editor Henry Erdman (California) decided to make more room for articles by eliminating the "list of publications" section that had been a useful part of the journal for several years. 13

Cleveland, December 1930 In 1930, the Executive Committee meeting held a highly productive meeting in Cleve­ land during the twenty-first annual meeting of the Association. The meeting had no an­ nounced theme, but it was clear that, in addition to carrying out the usual business of the Association, the officers wanted to take actions that would change the administrative struc­ ture and increase the Association's influence in or near the national policy arena. President H.C.M. Case (Illinois) presided over discussions of the following items:

13 Erdman placated the membership by suggesting that there were many other sources oflists of publications in the field. He was not specific. 40 CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy

Size of the Executive Committee. The committee was expanded to include the four immediate past presidents of the Association. The two immediate past presidents had served as part of the committee since 1928, but the activities of the Associa­ tion had grown too numerous and too complex for effective management by the existing group. State Chapters of the AFEA. The Committee agreed that if ten members of the As­ sociation lived in one state, those members could, if desired, form a state chapter of the AFEA. All members of a state chapter were required to be members of the na­ tional Association, but the local chapter could develop ocher levels of membership such as "associate members" for individuals who were not interested in becoming active in the AFEA. • The Executive Committee began to explore the possibility of the AFEA affiliating with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 14 The Committee agreed that the AFEA should join with the American Economic Association and its affiliated organizations in selecting the location for each annual meeting. After hearing reports regarding the International Agricultural Economic Con­ ference held at Cornell University in 1930, the Resolutions Committee recom­ mended that the Association "use its auspices to promote a better understanding between those engaged in Agricultural Economics in different countries."15 The Resolutions Committee suggested that the incoming AFEA administrative of­ ficers consider the advisability of inviting the American Association of Farm Man­ agers to hold its annual meeting at the same time and place as the AFEA. 16 Later in the meeting, the Executive Committee passed a motion extending a similar invitation to the National Association of State Marketing Officials. 17

As the 1930s unfolded, the American Farm Economic Association was eager to expand substantially its interaction with other organizations involved with the economics of agricul­ ture - especially the public economics of agriculture.

14 Only a brief record cells of the AFEA Executive Committee actually exploring rhe possibility of aligning with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Ar present (2009), the AAEA is listed along with 271 ocher associations as an affiliated member of the MAS. The modern AAEA has frequencly sponsored papers sections at the annual meeting of the MAS. 15 American Farm Economic Association Executive Committee, "Twenty First Annual Meeting of rhe American Agricultural Economic Association," journal ofFarm Economics (13:195) January, 1931. 16 Professional farm managers in Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri formed the American Association of Farm Managers in 1929. The members acquired accreditation to work with individual farmers on problems related ro financial analysis, real estate valuation, and the management of rural and farm resources. In 1936, the organization expanded to include professional rural appraisers. The organization survives today as the American Association of Farm Man­ agers and Rural Appraisers (ASFMRA). (http://asfmra.org). 17 The National Association of State Marketing Officials was an offshoot of the Conference on Farm Marketing and Farm Credits. After meeting with the failing "Conference ... " in 1915 and 1916, it organized on its own, at a conference held in Chicago in 1920. During its early years, the National Association of State Marketing Officials frequencly asked agricultural economists to speak at their annual program. As the agricultural depression of the 1920s deepened, more and more economics-related sessions appeared on the program of the annual meeting. Dur­ ing the Association's December 1928 business meeting, a motion from the floor asked about the possibility of the National Association of Stare Marketing Officials holding its annual meeting at the same rime and place as the AFEA. The two associations met joincly in 1931, but the joint meetings did not continue after that year. Agricul­ tural economists continued to speak from time to time at the marketing officials' conferences. CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Fai-rn Policy 41

In 1929, the Executive Committee voted to drop the "Associate Member" category of membership as ofJanuary 1, 1930. This came in response to the editor's indication that the lower dues ($2.00 per year) paid by associate members were inadequate to cover the cost of the journal that they received. At the time, the journal went to all members, as well as to 293 libraries and corporations. Erdman continued his practice of publishing articles without subjecting them to formal peer review. He tried to improve the quality of submissions by asking authors to use colleagues as informal reviewers of their work. Even with Erdman's pleas, the Journal continued to publish long and loosely written articles that were frequently devoid of data, citations, documentation, or references. Responding to the wishes of the membership, the Executive Committee appointed a deputation of five prominent members to meet with Secretary of Agriculture, Arthur Hyde, and the Chief of the USDA's Bureau ofAgricultural Economics, Nils Olson. The purpose of the meeting was to plead for the continuation of outlook work by the USDA, and for pub­ lication of the work in time for state personnel to use the information at state-level outlook conferences and Extension programs. Secretary Hyde heard the Association's arguments, but did not change the USDA's plans to cut back on outlook work. Funds for continuing such work were not available, and Hyde reasoned that producers using the "outlook" stemming from such work might interpret the results as forecasts of future conditions. Hyde believed that government-sponsored forecasts of prices and acreages could be detrimental given the economic climate of the times. 18 At the same session, the Executive Committee sent a committee of two - Howard Tolley (USDA) and WD. Nicholls (University of Kentucky) - to visit the Director of the Census to inquire regarding the possibility of publishing data by type of farming areas. The response was sympathetic, but monies were not available to make major changes.

Streamlining (or Changing) the Association's Administrative Structure The leaders of the Association continued to streamline the administrative policies and functions of the Executive Committee by asking that Article 4 of the Constitution be amended to allow two vice-Presidents rather than one. 19 Adding one new vice-president did not seem adequate to some members. The problem centered on the belief that too few people conducted the business of the Association, and that the members had little chance of gaining access to the decision makers. Adding a second Vice President would spread the workload, but it was not clear that it would solve the access issue. During the annual busi­ ness meeting in 1932, M.V Hart (Cornell) made a motion from the floor asking for the appointment of a committee of five to" ... consider the organization of a Board of Directors and other matters of organization of the Association." Another member offered an amend­ ment that would increase the size of the proposed committee to ten. The amendment, and

18 The deputation from the Association included Grimes (Kansas), Jesness (Minnesota), Forester (North Carolina), Hart (Cornell), and Erdman (California). An account of their meeting with the Secretary and the Chief appears in a footnote to the minutes of the 1931 Annual Meeting of the Executive Committee, Journal ofFarm Economics (14:188) January 1932. 19 This was a part of a long-standing and frustrating issue. All officers of the Association served at no cost to the organization. They depended on their home institution to provide "released rime" to do the work associated with the AFEA. As the Association grew and matured, the time required for administration and organization grew quite rapidly. Many institutional administrators were becoming increasingly disturbed at the rime their employees were raking to do the work of the Association. Hiring professional administrators was not an option, so lessening the administrative load required sharing it with additional officers. A second vice-President was a step in this direction. 42 CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Fann Policy

then amended motion, passed. The committee of ten asked for a second year to deliberate possible changes in the Association's organizational structure, but two years later, it retired from the task after suggesting only minor changes in the balloting process. In 1932, the American Farm Economic Association noted the existence of two regional associations of agricultural economists: the Western Farm Economic Association and the Agricultural Economics Section of the Southern Association of Agricultural Workers.20 The AFEA officers at first looked upon these organizations in the same way they looked at their own recently sanctioned state and local chapters. However, it became apparent that the regional groups were much more professional and had broader interests than local (state) chapters. In response, the AFEA developed the position that it should " ... [look] to the de­ velopment of closer relationships between the national association and such regional branch­ es or affiliates." A Committee of five agreed to watch over the development of the regional affiliates. The Western group eventually became the Western Agricultural Economics Asso­ ciation and the Southern group became the Southern Agricultural Economics Association. Both organizations continue to exist.

State and Local AFEA Chapters Almost from the beginning years of the AFEA, individual members who resided in close proximity to one another chose to meet from time to time for social as well as for professional activities. Printed reports of these meetings are not uniformly available but various issues of the Journal carry lists of the location of the clubs. The following lists may not be complete. • 1924 - District of Columbia - Cornell University - University of Wisconsin - Iowa State College - Kansas State College • 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928 - District of Columbia - Cornell University - University ofWiscoO:Sin - Iowa State College - Kansas State College - North Dakota Agricultural College - Western Farm Economists, Reno (See Chapter 8 ). • 1931 - Add the Agricultural Economics Section of the Association of Southern Agricultural Workers • 1933 - District of Columbia - Cornell University - University of Wisconsin - Western Farm Economists - Southern Agricultural Economisrs

20 The "Association of Southern Agricultural Workers," incorporated in South Carolina in 1899, provided a voice for all farm workers and others employed or interested in the agricultural industry in 14 southern states. In l 963, it became the "Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists," and took over responsibilities related mainly to representing academic departments and organizations in the colleges of the South. The Southern Association of Agricultural Economists broke away and became autonomous in 1968. A fuller explanation appears in Chapter 5. CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Fann Policy 43

AFEA, ASFM, and Farm Debt One of the AFEA's most important responses to the nation's and the industry's difficult economic condition came as a result of its decision to cooperate with the American Society of Farm Managers (ASFM) on problems relating to farm debt. At the time, farm operators, already hindered by heavy debt loads, needed additional sources of credit to pay off mort­ gages and to use to purchase seed, fertilizer, and other production-related items. Similarly, the institutions that served agriculture, cooperatives, warehouses, and the like, also were in great need of credit. Prior to 1933, these credit needs were served by several poorly coordinated federal agen­ cies. The Farm Credit Administration was created in 1933 to gather the scattered agencies under one roo£ The ASFM and the AFEA felt a need to study and publicize debt-related farm problems and the federal response to those problems. The two organizations discussed the possibility of a national conference on the subject. The AFEA appointed an ''Agricultural Credit Committee" made up of E.C. Young (Purdue), A.G. Black (Iowa State), Benjamin Hibbard (Wisconsin), Murray Benedict (California), F.F. Hill (Cornell), J.D. Pope (Au­ burn), and William Allen (Saskatchewan) to look into the extent of the problem and to help coordinate a joinrly sponsored conference. The American Society of Farm Managers took similar steps, laying the groundwork for a possible multi-faceted program. Problems developed when it became clear that the ASFM was interested in discussing mortgage debt, while the AFEA took a broader view. AFEA officers took pains to assure its members and the public that the views of the Farm Debt Committee, and the views expressed at any con­ ference that might come from deliberations with the American Society of Farm Managers, would not represent the position of the AFEA. In the event, the proposed conference did not materialize, bur the January 1934 issue of the Journal of Farm Economics was almost entirely devoted to papers offered up by members of the committees who had been working to develop the conference. The issue was widely read, with over 2,000 extra copies primed and distributed to individuals with interests in the agricultural credit and debt problems.

The Beginning of Direct Government Action On May 12, 1933, the way U.S. agriculture interacts with the federal government changed forever. On that day, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Agricultural Adjust­ ment Act of 1933. 21 The law's main purpose was to relieve the extreme economic conditions that had stifled the industry since the early 1920s. The Act aimed to accomplish this through a broad policy that encouraged farm operators to cur back on production in exchange for higher commodity prices. This broad policy also included aspects of conservation, land set­ tlement, credit, crop insurance, and a number of other features important to growers. This new "AAA" increased the demand for agricultural economists, and implicirly encouraged them to become involved with various aspects of the proposed government intervention. The Association's rules prevented it from raking a position on the new legislation. How­ ever, individual agricultural economists could not ignore, nor did most want to ignore, the 1933 legislation. The law changed the prices and quantities of agricultural commodities, as well as the opportunities available for the use of agricultural resources. Administrators

21 The Agricultural Adjustment Ace of 1933 is officially Public Law 73-10. However, in most writing- technical or popular - ic is referred co as "the Agricultural Adjustment Act" or as the "AAA." Many agricultural adjustment acts have been passed since 1933, so they must be qualified by a year or by some slight change in wording of the tide. For example, the legislation passed in 2002 was "The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002." Similar legislation in 2008 was called "The Food, Conservation, and Energy Ace of2008." 44 CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Fann Policy of the new federal programs noticed the relationships berween agricultural economics and the federal policies of the 1930s. & a result, the importance of agricultural economics grew. Individuals in the profession responded, and many influential agricultural economists took leave from their university or college positions to become administrators, leaders, and work­ ers in the agencies and boards of the AAA. The &sociation planned its 1933 annual meeting to be a short course in the contempo­ rary politics and economics of U.S. agriculture. The sessions at the December 27-29 meet­ ing were held jointly with the American Economic &sociation and the American Statistical Association. The annual meeting provided an audience for a highly recognizable lineup of speakers that included, among others, the following authors (tides of their papers are also listed):22 • "The Farmer and Social Discipline," by Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of Agricul­ ture. • "The Program of the Farm Credit Administration," by William I. Myers, Gov­ ernor of the Farm Credit Administration and former faculty member at Cornell University. The Myers paper was discussed by Waldo E. Grimes from Kansas State College. • "The Place of Government in a National Land Program," by Rexford G. Tugwell, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture and former faculty member at Columbia Univer­ sity. The Tugwell paper was discussed by George S. Wehrwein from the University of Wisconsin. • "The Place of Subsistence Homesteads in Our National Economy," by M.L. Wil­ son, Department of the Interior, formerly on the faculty at Montana State College. The Wilson paper was discussed by Carle C. Zimmerman, Harvard University. • "The Program of Agricultural Adjustment," by Chester C. Davis, Administrator, Agricultural Adjustment Administration. The Davis paper was discussed by WE. Weaver, Pennsylvania State College. • "Marketing Agreements under the Agricultural Adjustment Administration," by J.W Tapp and E.W Braun, Agricultural Adjustment Administration. The paper was discussed by M.P. Rasmussen of Cornell University.

At the same meeting, the American Economic &sociation sponsored a roundtable dis­ cussion, "Farm Debt and Distressed Land Holding," chaired by Benjamin Hibbard (Wis­ consin) and F.F. Hill (Cornell). Participants in the discussion included a number of general economists from leading universities. The discussants made frequent reference to the col­ laborative work done by the AFEA and the American Society of Farm Managers joint com­ mittee on farm debt. 23 The 3-day program included seven other roundtables as well as major paper sections devoted directly or indirectly to the new farm legislation, or to the underlying depressed conditions in agricultural and rural areas.

22 The correct order of speaking is printed on pages 180-183 of the January 1934 issue of the Journal of Farm Economics. The order shown here is the order in which the speakers' papers appear in that same January, 1934 issue ofJFE. Some important policy-related papers from the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting appeared in later issues of the journal. 23 F.F. Hill provided a synthesis of the discussion for publication in the April 1934 issue of]FE. See F.F. Hill, "Leg­ islative Approaches to Farm Debt Problems," Journal ofFann Economics (I 6:287-290) April 1934. CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy 45

Few of the authors in the 1933 sessions were strangers to the American Farm Economic Association. Most had published in the journal prior to January 1934, or would publish in it at some future date. The characteristic that set this issue (meeting) off from others of its era was the intensity with which the authors and discussants explained, attacked, and defended the complex policies that were to become a constant part - some would say a driving force - of the U.S. agricultural industry and the agricultural economics profession for the remainder of the Twentieth Century. 24 Two years later in December 1935, Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace attended the annual meeting as the dinner speaker at a banquet held on the final evening of the ses­ sions. His talk, "Farm Economists and Economic Planning" opened with the rather lighted­ hearted: It is an unusual pleasure to meet with men of a group which has contrib­ uted so substantially to the welfare of the United States during the past fifteen years. Many of us in this group can recall the time in 1919 when the new Farm Economics Association emerged out of its Farm Manage­ ment background. There were many who wished to make it clear on the one hand that farm economics had in it much more than farm manage­ ment and on the other hand, that it was different in certain respects from general economics. The new organization seemed to have a hybrid vigor derived from its dual source.

The work of the farm economists has on the whole been extraordinarily worth while, in spite of the fact that in their meetings they engage in the same endless disputes about taxonomical and terminological problems as any other type of economist.... 25

Wallace then moved to a gentle criticism of laissez faire economics and a very positive description of how the new Agricultural Adjustment Act, if managed properly, could lead to a more prosperous industry and nation. The major papers heard at the 1935 annual meeting focused on the New Deal and its programs. The focal point of the meeting was an eight-person (and eight-paper) discussion listed under the title, "Validity of the Fundamental Assumptions Underlying Agricultural Adjustment."26 M.L. Wilson (Assistant Secretary of Agriculture) and O.B. Jesness (Minne­ sota) made opening remarks. These papers set the stage for brief comments by G.F. Warren (Cornell), J.S. Davis (Stanford), Oscar C. Stine (USDA), H.E. Erdman (California), J.D. Black (Harvard), and Don S. Anderson (Wisconsin). Wilson andJesness emphasized the need for government involvement to maintain fam­ ily farming, increase farm income, and assure security and stability for those involved in farming. Both talks were· urgent and well reasoned. The six "respondents" were individuals who were unaccustomed to the restrictions imposed by a five-minute rule on discussions,

24 The December 1933 annual meeting brought an informal and certainly unofficial announcement of relief re­ garding the dire economic situation that the nation faced. Asher Hobson (Wisconsin), Secretary-Treasurer of the organization, reported that membership had grown after two years of decline and that for the year receipts exceeded expenses by $1819.26. Hobson apparently took this as strong evidence that the depression was ending! 25 Henry A. Wallace, "Farm Economists and Agricultural Planning," journal ofFarm Economics ( 18: 1-11) February 1936. 26 M.L. Wilson et al. "Validity of the Fundamental Assumptions Underlying Agricultural Adjustment," Journal of Farm Economics (18: 12-58) February 1936. 46 CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy and their remarks extend over many themes, major and minor. 27 The six did not agree on the need for permanent government involvement in agriculture, but there was agreement that some short-term federal intervention was appropriate. While the Association could not and did not take a position with respect to the AM and other New Deal programs, eight of its most prominent scholars came close to agreement among themselves that the economic conditions of the 1930s called for federal help. From the mid-l 930s on, the Association, through its journal, its publications, and its members, spoke frequently about federal policies. The papers and presentations were often descriptive rather than prescriptive in nature, and were used to document problems rather than to find solutions, but from about 1935 until the end of the decade topics such as land use, international trade, cooperatives, commodity pricing, farm mechanization, and labor management made increasing appearances in the journal.

Dust The Dust Bowl was the second major calamity to affect American agriculture during the 1930s.28 Cyclical drought conditions, high winds, and farming practices often - if in­ advertently - tailor-made to exacerbate the consequences of both, caused huge dust storms that picked up desiccated soils from the central and northern Plains states, and spread them as far as the Atlantic coastline and beyond. The drought and wind conditions persisted for several years, eventually forcing hundreds of thousands of farmers off their farms in Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arkansas, and other states. 29 The secondary effects of this migration were huge and long lasting, but the Roosevelt Administration's complex farm programs ad­ dressed them in only an incidental way.

Dust Bowl Policy The administration put the Soil Erosion Service (soon to be renamed the Soil Conservation Service) in place as pare of the AAA of 1933, however, it was too little and too late, to be of great help with Dust Bowl conditions. In 1935, the Resettlement Administration was added to the other New Deal programs. It was an attempt to move farmers from fragile and marginal lands to areas that were more productive. Afrer two years of vicious political fighting over the purposes and methods of the RA, it was renamed as the Farm Security Administration and given broader powers in dealing with farmers swamped by debt. Afrer more changes in purpose and practice, the FSA became the Farmers Home Administration - an agency that survives today.

Many agricultural economists eventually studied, wrote, and proposed policies related to the Dust Bowl experience, but the AFEA itself played a very small role. In 1934, as the dust storms were just beginning, the Association appointed a Land Use Committee to study settlement programs in the affected areas as well as in other parts of the United States. In most cases, research and extension efforts addressed by chis committee focused on the mar­ ginal productivity of the land rather than on the threat and consequences of wind erosion. Although many land-related papers authored by members of the Association appeared in the

27 For several years after its formal organization in 1919, discussions at d1e annual AFEA meeting followed a "ten­ minute rule" or a "five-minute rule." As these indicate, discussants in any session of the program were obliged to complete their comments in the allotted time. 28 For an excellent description of the magnitude and the damage and the policy conflicts brought on by the dust bowl, see Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Times: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, Boston: Houghton Miffiin, 2006. 29 Estimates of numbers of people driven off their farms by the storms vary from about 350,000 to 2.5 million. The lower numbers seem to be more reliable. CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy 47 journ~l ofFarm Economics, published reports of individual Dust Bowl research efforts were more likely to appear in The journal ofLand and Public Utility Economics (re-titled as Land Economics in 1948). Managing the Association Even with the Depression and the Dust Bowl afRicting the nation and its inhabitants, the mundane concerns of day-to-day activity went on. The Association was no exception: to wit, it required someone to manage it. Changes made during the late 1930s consisted pri­ marily of small steps and marginal changes that by themselves did not demonstrably change the character of the organization. Membership grew from 650 in 1930 to 739 by 1935, and would grow to nearly 900 by 1940. During this period, the journal's production schedule changed from January-April-July-October issues to February-May-August-November issues to allow publishing all proceedings papers in the same (February) issue and to give the Pres­ ident-elect and the Executive Committee an extra month to develop the next year's program before its publication in the November issue. Money and the journal continued as topics of major concern. By 1935, the Association had total assets of nearly $14,000, and annual operating revenues exceeded annual operat­ ing costs by about $2,050. Even so, Secretary-Treasurer Asher Hobson (Wisconsin) warned that the Association was not yet a self-sustaining organization. Unfortunately, few options were available to remedy this condition. In the end, raising dues was out of the question, so regular member dues remained at $5 per year. 30 However, the committee offered lifetime memberships that gradually increased in price from $40 to $75 and then to $100. The Committee's main response in the face of Hobson's pronouncement was to cut expenses where possible, and to refuse all but a few requests for new expenditures. The Executive Committee authorized the Secretary-Treasurer to pay the expenses of one person to work with the annual meeting's Arrangements Committee to assist in site selection, provided the site was in a Midwestern city. The Executive Committee also approved paying a secretary to assist with arrangements for the annual meeting. The Association continued its cooperation with the Social Science Research Council, but the two groups decided to change their focus from research agendas to work with the Census Bureau to see if the census could conduct its agricultural enumerations as of]anuary 1 rather than the customary April 1. The Census Bureau was eager to make this and other changes, but the money in the federal treasury would not allow the change for the 1935 Census of Agriculture. The Bureau suggested holding all proposals for change until planning began for the 1940 Census. As the 1935 Executive Committee meeting ended, the outgoing committee recom­ mended that the incoming President appoint an ad hoc committee or committees to study a number of aspects of the Association's operations. Among them were defining the purpose, scope, and effort of the organization; life memberships; endowments; disposition of surplus funds; and the possibility of publishing a proceedings issue separate from, and in addition to, the four regular issues of the journal. This was not a case of one committee passing chores to another, but more a listing of items that were beginning to interfere with the smooth functioning of the organization.

30 Ac an earlier meeting, the Executive Committee discussed the possibility of lowering dues as a means of attract­ ing more members and raising coca! receipts during the Depression years. Apparently, the Executive Committee was possessed of the notion chat demand for membership was elastic. 48 CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy

The work of the Association's several committees continued to make a favorable im­ pression on policy makers and other economists. For example, a joint committee orga­ nized with the SSRC staged a successful conference on the problems surrounding farm debt. Another joint AFEA-SSRC committee continued to work with the Census in helping to make enumeration easier and tabulation more useful to final users of the data. Even given the existence of the joint AFEA-SSRC committee relating to the Census, Murray Benedict (California) was asked to serve as chairman of an exclusively AFEA committee to examine and advise with respect to the Census ofAgriculture. Benedict and S.H. DeVault (University of Maryland) served as AFEA members of the joint Census Advisory Committee. The AFEA committee did not feel restrained in its suggestions. Before finishing its work, the committee provided the following suggestions: • Shift the enumeration date to January 1. (The Association had made this request annually for several years.) • Clarify the situation surrounding sharecroppers: Are they considered as farm op- erators or as laborers? • Divide farms into two groups: commercial farms and small farms. • Provide additional training for enumerators. • Refine farm labor questions to take account of family labor. • Provide supplementary enumeration pages for specialty crops. • Provide supplementary pages to account for regional differences in farming. • Use a sampling of Assessors' Records to verify estimates of the value of land and buildings.

The Executive Committee forwarded these suggestions to S.H. DeVault (Maryland) the Association's representative on the Advisory Committee to the Division of Agriculture, Bureau of the Census. 31 Waldo Grimes (Kansas) headed a Recruitment Committee in hopes of attracting col­ lege students to major in the subject, so that the Association could do its part to help fill the anticipated shortage of agricultural economists. His suggestions called for a survey of schools to determine their capacity for expansion, and for the appointment of an ''Association Re­ cruiter" in each degree-granting department and agency. By 1936, the Executive Committee was apparently becoming anxious about the seem­ ingly Sisyphean efforts of the Committee on Definition of Terms in Farm Management.32 This committee had been in existence since the early years of the old AFMA, but remained stymied by the inability of farm management economists to agree on the definitions of sev­ eral commonly used terms. In 1937, the committee assembled a list of terms used in farm business, and circulated among interested parties a pamphlet showing terms with settled definitions. This pamphlet also requested the assistance of interested readers in defining other terms. Twenty-nine schools or groups answered the request for assistance. Unfortu­ nately, confusion remained, so the committee requested additional time for more effort. The Executive Committee, impatient after waiting for 20 years, instructed the committee to move forward and publish its findings as a handbook.

31 Benedict's report fills nearly five pages of the "Reports" section of the February, 1939 issue of the journal ofFarm Economics and there is a note at the bottom of page 404 saying, "The more extended report of the Committee is on file in the office of the Secretary-Treasurer, and is available to members of the Association." Murray Benedict, "Report of the Agricultural Census Committee," journal ofFarm Economics (21:404-408) February 1939. 32 The name of this committee varies slightly from year to year. CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy 49

Conversations with the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers resumed in 1938. The overture seemed modest: ask the ASFMRA to schedule its summer meeting at a time and place that would make it pos­ sible and convenient for AFEA members to attend the meetings of both as­ sociations. Late in the year (December), the Executive Committee asked that a committee of AFEA members " ... be appointed to work with a Committee Photograph courtesy of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers to bring ofSSRC about closer cooperation between the two organizations in matters of mutual interest." L.S. Robertson (Purdue) chaired the committee. He and others had notions that the two groups should formalize a rather significant union - perhaps even merge. Although it is difficult to see why in hindsight, the two organizations never came close to merging, or even to formal­ izing a consistent schedule of cooperation.33 In the final years of the 19 30s, the AFEA enjoyed a strong reputation with federal agen­ cies, as well as with other organizations dedicated to serving agriculture. The Land Tenure Committee and the Census Committee continued to work at the highest levels of national policy. All committees seemed to be working reasonably well, but most (the Committee on Definition of Terms in Farm Management being the most prominent example) never seemed to finish their work. Members of many committees simply stayed in their jobs for the next year, hoping that their work could be completed. As the 1930s ended, the American Farm Economic Association was no longer a small and tightly focused organization. True, it had shed a number of activities that belonged to an earlier time, but it was larger than before; it had more committees doing more things; and it was preparing its members for the drastic changes that would face the U.S. economy as the Depression lessened in severity and the nation became involved in a second worldwide conflict.

33 Minutes of AFEA Annual Business Meeting, American Farm Economic Association, Journal ofFarm Economics (21:412-413) February 1939. so CHAPTER FOUR• The 1930s: Depression, Dust, and Farm Policy CHAPTER FIVE The Inconvenience ofWar

In the final years of the 1930s, many of the world's industrial economies were beginning to recover, and levels of investment and production began to reach levels comparable to those of the mid-to-late 1920s. As economic conditions brightened, though, the political situation around the globe began to deteriorate. Japan and China were involved in armed conflict in the early 1930s, and open conflict began in Europe in September 1939. Agricultural economists in the United States were aware of the deteriorating global political situation, and they, like others, had a tendency to evaluate the current situation in comparison to what had happened to agriculture in the United States during and after World War I. U.S. agriculture benefited immensely from the First World War, when Euro­ pean demands for U.S.-produced foodstuffs caused commodity prices and farm incomes to increase. As the 1930s drew to an end and war loomed ever nearer, the WWI slogan "Food Will Win the War" again became a popular slogan among farmers, as well as among farm organizations and the general population. During that same period, the publications of the AFEA carried few comments about the possible effects of potential hostilities on U.S. agriculture. 1 In 1939, only one article, "Japan's Agricultural Crisis" by W Ladejinsky (USDA), mentioned international conflicts, and this mention came in a one-dimensional paper regarding Japan's efforts to resettle farm­ ers in previously subdued and occupied Manchuria. 2 With major and growing conflicts in two parts of the world, it seemed that farm econo­ mists would discuss the possible role of U.S. agriculture in what looked increasingly like it was going to be a wartime economy. However, the December 1939 annual meeting, held jointly with the American Economic Association, the American Statistical Association, the Rural Sociological Society, and the Agricultural History Society, carried papers on tradition­ al themes. The preliminary program for the meeting appeared in the November 1939 issue of the Journal one month before the meeting was to take place. It listed a session titled, "Ef­ fect of the War upon American Agriculture." The Friday morning (third day) session chaired by Leslie Wheeler (USDA) included major papers by Asher Hobson (Wisconsin) and Leo

1 Other things seemed to be of more concern to the Association's officers and members, among them the con­ tinuing effort to hold joint annual meetings with the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers (ASFMRA). The effort, which had begun in about 1930, was not going well. In 1938, the AFEA Committee on Cooperation with the ASFMRA made no progress on how the two organizations could affiliate and still maintain their separate identities. The committee gave a discouraging report to the Executive Committee in 1939. It recom­ mended that the AFEA appoint a new group of representatives to continue the discussions, and to " ... propose a round table or other portion of the program of the 1940 meeting of the American Farm Economic Association that will be of particular interest ro members of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers." The planning committee obliged by including two roundtables "Theoretical Aspects of Land Economics" and "Farm Management Research'' during the first day of the meeting. a.,: w. Ladejiruky, 1ap,Ss Agcirulru,,I Cm","]"="' ,ffunn Eam,mio (21,614-631) "'"'" 1939. SI 52 CHAPTER FIVE • The Inconvenience ofWar

Pasvolsky (the Brookings Institution). The Hobson paper, "War Adjustment for American Agriculture," was the only paper from the session printed in the following (February 1940) proceedings issue of the journal. 3 Hobson gave a well-disciplined paper. He began by stating three unknowns surround­ ing the war: (1) the length of the war, (2) the number and size of the nations involved, and (3) the possible role of the United States. Hobson then moved to three assumptions about the effects of a war economy on the United States. He assumed that (1) the war would last "an appreciable length of time," (2) the French and British and their allies would dominate the seas, and (3) "the United States [would] continue as a neutral supplier to all who can come and get our wares and pay for them upon delivery at our docks."4 Given these un­ knowns and assumptions, Hobson broke his paper into three parts: the first was an historical sketch of U.S. agriculture's reactions to World War I, the second provided descriptions of circumstances that would prevent the prices of U.S. agricultural products from rising dur­ ing the conflict, and the third provided contrasting reasons why commodity prices might rise. He closed with a warning that U.S. agriculture could easily overreact to any temporary windfall that war might bring. Hobson covered considerable ground, and in doing so he likely provoked other agricultural economists into an increased awareness of the problems and potential problems associated with the coming war economy. The mid-1940 (May and August) issues of the journal carried the usual collections of papers on the recruitment and training of agricultural economists, land problems, com­ modity problems, and the like. No mention was made of the war, or the implications for U.S. agriculture of some other nations' war. 5 The November 1940 issue began to convey a sense of increased urgency that surrounded the country's agriculture and its agricultural economists. Mordecai Ezekiel (USDA) authored the lead article, "Price Analyses, War, and Depressions."6 He did not dwell on the coming war, or on the receding depression. Instead, he told his audience that the analysis of prices under such conditions could yield ambigu­ ous results. He also transferred the notion of ambiguity to any other institutional change or economic event that altered the real content of the question, "What is in a price?" Changes in a census definition or a rapid inflation provided examples. "War-Time Price Control in the United Kingdom," by J.H. Richter-Altschaffer (Brit­ ish Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations), followed Ezekiel's work.7 Richter-Altschaffer explained the United Kingdom's plans for stabilizing prices and limiting the rise in prices of many necessary commodities, especially foods. The paper was particularly useful because it

3 Asher Hobson, "War Adjustments for American Agriculture," Journal ofFarm Economics (22:369-378) February 1940. The fact rhar the Pasvolsky paper is nor printed does not necessarily indicate that it was not given or that Pasvolsky was nor present and active as part of the session. If the paper was given, either he or the editor (T.W Schultz) decided not to print it. 4 Asher Hobson, page 269. 5 This should come as no surprise. The articles accepted for publication in the April and August issues had been written months or even years earlier, long before the possibility or threat of war for the United States. 6 Mordecai Ezekiel, "Price Analysis, Wars, and Depressions," journal ofFarm Economics (22:673-679) November 1940. 7 The Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations was a part of the Foreign Agricultural Service created during the Hoover Administration in 1930. JI CHAPTER FIVE • The Inconvenience ofWar 53

referred to contemporary (1939 and 1940) conditions rather than using the more common practice of looking back to what had happened during and after the previous World War. 8 Other papers in the issue relate to traditional themes. The December 1940 annual meeting was held in New Orleans, jointly with the Ameri­ can Economic Association and the Agricultural History Society. 9 The evening session on the opening day carried the tide "War, National Defense, and Agriculture." Asher Hobson (Wisconsin) presided over the three major papers: • "The Newly Developing International Situation and American Agriculture," by O.B. Jesness (Minnesota) • "Economic and Social Effects of the War and the Defense Program on American Agriculture," by Eric Englund and Ray C. Smith (USDA) • "American Agriculture in the New War and Defense Situation," by J.D. Black (Harvard)

There was no formal discussant. Black's paper was more a series of independent discus­ sions of issues that had appeared elsewhere. Jesness and Smith (Englund apparently chose not to participate further in the session) took the position that the U.S. role in any com­ ing conflict was one of supporting the combatants through trade. Thus, their predictions regarding the effects on U.S. agriculture and rural areas were somewhat understated. Black was not sure, and in more than one instance he focused on the United States as a major combatant. His expressions of possible effects suggested that it would be wise to anticipate major dislocations in farm and rural areas. Certainly, if the U.S. were to enter the war as an active belligerent, the effect on farm labor availability alone would likely be profound. All three authors noted that the early stages of the war did not have a great economic impact on U.S. agriculture. Indeed, if it had an effect, it was slightly negative - something that most observers had not expected. World War I had caused a major increase in the export of foodstuffs and war materiel. In the early years of the Second World War, a general lack of foreign exchange caused the nations involved in the conflict to reduce their purchases from the United States.

The Business Meeting In accordance with custom, the February 1941 issue of the journal included annual reports of the Association's committees, along with a record of the December 1940 busi­ ness meetings. Asher Hobson, the Association's Secretary-Treasurer at the time, reported the welcome news that operating revenues exceeded operating costs by $1,986.57 for the year. He also reported that 25 individuals and 21 libraries had terminated their memberships and subscriptions. These primarily foreign members and libraries likely took this action because

8 J.H. Richter-Altshaffer, "War-Time Price Control in the United Kingdom," Journal ofParm Economics (22:680- 690) November 1940. 9 The joint meeting between Christmas and New Years was not unusual. Prior to WWII, academic societies and associations held many, perhaps most, of their meetings between the two holidays. The early American Farm Man­ agement Association and the AFEA met and decided to merge at one such winter meeting. The AFEA had close ties to the AEA, so their annual meetings were almost always held in the same city at the same time. The American History Society and the American Statistical Association, and other societies frequently joined in the meetings of these two associations. In the late 1930s, the AEA began to use the name American Social Science Association (ASSA) to designate the groups that met together at the time of the academics' winter recess. Today, more than 50 ..o,g,mi~riom arul socieri, = oo m, ASSA =,,,. 54 CHAPTER FIVE • The Inconvenience of War of the war in Europe. Hobson's remarks included a rather common concern at the time, ob­ serving that few agricultural economists from the 13 Southern states had joined the AFEA. Even so, the Executive Committee made no move to increase recruiting efforts in the South.

The Association of Southern Agricultural Workers In 1910, very few of the agricultural economists living and working in the southern U.S. (Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Ar­ kansas, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico) belonged to theAFMA, or later the AFEA. They saw no reason ro, because beginning in 1899 the South had its own society for workers and scientists interested in agriculture. The Association of Southern Agricultural Workers attracted workers from all disciplines and from private-sector activity. Membership was by institution, organization, or com­ pany. Once one of these joined, ir could send any number of individuals roan annual meeting, where speakers from all branches of science and commerce noted progress and problems affecting the agricultural industry in the South. The Association had 53 members in 1928, a year when these members sent more than 1,100 individuals to the annual meeting in Memphis. By 1970, the Association had 53 "institutional" members, 54 "commercial" members, and 1,160 individual members. The Association was divided into sections - one for each specialty group or discipline such as agronomy, forestry, agricultural economics, soil conservation, and the like. The number of sections varied slightly from year to year, with a general downward trend in numbers beginning in the late 1960s when scientists from many fields began ro transfer their membership and their interests from the Southern Association to national organizations such as the AFEA, the Rural Sociological Society, and the American Statistical Association. In 1973, the Association changed its name to the Association of the Southern Agricultural Scientists and ended 70 years of publishing a proceedings issue of its large, multi-disciplinary annual meetings. The agri­ cultural economists in the old association became members of Southern Agricultural Economics Association, and published their work in the Southern journal ofAgricultural Economics. A more derailed history of the origins of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association and its predecessor organizations can be found in an article by Joseph Havlicek Jr., "The Southern Agricultural Economics Association: Past, Present, and Future," Southern journal ofAgricultural Economics (16:1-5), July 1984.

The AFEA's Professional Farm Management Committee indicated that it had tried, again without success, to develop a program for the next meeting that would be attractive to members of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. The ASFMRA did not respond favorably, so Lynn Robertson (Purdue), chairman of the AFEA committee, recommended that the committee be disbanded. The Marketing Research Committee, headed by Frederick V Waugh (USDA), reported being idle in 1940 after conducting a very successful series of roundtables in earlier years. The committee asked for recommendations from the Executive Committee regarding the disposition of the wide range of marketing-related materials that the committee had pro­ duced. The Executive Committee agreed to extend the life of the committee and promised to offer suggestions at a later date. 10 The Committee on Definitions ofTerms in Farm Management followed instructions it was given at an earlier meeting. It had struggled with definitions since the early years of the old AFMA. By 1937, the Executive Committee had grown tired of waiting for the task to be completed, so the committee was instructed to move quickly toward publishing a finished list. The 1940 committee report was seven pages long, and included a detailed description of how the committee went about its work. This included a note that the committee could not reach agreement on several terms used in the discipline. This problem was approached by providing a list of 15 ambiguous terms, plus a second list of 51 terms about which the committee was in substantial agreement. The committee ended its report by making the fol-

10 The notes and papers of the Marketing Committee were gathered, edited by Waugh, and published by the As- =;,,;oo oodmhc cid, &,d;og, ,o Agrimlwml M""'"og ;o 1954. JIIIIIII CHAPTER FIVE • The Inconvenience ofWar 55

lowing motion: "Moved [and seconded] that the Report of the Committee on Definitions ofTerms in Farm Management be published in the journal ofParm Economics, and action on its acceptance be deferred until the next annual meeting. Motion carried." 11 The list of the 15 terms over which there was serious disagreement or ambiguity appears on page 370 of the February 1941 issue of the journal. (The 51 terms on which the com­ mittee agreed appear on pages 372-376 of the same issue.) Some of the ambiguous terms have yet to be resolved. Even today, after 70 years and thousands of person-years of farm management research effort, there is still ambiguity about terms such as the value of unpaid family labor, the inclusion of the farm dwelling, and the distribution of farm income to labor, management, or capital.

Graduate Students and Selective Service The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 placed graduate students in agricultural economics in special jeopardy. Even though the law included arrangements for college stu­ dents to take one year of compulsory military training before entering the service, enforce­ ment of the law would disrupt the work of students who were well into their programs of study. The Committee on Military Affairs of the National Association of State Universities suggested modifying the law to enable graduate students to take three summer months of military training at selected state universities. Under this plan, students could be involved in training programs while at an agricultural college and in close proximity to their academic interests and research. Proponents of the plan suggested that the students would thus be better prepared to serve the military as" ... some of the best qualified men in the country."12 The graduate students in attendance at the 1940 AFEA meeting were aware of the position taken by NASU, and urged the military to put the "three month plan" into effect. Moreover, the students argued for the opportunity to work in a branch of military service related to their professional training and interests. The students capped their concerns by sending a message to all state personnel involved with Selective Service, making them aware of the burden that the year-long mandatory military training would place on individuals involved in scholarship and research.

11 "Report of the Committee on Definitions ofTerms in Farm Management," Journal ofFarm Economics (23:369- 376) February 1941. H.M. Dixon (USDA) chaired the committee. 12 This paraphrases a part of a lengthy report writren by the National Association of State Universities at their meeting in Chicago in November 1940. Parts of the report are excerpted on page 380 of the February 1941 issue ~of

The students' petitions originated with a committee of seven, and eventually carried signatures of "about 60 graduate students representing about 15 colleges." These students had signed the documents on December 28, 1940, one year before the war began for the United States. 13 The preliminary program for the 1941 annual meeting appeared in its usual place in the November issue of the journal. President Murray Benedict (California), with help from members of the Executive Committee, scheduled the meeting for New York City. Planning for the meeting had begun almost a full year before the tentative program was published and at a time when many observers were still convinced that the United States' role in World War II would be limited. The plans called for joint sessions with the AEA, the ASA, the Ag­ ricultural History Society, the American Sociological Society, and the American Marketing Association. All plans changed demonstrably when the United States entered the war as a belligerent on December 8, 1941. In spite of the drastic change in the nation's posture, the AFEA officers and the officers of the other associations decided that the New York meeting, scheduled for late December, should move ahead as planned. The preliminary program included six sessions directly or indirectly related to a war economy. Ten speakers and seven discussants were on the program, and Secretary of Agri­ culture Claude Rickard agreed to give a Luncheon Address on the final day of the meeting. Two weeks later, when the proposed meeting actually occurred, five papers, rather than six sessions, related to the war. 14 Most of these discussed problems related to post-war adjustment rather than mobilization. No paper in this group acknowledged that the nation was at war. President Benedict's December 1941 report to the Executive Committee did not hide his views of the changing times and of the progress made by the Association. In part, he said: The pattern of procedure in the [American Farm Economic] Associa­ tion activities has become standardized, perhaps too much so. At any rate there may be need for it to take new forms in the coming year. It is con­ ceivable that the holding of a meeting of this kind may be considered in­ advisable a year from now. If so, we may need to rely more heavily on the Journal as a means for the exchange of ideas and the results of researches.

We have before us such problems as those of how to relate our agricultural economy to those of Canada, South America, Europe and Asia; of achiev­ ing a less uneasy balance between agricultural and non-agricultural pur-

13 The complete report of the graduate student committee is printed in page 379 of the February 1941 issue of the Journal ofFarm Economics. The students' report is actually a response in recognition of the lengthy committee report written by the appropriate committee of the National Association of State Universities. Only a very short excerpt appears in the Journal. The National Association of State Universities was writing a recommendation to apply to all graduate students regardless of major or discipline. The students present at the AFEA meeting in New Orleans were attempting to add their weight to a much broader problem. One year later at the annual meeting of the AFEA in New York City, the graduate students again met - this time with representatives from the United States Civil Service Commission. The committee report, printed outside the minutes of the general meeting, uses technical "agency talk" of the era, but at its core it represents a plea for the government to use the graduate students in such as way as to make the best possible use of the skills that they possessed or were developing. See The Student Committee. "Problems of Graduate Students in the Rural Social Sciences," journal ofFarm Economics (24:340-342) February 1942. 14 The planned (preliminary) program is on pages 938-943 of the November 1941 issue of the journal ofFarm Em,omk, 11,e,,ru,l prog,= P'P'" •pp= in chefebn=y 1942 i•= ... CHAPTER FIVE • The Inconvenience of War 57

suits; and of alternatives to a continuous or recurring population pressure in agriculture. But these are large problems not well suited to individual research. The Association might well consider whether it can aid in coor­ dinating and stimulating more effective work on researches of larger scope and more fundamental significance than those which our members are now carrying on. This comment ... [recognizes] that the problems themselves have grown in scale and that we may need other approaches to them.

I for one would like to see this Association explore the possibilities oflarger scale, more fundamental studies, perhaps through a small but carefully se­ lected committee. The conclusions of such a committee might be negative or it might find some other agency better suited to the task of guidance and stimulation. At least, however, the problem would not have been ignored.

Referring now to some of the longer standing problems of the Associa­ tion, it seems to me that its Committee activities have not at any time been notably effective. Yet there are problems on which special commit­ tees might conceivably make a significant contribution. This is unlikely to occur with our present form of organization. The president's attention is too much absorbed with the planning and development of the pro­ gram, and his period of responsibility is too short. 15

Benedict, perhaps shaken by recent world events, laid out the Association's problems as he saw them. He was the first President of the Association to offer openly such criticism, and to suggest such mafor_changes in the Association. It seems that he used the somber, reflective mindset often engendered by disruptions of the times to catalyze his objections to what was happening in the American Farm Economic Association. The individual committee reports given at the 1941 business meeting and the Executive Committee meetings of that year are much shorter than usual. Secretary-Treasurer Hobson reported that membership was once again down, mainly because of war-related losses of foreign memberships and subscriptions. 16 He (rather than the editor) also indicated that the Journal would be more expensive to produce in 1942, due to rising costs and possible restric­ tions on the use of some types of paper. 17 After four years as editor of the journal, T.W Schultz (Iowa) asked to be relieved of the editorial chores. During his four-year tenure, the Journal increased in size to nearly 1,000 pages per volume; the number of submissions also increased demonstrably. Even so, Schultz ended his final annual report as editor by saying:

15 Murray Benedict, "Report of the President," journal ofFarm Economics (24:343-345) February 1942. This is a part of the reports made to the Annual Business Meeting of the Thirty-Second meeting of the American Farm Economic Association. Benedict's report is significantly longer than most presidential reports given at the Annual Meeting. 16 Prior to World War II, 38 members were from Japan, more than from any other foreign nation. The war effort required termination of these memberships. Perhaps to limit the reduction in numbers of members, the Executive Committee agreed to offer bona fide graduate students membership in the organization with dues at $3 per year - $2 below the rate for full members. 17 A note from the publisher tells that paper used for the Journal would likely be oflighter weight, lower durability, ~md of, fakec colo, doc ro =rictioos oo d,, bbd,o med io P'P" p,odoctioo. 58 CHAPTER FIVE • The Inconvenience ofWar

[During my time as editor] I have learned much about you and our association. Our membership has vitality. I have found an abundance of goodwill, a deep inter­ est in professional progress and growth of our field, and a willingness of individuals to give generously of their time to help develop a more scholarly and useful literature. We have, however, a long way to go. Our articles and books are in the main quite amateur. We T.W. Schultz Photograph courtesy ofAAEA. are too busy and often too close to action to permit the deeper attributes ofscholarship to develop. I have no doubt though that as we mature our contributions will become increasingly more significant. There is every reason to have high expectations. 18

The Committee on Definitions ofTerms in Farm Management gave a longer than usual report, in which it indicated that the committee had completed its work. The long list of definitions published in the February 1941 issue of the journal seemed to have satisfied the committee's charge, and chairman Dixon (USDA) remarked that, "Since this committee has accomplished the purpose for which it was formed, we recommend that it be discharged." The recommendation was accepted. 19 The Committee on Recruiting and Training Personnel in Agricultural Economics, which had been in place since 1936, also weighed in with a report. The Committee's con­ cern centered on the difficulties faced by students from remote areas as they began advanced training in the social sciences. By 1940, the committee had commissioned and partially sponsored a survey-based study of conditions affecting the training of rural students in ag­ ricultural economics and related fields. 20 T.W Schultz (Iowa) conducted and analyzed the survey before making it available to the AFEA and to the Land Grant College Association. The American Council of Education, a major sponsor of the effort, asked Schultz to gather the results of the survey into a book. Schultz did so, including his findings in the publication of Training and Recruiting ofPersonnel in the Rural Social Studies in 1941.21 The commit­ tee took this as an indication that the recruiting and training activities stemming from the survey could be put on hold for a time, but that the committee itself should continue its work- the efforts would surely be useful after the international hostilities ended. Chairman Brannen (University of Arkansas) recommended that the committee continue its work.

War Cancels Meetings Although the Association had managed to carry out the 1941 meeting as planned, the exigencies of the war caught up with the Association the following year. An un-numbered page at the end of the August 1942 issue of the journal carried an ominous announce­ ment (see below) informing members of the cancellation of the 1942 annual meeting of the American Farm Economic Association by order of the Office of Defense Transportation

18 T.W Schultz, "Report of the Editor," journal ofFarm Economics (24:348-349) February 1942. Italics added for emphasis. 19 No reason is given for why this recommendation was acted on by the entire Association rather than by the Ex­ ecutive Committee. 20 Other sponsors of the work included the Social Science Research Council, the American Council on Education, and the General Education Board. 21 Schultz presented partial results of the survey to the AFEA at its annual meeting in 1941. CHAPTER FIVE • The Inconvenience of"War 59

(ODT).22 Somewhat later, the ODT lifted the restriction, and the Association began a late and very hasty planning process, whereupon the ODT intervened a second time to cancel the re-scheduled meeting. This time the cancellation was irrevocable, and all hope of hold­ ing the 1942 meeting disappeared. Papers scheduled for the on-again-off-again sessions ap­ peared in their usual place in the February 1943 issue of the journal. An un-numbered page at the beginning of the February 1943 issue carries the following note from Editor H.B. Price (Kentucky): This volume of the Journal includes papers and discussions that were pre­ pared for the program of the thirty-third annual meeting of the American Farm Economic Association that was scheduled to be held December 29, 30, and 31, 1942, at Cleveland, Ohio. The meeting was cancelled but in conformity with past policy of the Association the materials so prepared for presentation at the annual meeting are herein published as a Proceed­ ings issue of the Journal.

THE EDITOR

ANNUAL MEETING Cleveland, Ohio December 29, 30, and 31, 1942

BECAUSE of the possible shortage of transportation during the Christmas holidays, several of the Associations deemed it desirable to abandon the annual meetings scheduled for Cleveland, Ohio, this year. Their action was prompted largely by statements issued by the Office of Defense Transpor­ tation. Recently, however, officials of several of the Associations conferred personally with representatives of the Office of Defense Transportation in Washington. They stressed the important public value of our meetings at this particular time. As the result of this conference and subsequent cor­ respondence, it has been agreed to hold the meetings as originally planned. The fact that the meetings will be held in the Middle West and not on the Seaboard is in our favor. However, it was pointed out to the Associa­ tion that it is desirable to reduce congestion over the week-end at any rate. Hence the dates for the meetings are December 29, 30, and 31.

With this uncertainty removed, active work on preparing the programs for the Cleveland meetings has been resumed.

GEORGES. WEHRWEIN President

QFE (24:742) August 1942.]

22 Roosevelt's Executive Order 8089 established the Office of Defense Transportation on December 18, 1941. It had responsibility for coordinating domestic freight and passenger services during World War II. Executive Order 10065 abolished the office in July 1949. All remaining activities of the office were transferred co the Interstate 11111..C:Ommm C:Omm;.;,., 60 CHAPTER FIVE • The Inconvenience ofWar

A comparison of the Table of Contents printed at the beginning of the February 1943 issue, along with a preliminary program of the originally scheduled winter meeting, shows that many of the planners' original goals for the program actually materialized. Those that did not were apparently victims of the world conflict.23 Although the general membership did not meet in 1942, the business of the Association had to move ahead. The Executive Committee met in Chicago on January 9, 1943 to discuss the effects on the Association of wartime problems and to make plans for the coming year, · which promised to be no less turbulent than the one preceding it. President G.S. Wehrwein (Wisconsin) gave a lengthy report in which he provided details regarding problems that had surrounded the scheduling, rescheduling, and ultimate cancellation of the 1942 annual meeting.24 He warned the Executive Committee that 1943 could be just as difficult. In fact, he came close to recommending cancellation of the 1943 annual meeting before a major planning effort took place. Other social science associations had already taken such action. Wehrwein spoke of several problems that cancellation could bring. Not the least of these was whether the Association should disregard its election rules and ask the present group of elected officers to remain in their offices for an additional year - a practice al­ ready announced by other scientific associations and societies. This seemed to make sense on the surface, but it was outside the options allowed by the AFEA Constitution. As a result, Wehrwein recommended appointing a special committee to review and recommend needed changes in the Association's election rules and policies. The Secretary-Treasurer and the Editor gave predictable reports. The Association was on a sound financial base, but the problems of the war-related decline in membership made it almost certain that costs would exceed revenues in 1943. The editor, H.B. Price (Univer­ sity of Kentucky), offered nothing but uncertainty. The journal would change demonstrably in the absence of an annual meeting. Moreover, some of the major contributors from earlier years were in the armed forces, and unable to contribute in the usual way. Perhaps most dif­ ficult was the problem of securing reviewers, as many of those who would otherwise have served in this capacity had themselves volunteered or been drafted into the armed services. Price apparently thought the problems relating to the availability of publishable material were much more severe than the anticipated increases in production costs. Interest in cooperating with the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Ap­ praisers rekindled with AFEA's appointment of a Committee on the Land Market chaired by E.C. Young (Purdue). Even in its formative stages, the committee held a lengthy "mini­ conference" with the ASFMRA to discuss, with approximately 200 members in the audi­ ence, the effects of the two world wars on land prices and the land market. The committee found this tack to be productive, and recommended a roundtable on the topic(s) at the next meeting of the AFEA. The committee asked permission to continue its work through the next year (into 1944), even though the ASFMRA seemed to lose interest in any additional collaboration.

23 An outline of the original meeting planned for Cleveland in December of 1942 appears on pages 932-934 of the November 1942 issue of the journal ofFarm Economics. The program for the second planned program appears on pages 362-366 of the February 1943 issue. Both of the "planned" meetings differ slightly from the line-up of papers actually printed in the February 1943 issue. At least one planned paper, Kenneth H. Parson's, "Farmers and Organized Labor," appeared in the May 1943 issue of the Journal. 24 G.S. Wehrwein, "President's Report," Journal ofFarm Economics (25:351-354) February 1943. Like Benedict's "'°" ,h, ,= kfu", Wd,,-,;o; "I''" is ~,"mcly loog ,ad filled w;,h dmil. JIii CHAPTER FIVE • The Inconvenience ofWar 61

Wehrwein's January 1943 predictions ultimately came true. The transportation require­ ments of the war effort caused AFEA President, Sherman E. Johnson (Office for War Rela­ tions, on leave from USDA), to cancel the 1943 winter meeting. Johnson's announcement of the cancellation appeared in the final pages of the May 1943 issue of the journal, accompa­ nied by a proposal for an alternative meeting to be held somewhere in the Mississippi Valley during late summer months when the demands for rail service were lower than during the holiday season. Johnson corresponded with several prominent members of the Association who resided in the Mississippi Valley to determine their opinions regarding the possibility of the Association - or a part of it - meeting as a regional group in St. Louis on September 15-16, 1943. In fact, Johnson's inquiry went much beyond suggesting a summer meeting. He had already developed a tentative program that included five major sessions, of which one was to be held jointly with the Agricultural History Society. His plan also included a joint luncheon with the Rural Sociological Society. In all, his plan called for 20 major papers and 15 designated discussants. Johnson's announcement carried a briefindication of possible plans for future meetings. He wrote: If this [Mississippi Valley] meeting proves successful, it might be desir­ able to consider similar meetings in other sections of the country as a substitute for the annual meeting during the emergency period. It is even possible that regional summer meetings of the Association have a distinct place as supplements to the annual meeting which is customarily held at the same time and place as other social science associations.25

The Executive Committee accepted Johnson's plan for 1943. While not all of the ses­ sions that Johnson planned actually materialized, the papers from the Mississippi Valley sessions provide an insightful and multi-faceted glimpse of how scholars thought the agri­ culture and food systems of the United States and of Europe might look in the immediate post-war years. Authors such as H.C. Taylor, T.W. Schultz, K.E. Boulding, Mordecai Eze­ kiel, H.C.M. Case, and others, gave well-reasoned papers about the coming end of the world conRict and the re-adjustment period.

25 Sherman E. Johnson, "1943 Program Plans for the American Farm Economic Association," journal ofFarm Economics (25:un-numbered endnote) May 1943. 62 CHAPTER FIVE • The Inconvenience ofWar

Annual Meetings: 1941-1945 The AFEA came into being when the American Farm Management Association met with the American Association of Agricultural Economists in Philadelphia in 1919. As was customary, the organizations met be­ tween Christmas and New Years when college and university classes were not in session and faculty had more freedom to travel. The meetings were held in eastern and mid-western cities in reasonable proximity ro the places where Association members worked and lived - New York, Washington, DC, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Chicago were popular meeting places. The shortage of rail transportation during the war period caused the Office of Defense Transportation to ask organizations, associations, clubs, and other groups to cut back on the use of public transportation even if chis meant cancelling already-scheduled events and meetings. The need was especially acute during the Holiday Season near the end of the year. The policy affected the AFEA immediately and severely because of its long history of holding an annual meeting in late December or early January. The following paragraphs indicate how the Association dealt with the problems of annual meetings during the war years 1941-1945. 1941. Although the United States was actively assisting the Allied Forces before this time, it did not become a combatant until late 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The 1941 annual meeting, planned months earlier, was scheduled for the usual time just three weeks after the attack. The AFEA meeting went forward as announced. The Tentative Program published in the November 1941 issue of the Journal described the meeting held in lace December 1941. The proceedings appeared in the February 1942 issue of the Journal. 1942. The meeting planned for late December in Cleveland was cancelled, then allowed to move ahead, then cancelled a second time. The papers written for the meeting appeared as usual in the February 1943 issue of the Journal. 1943. The experience of 1942 made a Holiday Season meeting unthinkable in 1943, so the Executive Com­ mittee arranged a "regional meeting" to be held in St. Louis in mid-September. The papers given at St. Louis appeared in the February 1944 issue of the Journal. 1944. The experiences of the previous two years plus indications from the Office of Defense Transportation were sufficient reason to cause the Executive Committee to cancel the 1944 meeting. No plans were made for a substitute regional meeting. 1945. The war was essentially over by mid-year, so planning went ahead in a fashion similar to that done in pre-war years. A Tentative Program appeared in the November issue of the Journal. The members met in Chicago on December 27-28, 1945 and the papers went to the journal for publication in the February 1946 issue. The war experience caused the Executive Committee(s) of the immediate post-war years to examine the policies that surrounded the annual meeting. A number of major changes followed.

The prospects for a meeting in 1944 seemed even more precarious than in the two or three previous years. This proved frustrating for President Eric Englund (USDA). While he had the counsel of his Executive Committee, Englund acted alone in making the final deci­ sion to cancel the 1944 meeting. This decision prompted discussion of the annual meetings in general, and their place in the life and activities of the Association in particular. Members and others agreed that the annual meeting and the journal were the major products of the AFEA, but for the moment, questions relating to the journal were set aside. Discussion centered on the annual meeting when the Executive Committee met in Washington, DC in February 1945. Two themes dominated the discussions. One related to the need or the lack thereof for regional meetings, especially if the national meeting was - for whatever reason - can­ celled. 26 The second was the question of the posture the AFEA should assume with respect to the emerging regional associations of agricultural economists, especially the Western Ag-

26 While war was the most prominent reason for cancelling an annual meeting, the 1918 meeting- the meeting at which the AFMA and the AAAE made formal plans to merge - was cancelled because of the worldwide flu epi- d,mic ... CHAPTER FIVE • The Inconvenience ofWar 63 ricultural Economics Association. In his Presidential Report, Englund took a somewhat ambiguous stance toward these nascent organizations. He agreed that regional associations could advance the knowledge of the economic problems of agriculture, but expressed the fear that a regional association might begin to creep out of its region and take on problems that rightly belonged to another region or to the national association. Englund compounded the problem by suggesting that the regional associations engage the members of the AFEA Executive Committee to scrutinize the tentative programs of the regional meetings and to make sure that the degree of overlap with the AFMs meeting was not severe. · Englund and his Executive Committee showed no inclination to make plans for an al­ ternate or regional session along the lines of the St. Louis meeting of the previous year. This had consequences for the Journal: Initially, there were no papers to fill the allotted pages. However, the space in the journal quickly filled with submissions from the membership, along with papers invited or encouraged by editor Price. Englund was not finished. In his February 1945 report, he suggested that the Associa­ tion may have lost its bearings, and moved too far in the direction of economic theory while ignoring the problems specific to agriculture. He opened this section of his presidential report by saying, "It has been strongly asserted that our association over several years has drifted 'too much toward general economics and theory,' to the neglect of the more special­ ized fields of farm management, production economics, and farm finance." 27 Even so, he went on to suggest that the "broadening" of the field to include additional theory and meth­ ods had enabled agricultural economists to come to grips with a wider range of problems, and to be of more use to farm managers as well as to policy makers and individuals interested in the broad world economy. President Englund ended his report by repeating an earlier plea for the Association to develop an array of cash awards to recognize (in particular) the author(s) of the outstanding article appearing in each volume of the journal. The source of continued funding for an an­ nual award, however, remained a problem. Later in the meeting, the Executive Committee created an experimental award process in which the editor of the journal would develop criteria and a mechanism to identify the recipient of an award for "The Distinguished Pub­ lication Award of the American Farm Economic Association." The entire subject of awards, a topic for discussion that continued for several years, took a major turn when, in January 1945, an anonymous donor contributed $12?500 to the As­ sociation " ... to cover awards to the authors of the winning papers on 'Farm Price Policies' submitted to the American Farm Economic Association." The timing of the gift was perfect.

27 Eric Englund, "Report of the President - 1944," Journal ofFarm Economics (27:233-239) February 1945. En­ glund also used this report to comment briefly on problems centered on academic freedom that had plagued agricultural economists in various locations. The most famous and most publicized of these was the case in which Theodore W. Schultz resigned suddenly from the faculty at Iowa State University after the University President, in response to pressure from dairy interests, asked him to call back a bulletin related to the merits of margarine. The bulletin had been written by a member of Schultz's department. (See Ray Beneke, "T.W Schultz and pamphlet no. 5: The oleo-margarine war and academic freedom," Choices, 2nd quarter, pp. 4-8, 1998.) After much thought and rationalization, Englund came down on the side of keeping AFEA out of the academic freedom debate - that was a job for organizations like the American Association of University Professors (MUP). Several months later, the Executive Committee wrote a tightly worded, three page statement ''.Academic Freedom" in which it expanded and endorsed the need for academic freedom. While not presenting the AFEA as an organization that would seek out and expose cases that violated academic freedom, the statement said that the AFEA endorses and encourages the ac­ tions of such committees or organizations. Executive Committee, ''.Academic Freedom," Journal ofFarm Economics (27:731-733) August 1945. 64 CHAPTERFIVE • The Inconvenience of War

The war was nearing its end, and the ultimate outcome was no longer in serious doubt. The Association had a sizable backlog of deferred activities, the world had changed, and the As­ sociation was trying to adjust to a new role for the United States in world affairs.What bet­ .,.. ter way to help get a new start than a contest with limiting rules, strictly enforced deadlines, and a topic that had powerfulrelevance foragriculture? The world of agricultural economists (as well as others) was sure to watch the contest, while the Executive Committee and other officers of the Association began to create a new and more streamlined organization.

,. CHAPTER SIX The Contest

THE AMERICAN FAnM EcoNolll,fic AssoOXA-rxoN is sponsoring a series of a-wards for papers dealing with parity prices and post"W'a.r price policies for agriculture. Avv.ARDs -will be made as folloW"s: Fnr.sor A w-.ARD $5.000 SECOND Aw-ABD $8.000 THZRD A "W"ABD $lil.OOO ~EN A 'W".ARl>B $lil50 The first three a.wards W"ill be made only 1or papers tho.t deal with the broad question. of an. agricultural price policy. including suggestions for developn:ien.t of n.d:equa.te price progra:rn.s for agriculture. ';('he ten a:W'ards of $250 each may also be :made for papers th.o.t deal 'W'ith improveD:l.ents in the p~rity price f'ormula. or that are li.n::tlted. to discussions of prices related to any one important product,. or a. group of products. Not xnore than t'w-o of the $~60 a.wards ID.ay be granted to resi­ dents of One -State or of the District of ColUD.1.bia,. Alaska,, Ho:W'aii or Puerto Rico. INFoRMATXON relative to the Awards is being pre­ pared and DJ.a.y be secured. from: Pn.oFEsson. ASHER Henao~,. Secretary-T-reaou.rer ~CAN FAR!\![ EcoNoMJ:c AssOoiA.'rXON UNrVERsrry OF' 'WXSOONBIN,. MA.nxsoN. WxsoONSXN

The announcement depicted above appeared on an un-numbered page at the back of the February 1945 issue of the journal of Farm Economics. It provided information about an essay contest managed by the American Farm Economic Association (AAEA), an organiza­ tion comprised primarily of agricultural economists employed by universities or government agencies. At the time, competitions among authors of papers and speeches and even ideas were common in scientific circles, but monetary prizes of this magnitude occurred only rarely. 1 The prize money had come to the Association in January 1945 from an anonymous benefactor, who stipulated that the Association use the money for prizes in an essay contest in which entrants were to write on topics related to "parity prices and postwar price policies

1 The American Economic Association sponsored one such contest in 1891. le provided prizes of$300 and $200 ro the first and second place winners for an essay on "Housing of the Poor in American Cities." The winning paper, by Marcus T. Reynolds, an architect, appeared in the March-May 1893 issue (pages 9-132) of the Publications ofthe American Economic Association. The Pabst Beer Company sponsored another such contest in 1944. The company provided prize money for an essay contest with a $25,000 first prize co the person(s) writing the winning essay on the topic, "How co Solve the Postwar Employment Problem." General economist Herbert Stein, who later served as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, won the first prize. The contest attracted 35,767 entries. (Avail­ able records are not detailed enough co allow identification of any known agriculrural economists writing in th_is contest.) The large number of entries in the Pabst contest caused ex-president (1941) Murray Benedict co speak out against the proposed AFEA contest because of the huge expense (time and money) associated with managing the entries. 65 66 CHAPTER SIX • The Contest for agriculture." The Association's Executive Committee allocated $2,500 from the Associa­ tion's treasury for administrative costs associated with the contest. The entire $12,500 went for prizes. 2 A second announcement appeared in the un-numbered pages of the May 1945 issue of the journal. It carried more information about the contest, including some minor details changed since the initial announcement. The list of prizes now read: First Award $5,000 Second Award 2,500 Third Award 1,250 Fifteen Awards of 250

The possible subject for the entries indicated," ... [entrants must write] papers that deal with the broad question of agricultural price policy, including suggestions for the develop­ ment of adequate price programs for agriculture. The fifteen awards of $250 each may also be made for papers that deal only with improvements in the parity formula, or are limited to discussions related to prices of any one important product or a group of related products."3 Five highly respected members or former members of the Association accepted invita­ tions to judge the essays. They included: • Chester C. Davis, President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (Chairman of the judging committee) • W.W. Waymack, Editor, The Register and Tribune, Des Moines, Iowa • Henry C. Taylor, Managing Director, the Farm Foundation, Chicago, Illinois • W.I. Myers, Dean, College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York • Alvin H. Hansen, Littauer Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

All five were well qualified for the job, being thoroughly acquainted with agriculture and agricultural price policies. The rules for participating were simple but strict. The papers were limited to a maxi­ mum of 3,000 words, and the finished essays were due in the Association Secretary-Treasur­ er's office no later than August 1, 1945, less than six months after the first announcement had appeared. The Executive Committee made one other stipulation before turning the task over to the judges: no more than two of the $250 "honorable mention" prizes could go to entrants from a single state. The Association sought wide participation in the contest. Farm papers and magazines, farm organizations, civic service clubs, and daily newspapers in farming areas carried an­ nouncements. No fewer than 137 radio stations nationwide used airtime to publicize the contest. Although the Association said that it spent no money on advertising the contest, it sent a special mailing of contest announcements and materials to all its members and to any other individuals who requested information.

2 The donor was soon revealed as W:H. Jasspon from Memphis but living in Washington, DC and serving as the wartime Chief of the USDA's Fars and Oils Branch. In private life, he was associated with the cottonseed oil industry. He held strong opinions suggesting that the government should remove itself from agriculrure price and production policies. There is no indication that he had any connection with the AFEA other than the essay contest. 3 "Farm Price Policy Awards," Journal ofFann Economics (27:un-numbered end paper) May 1945. CHAPTER SIX • The Contest 67

In the end, 317 papers were submitted to the Secretary-Treasurer's office. About half had come from member or non-member professional agricultural economists, and about half from the "general public." Some came from farm operators or their spouses.4 Most of the entries were in the 2,000-3,000 word range, but one was a laconic 36 words in length, and another 15 entries had fewer than 200 words. On receipt in the Secretary-Treasurer's office, Association President, L.J. Norton (Illinois) and Secretary-Treasurer Asher Hobson (Wisconsin) read and coded the L.J. Nonon Photograph courtesy ofthe University submissions before they were sent to the judges. ofIllinois at Urbana- The announcement of the winners came on September 15, 1945 at Champaign Archives. an invitation-only dinner in Washington, DC. Secretary of Agriculture Clinton P. Anderson presided over the event. After the meal, the winners of the top three prizes presented and dis­ cussed their essays. During the discussion, C.B. Denman, a member of President Hoover's original Federal Farm Board and a long-time leader in the National Livestock Producers Association, took exception to the top-prize papers because they concentrated on subsidy payments based on the costs of production. He argued that once started, such a program could never end. Some days later, AFEA President L.J. Norton wrote a two-page letter to Denman explaining the papers, the contest, and the practical results that could stem from the entire effort.

1 The Winners Several rules guided the entrants. Not the least of these was the title of the submitted papers. All of the winning papers accepted the contest title, ''.A Price Policy for Agriculture, Consistent with Economic Progress, That Will Promote Adequate and More Stable Income from Farming." The winners were: First prize - $5000, William H. Nicholls, University of Chicago Second prize - $2500. D. Gale Johnson, University of Chicago Third prize - $1250. Frederick V. Waugh, Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion Honorable mention - fifteen $250 awards • George W. Barr, University of Arizona • Merrill K. Bennett, Food Research Institute (Stanford University) • Gordon P. Boals, Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations • Karl Brandt, Fo!;Jd Research Institute (Stanford University) • Willard W. Cochrane, USDA • R.J. Eggert, American Meat Institute Paul A. Eke, University ofldaho • Carl C. Farrington, Production and Marketing Division, USDA • Rudolph K. Fraker, University of Wisconsin • Charles D. Hyson, Harvard University • Adlowe L. Larson, Oklahoma A & M • James G. Maddox, USDA William H. Nicholls • Rainer Schickele, USDA Photograph courtesy of Vanderbilt University • Goeffrey Shepherd, Iowa State University Special Collections and • Lawrence H. Simer!, Illinois Agricultural Association University Archives Frederick V. Waugh

4 A number of hand written entries are collected and bound in "Farm Price Policy Papers, Volume IV'' stored in the National Agriculture Library. These entries came mainly from farm operators or members of their families. They divide into two broad classes. One group calls for the government to cease all activities related to farm com­ modities, another group makes the point that government should intervene to insure that farm family incomes are at least as high as the incomes of non-farm families. 68 CHAPTER SIX • The Contest

The winning papers appeared in the November 1945 issue of the journal. The three top papers appeared in their entirety; and authors whose papers garnered honorable men­ tion prepared lengthy summaries of their work for publication in the same issue. In a short introduction to the published papers, AFEA President Norton noted that the entries divided into two groups: those written by professional agricultural economists and those written by nonprofessionals. The three top prizes went to university faculty members. Eight honorable mention prizes went to university faculty; five went to government agency employees, and two went to employees of private firms. All award recipients had some formal training in agricultural economics. No one could have anticipated the contest's impact on the Association. The members received the results of the winning papers as printed in the journal. In addition, over 6,500 copies of the prize winning papers went to (primarily) the general media, as well as to vari­ ous groups and individuals - especially those with an interest in agricultural or farm policy. In the closing weeks of 1945, at least five daily newspapers and many farm magazines men­ tioned the Association and the contest. An editorial in the November 1945 issue of The Farm journal a prominent farm magazine, implied that the Association's contest winners had emphasized lowering food prices and maintaining farm incomes through a system of direct payments to farmers - a policy proposal that the Farm journal thought unacceptable to most American farmers. 5 Acceptable or not, the contest and, by extension, the Association were noticed by the Farm journal and likely by several other farm magazines and publica­ nons. The contest raised questions among agricultural economists. How did the general membership feel about prospective agricultural policies? In search of an answer, the AFEA polled its members asking for their individual professional opinions regarding price policies. Early in January 1946, Norton wrote to Chester Davis to report the outcome of the poll. The results were close, with a slight majority of professional farm economists favoring some variation of forward pricing, but with almost as many favoring direct income support. In general, government employees favored forward pricing while academics showed a prefer­ ence for income supports.6 In his report to the membership in December 1945, Norton openly questioned wheth­ er the contest was worthwhile. He could not answer his question regarding "worth," but he suggested that the contest had accomplished four things.

1. It brought our association to the attention of a lot of people and also revived inter­ est in it on the part of many members. 2. It has served as a means of bringing together the ideas of a great many people on this important subject and it has ... brought forcibly to the attention of many key people the fact that existing farm price policies are not fully approved by a consid­ erable number of agricultural economists.

5 "Editorial Column," The Farm journal, November 1945, page 20. This brief column includes the statement, "It is interesting and significant that the head of one large f.um organization submitted a paper that did not qualify for one of the eighteen prizes." There is no indication to tell whether the blame in this case goes to the writer, or to the judges (whose names were made public), or the Association. 6 During this time of activity brought about by the essay contest, a farm wife from Alton, Illinois, wrote directly to Chester Davis outlining her plan to protect agriculture from the vicissitudes of a market economy. She referred him to the 25"" chapter of Leviticus, verses 3 and 4: "Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruits thereof, but in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the Lord, a Sabbath unto Jehovah: thou shalt neither sow thy fields nor prune thy vineyard.... " CHAPTER SIX • The Contest 69

3. It should stimulate interest in this matter by many of our own group who have not previously given the matter much attention. 4. It honored certain men in our group and added to their reputations.7

The essay contest had a lasting effect on the officers and members of the Association. While a number of professionals in the field had been writing about agricultural policy since the late 1920s, it now became apparent that government policy was essentially a permanent part of the industry, and thus a necessary part of the training and experience of the As­ sociation's members. In his report to the membership the following year (1946), Frederick V. Waugh (USDA) looked back on his year as president. He remarked that his year had brought many good things, but, "We have not had the excitement (nor the work) of a prize contest."

Agricultural Policy in 36 Words The contest rules specified the upper limit for the length of entries, but said nothing about a lower limit. The shortest entry included 36 words, not counting the title/salutation. After making minor changes in punctuation budeaving all the words·in their original order, th~ essay read as follows: ·To The American Farm Economic.Association: My suggestion to stabilize· the farmer is for the Government to set a certain price on all crops and control the surplus by acreage control through the Government allowing ample acreage for droughts and other elements. From AAEA Archives held in the National Agricultural Library

7 LJ. Norton, "Report of the President," Journal ofFarm Economics (28:399-400) May 1946. 70 CHAPTER SIX • The Contest CHAPTER SEVEN Back to Business

The 1945 essay contest captured the interest of AFEA members and non-members alike, but it took nearly all of the time available to those who managed it. Even with this burden, the Association had to move ahead with other issues and activities. In February, 1945, at the time the contest was announced, President Norton appointed three special committees: the Committee on the Application of Scientific Management to Farm Operations headed by E.C. Young (Purdue); the Committee on Adjustments in Southern Agriculture With Special References to Cotton headed by Joseph Ackerman (Farm Foundation); and the Committee on Parity Concepts headed by Karl Brandt (Stanford Food Research Institute). These com­ mittees were expected to report at the annual meeting in December, just ten months away. Neither the President nor the Editor had promised these committees places on the annual program or pages in the Journal, but the program organizers thought that the Southern Ag­ riculture Committee and the Parity Price Committee had significant messages for members and for policy makers. 1 The Association's concern with Southern agriculture and the South was not new. Since its formation, officers of the American Farm Economic Association (AFEA) had expressed concern over the lack of members and the lack of cooperation from the states making up the South. However, the end of World War II may have offered opportunities for the Associa­ tion to reach out to the South. In addition, the war had seriously disrupted the world cotton trade. Since agriculture in the American South was heavily dependent on cotton, it seemed appropriate for a group of agricultural economists to inquire into adjustments that might help restore order to the world cotton market. The committee's report on this matter was extensive, warranting oral presentation at the 1945 annual meeting as well as publication in the February 1946 issue of the journal. This was no typical committee report; it used 38 journal pages to describe the South, the history of the South, the agriculture of the South, and the prospects facing the South. The committee's recommendations included variations of the farm programs discussed at the time. In all of its aspects, the report referred to cotton as the major Southern crop and a major player in the region's future. 2

1 Milton Eisenhower, President of Kansas State College at the time, suggested appointing the Committee on the Application of Scientific Management. Eisenhower was active in the Society for Advanced Management, and served as Chairman of that Society's agricultural section when he made the suggestion. The special committee did not file a report. Instead, and following Norton's suggestion, the committee organized a roundtable for the I 946 annual meeting. 2 Joseph Ackerman, et al, 'IAdjustments in Southern Agriculture with Special Reference to Cotton," journal of Farm Economics (28:341-379) February 1946. Members of the committee were Joseph Ackerman (Farm Founda­ tion), G.H. Aull (Clemson), L.P. Gabbard (Texas A&M), B.M. Gile (Louisiana), James Hand, (Mississippi), E.L. Langsford (USDA), O.C. Stine (USDA), and F.J. Welch (Mississippi). 71 72 CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business

The Committee on Parity Concepts made a similarly important contribution. Mem­ bers of the Association as well as others were sensitive to the importance of price relation­ ships and government price controls.3 The price policies of the war years had disrupted the usual market relationships between the prices of farm commodities (and therefore the price of food) and the prices of other items bought and sold in the domestic economy. Wartime price relationships, some held over from the Great Depression, prevailed in the markets for many agricultural commodities. The Committee addressed these problems. Its final report appeared in the February 1946 issue of the journal. Seventeen pages in length, it was broken into sections dealing with the relationships among industries in a modern economy, the his­ torical importance and organization of agriculture in the United States, the efforts to provide economic security and equity for the farm population, and the problems associated with a parity-based price policy. The report ended with a comparison of possible future policies and recommendations for future assistance to the farm population.4 Price policies were not the only concerns of the Association. In May 1945, the Rural Sociological Society and the American Council on Rural Education contacted the AFEA to ask for the Association's collaboration in forming a National Social Science Committee to advocate the early discharge of competent college-level teachers who were serving in the armed forces. Edmund deS. Brunner (Columbia University), President of the Rural Socio­ logical Society, argued that college teaching - now in the hands of marginally competent substitute teachers - was causing what he called "a dilution of the disciplines." Brunner felt that the superior teachers serving in the armed forces should be permitted to leave the military and return to their classrooms. The AFEA did not endorse this proposal. Instead, the Association argued that the people needed in the classrooms were exactly the kinds of people needed to run the war (at this time, the war in Europe was winding down - the Ger­ mans would surrender that same month - but fierce fighting continued in the Pacific, and the general consensus was that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would still be required to end the war). In fact, the Association's position was consistent with that of the American Council on Rural Education. In the end, college teachers did not receive special treatment in their release from military service. 5 Even though the American Farm Economic Association held no full-scale meetings during 1942, 1943, and 1944, the Association's Executive Committee continued to meet and make decisions that affected the entire membership. The members had no opportunity

3 This sensitivity was likely increased by a single article, "The Farm Price Policy Awards, 1945: A Topical Digest of the Winning Essays" appearing in the February 1946 issue of the JFE. Written by William Nicholls and D. Gale Johnson, both from the University of Chicago and winners of the first and second place essay prizes, the article is a comprehensive summary of the essay papers with strong emphasis on the place that parity played in federal policies for agriculture. William H. Nicholls and D. Gale Johnson, 'The Farm Price Policy Awards, 1945: A Topical Digest of the Winning Essays," Journal ofFarm Economics (28:267-283) February 1946. Two "discussion papers" follow the major paper. 4 Report of the Committee on Parity Concepts, "Outline of a Price Policy for American Agriculture for the Post­ war Period," journal ofFarm Economics (28:380-397) February 1946. The committee appointed ro write the report included Karl Brandt, Chairman, (Food Research Institute), H. R. Wellman, Vice-Chairman, (California), R. J. Eggert, (American Meat Institute), H.J. Henney, (Colorado State College). (Henney Resigned from the commit­ tee in July, 1945), F.V. Waugh, (Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion), and Karl Wright (Michigan State College). 5 The "National Social Science Committee" was never organized. The American Council of Education, an orga­ nization dedicated ro strengthening the skills of college and university level teachers, dates from 1918. In its early years, it had a sub-committee, "The Committee on Rural Social Studies," that attracted the attention of some agricultural economists. CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business 73

to discuss or to vote on these actions, so several decisions came before the membership at the December 1945 business meeting, the Association's first full-scale gathering since 1941. Ratifying the decision to offer a prize to the author of the distinguished journal article was among the issues that needed attention and action. After the membership approved the award, the Executive Committee asked the Editor, Warren C. Waite (Minnesota), to develop a procedure for selecting the outstanding article. Once selected,

" ... the author of the article chosen [is to] be appropriately recognized at the annual meeting and be awarded an honorarium of One Hundred Dollars. This recognition is to be known as THE DISTINGUISHED PUBLICATION AWARD OF THE AMERICAN FARM ECONOM­ IC ASSOCIATION."

Editor Waite developed the simplest possible procedure for selecting the winner. He sent a printed ballot to each member of the Association asking for his or her selection and rank­ ing of the three most outstanding articles in Volume 27 (1945). H.B. Price (Kentucky), F.F. Hill (Farm Credit Administration), and EV. Waugh (USDA) then assisted Waite in summa­ rizing the responses and selecting the award-winning article.6 John Brewster, (USDA), was the winner and first recipient of the award for his August 1945 article, "Farm Technological Advance and Total Population Growth."7 The AFEA continued to establish its presence among the nation's important science­ related societies and agencies. In the mid-to-late 1940s, Congress discussed the possibility of establishing a "National Science Foundation" (NSF) to monitor and coordinate research as well as to manage federal funding for research in the sciences. Lists of potentially affect­ ed disciplines circulated among individual scientists and science-oriented societies. AFEA members were not sure how agricultural or social science research would fit into the NSF plans, so the membership authorized the Executive Committee to represent the Association in discussions relating to the creation of the new foundation. During this same time, the U.S. Census Bureau asked the AFEA for a representative to sit on the advisory board for the 1950 Census. John F. Timmons (Iowa) filled the position.8 Efforts to expand the interests and activities of the AFEA continued. President Norton and his program committee invited LS. Falk, Director of the Social Security Board, to pre­ pare a paper for the late-December 1945 AFEA meeting in Chicago. This was an important invitation, because the exclusion of agricultural workers (along with workers in other indus­ tries from the new Social Security program caused an uproar in the industry). The Social Security Act of 1935 marked the beginning of the nation's efforts to institutionalize a system of providing minimal incomes for elderly and retired citizens. While it was relatively easy to make the system work for individuals whose earnings came through industrial payrolls, it

6 In reporting to the Executive Committee, Waite noted chat every article except five received at least one vote. He took this to be an indication of the diversity of interests among Association members. He also mentioned the need for a more sophisticated method of selection. 7 John Brewster, "Farm Technological Advance and Population Growth," journal ofFarm Economics (27:509-525) August 1945. 8 The invitation to participate on a Census Advisory Board was not a surprise for the AFEA. Members of the American Economic Association had been acting in an advisory capacity for the Census almost from the beginning of the AEA, and the AEA's first president, Francis Walker, went on to act as the chief administrative officer for the 1870 and 1880 population census. The Timmons appointment was evidence chat the Census Bureau asked an agriculrural economist to provide input for its Census of Agriculrure. 74 CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business was not so easy to develop a system to provide similar benefits to workers and families with variable incomes, or incomes paid in cash or in kind. Farm operators and farm workers were in the excluded classes, and agricultural economists quite naturally wanted to know why. 9 Falk accepted Norton's invitation to attend. He and Wilbur Cohen, his Assistant Direc­ tor for Research and Statistics, prepared a paper titled "Social Security for Farm People" for the meeting. The paper was a comprehensive examination of the Social Security System, as well as an explanation of how difficult it would be to provide Social Security protection to several groups of workers, including farmers and farm workers. AFEA member Kenneth Parsons (Wisconsin) followed Falk and Cohen on the program. He used the same title, but approached the problem from the standpoint of need. 10 The session offered the opportunity for listeners and readers to become acquainted with a serious problem that went uncorrected until September 1, 1954, when changes in the laws allowed farmers and farm workers access to the benefits and protection of the Social Security System. 11

Farmers, Farm Workers, and Social Security Despite Falk and Cohen's skepticism, Social Security and its associated programs were extended to regular­ ly employed farm laborers in 1950 and to self-employed farm operators in 1954. Dealing with farm laborers was similar to dealing with the industrial labor force: the wage payer deducted a portion of the wage, matched it with additional funds, and contributed it to the trust funds held by the Social Security Administration. Calculations and payments for the self-employed farm operator depend on net income earned from the farm - a sum that has always been difficult to calculate. Contributions to Social Security began at 1.0 percent of ! the wage (or income) per year when the system began in 1935. By the 1950s when agricultural laborers and operators came into the system, annual payments had reached 4 percent per year (2 percent charged against the wage earner and 2 percent coming from the employer). When self-employed farm operators joined the 1 system, they were responsible for the entire 4 percent paid on their own behalf. At this time (2009), agri­ cultural workers pay 6.2 percent of their wage while their employer pays a 6.2 percent match. An added 2.9 percent goes to help fund Medicare. The self-employed operator pays 12.4 percent plus the 2.9 percent Medicare contribution. In actual practice, very few self-employed farm operators become a part of the Social Security System.

Before turning the gavel over to Frederick V. Waugh (USDA), his successor as Presi­ dent, Norton identified several troublesome problems that affected the Association. He, like Eric Englund before him, noted that the Western Farm Economics Association (WFEA) was gaining in popularity and professional stature. How should the American Association relate to the growing Western Association? Norton saw the WFEA emerging with interests similar

9 A similar session appeared in the December 1941 annual meeting. One paper, John J. Corson, "Agricultural Workers and Social Insurance," Journal ofFarm Economics (24:285-295) February 1942, provided an outline of the Social Security laws and indicated how difficult it would be to include farmers, farm workers, and casual laborers. The second paper, E.L. Warren, "Hired Farm Labor Under Minimum Wage and Maximum Hour Regulation," Journal of Farm Economics (24: 296-313) February 1942, addressed a slightly different topic, but was equally pointed regarding how difficult it would be to include farm workers in restricting kinds oflabor or wage laws. WG. Murray provided a brief discussion that, in many regards, hinted that farmers and those who worked on farms would not be in favor of either Social Security or wage and time restrictions. 10 LS. Falk and WJ. Cohen, "Social Security for Farm People," Journal ofFarm Economics (28:84-96) February 1946 and Kenneth H. Parsons, "Social Security for Farm People," journal ofFarm Economics (28:97-110) February 1946. 11 Between 1935 and 1950, much was written about the possibilities and problems associated with adding farmers and agricultural workers to the Social Security rolls. Public Law 83-761 (1954) expanded Social Security coverage by approximately 10 million individuals, farmers and agricultural workers among them. This change had not come sooner because of the difficulties associated with collecting the "payroll tax from individuals with highly variable or uncertain incomes." CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business 75 to the farm and agricultural problems considered by the AFEA. He wanted both organiza­ tions to grow, but he also hoped they would come to complement each other, rather than coming into direct competition for members and for influence. 12

Annual Meeting: Time, Place, and Inclusiveness Norton had questions about the annual meetings. He reasoned that the usual holiday season meeting time was awkward for some members. He also knew that a large number of the agricultural economists who attended the Mississippi Valley (regional) meeting in September 1943 had been satisfied with the experience provided by the time of year and the smaller, more focused setting. Norton wondered if it was time for the AFEA to have annual meetings devoted only to its own affairs. If so, when during the year should the meeting be held? These apparently were not easy questions, for they went unanswered, and ultimately became a part of the agenda passed along to incoming President Waugh. Waugh likewise chose not to make immediate decisions regarding the time, place, or joint character of the AFEA annual meeting. Instead, he retained the traditional pattern that called for a holiday-season meeting with AEA and other associations. He polled the mem­ bers and found that there was no clear consensus or even a strong majority view on these matters. Waugh expressed the results of the poll by writing: We have no clear mandate from the members concerning annual meet­ ings. At least two major questions need to be decided (1) should we meet separately, or should we hold joint meetings with other associations? (2) Should we continue to meet during the Christmas holidays? About one­ third of the members wants separate meetings; about one-third wants joint meetings; and about one-third wants to alternate, with joint meet­ ings every other year. 13

Waugh himself preferred a middle ground, with the joint meeting one year and a self­ contained meeting the next; at holiday season one year, and in the summer the next. After further inconclusive discussion with the Executive Committee, Waugh tabled the issue for later consideration. The questions surrounding relationships with the Western Association eventually led to AFEA's accepting an offer that the Western Farm Economic Association (WFEA) had brought forward in 1946. It called for a joint dues-paying arrangement that would allow individuals to use one application and payment form to join either association, or for that matter both. 14 Each association would continue to pay to publish its own journal, and each would stage its own annual meeting. This proposal gained the approval of the members. One year later, the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society (CAES) also became a member of the joint arrangement. The increase in administrative chores was minimal, and carried only a small cost - a cost that paled in comparison to the gains in interaction and coopera­ tion among the three professional societies and their members.

12 Norton's position, much like that of Englund's before him, became a turf battle. He had no problem with Western economists talking about western problems or Southern Economists talking about southern problems. He did not, however, think that economists from specific regions should bring their regional problems to the national meetings. 13 Frederick V. Waugh, "Report of the President," Journal ofFarm Economics (29: 337-340) February 1947. 14 At the time, annual dues were $5 for AFEA and $2 for the WFEA. Under the joint agreement, annual member­ ship in both associations was $6 with $4.50 going to the AFEA and $1.50 going to WFEA. Separate memberships in either individual association were the same as before the joint agreement. 76 CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business

In the Presidential Report at the end of his term, Waugh indicated that he had appoint­ ed committees to maintain an awareness of the actions of the new NSF and the somewhat older Social Science Research Council (SSRC). At the same time, Waugh chose to terminate the AFEA's Committee on Marketing Research. The committee had asked to be continued, in order to capitalize on the passage of the Research and Marketing Act of 1946. Waugh saw no good reason to do so because the committee had been idle for two years, and neither the USDA nor the Land Grant Colleges were organized to take advantage of the new federal law. Instead, he asked Leland Spencer (Cornell) to develop a roundt;ble for the 1946 annual meeting focusing on how the new law would affect the work of those agricultural economists interested in marketing. 15 The discussions from the roundtable generated sufficient interest that they eventually led to the re-appointment of an AFEA marketing committee.

Asher Hobson Also in 1946, after 15 years of volunteer service as the Association's Secretary-Treasurer, Asher Hobson (Wisconsin) indicated that he wished to retire from the position. 16 Hobson's final report as Secretary-Treasurer touched on almost every aspect of the Association's busi­ ness and activities. 17 Among other things, he argued in favor of a separate "Proceedings Issue" of the journal, making five issues per year, and he anticipated by four decades the formation of a foundation that could and would solicit grant funds and charitable donations for use by the Association. 18 Hobson's report included a section devoted to a "Library Custodian." He opened the section by saying: It is hoped that you [the Executive Committee] will not dismiss as vision­ ary the suggestion that the Association appoint a library custodian. The duties of this custodian would be that of collecting in the name of the Association and holding as the property of the Association, such publica­ tions in the field of Agricultural Economics as he is able to acquire. . ..

15 At least two issues were present in the decision to continue or to disband the "Marketing Committee." The departing committee thought its responsibilities included the selection of notable articles for publication as a book. Waugh, however, felt that the committee should involve itself with the Research and Marketing Act of 1946 while the Act was in its preliminary stages of development. No consensus emerged, so Waugh opted to defer appointment of a committee. 16 Hobson's impending retirement had been common knowledge for some time. Waugh put the question of a replacement on the questionnaire/ballot that related to the timing and location of annual meetings. Sixty-seven individuals were "nominated" with past-President Norton receiving a clear majority of the votes. Waugh felt com­ fortable making Norton the sole nominee for the job. 17 The presidents' annual reports to the membership range from less than two page; to about four pages in length. Reports of the Secretary-Treasurer - even Hobson's - were frequently less than one page in length. His final report to the members required slightly more than eight pages. 18 Hobson admitted the slight inconsistency in the recommendation to increase the size of the journal. He had spent 15 years watching over the Association's finances and trying to be as conservative as possible with all expen­ ditures. Time afrer time, his annual reports mentioned that the Journal was too expensive. And here he was, at the end of his service as Secretary-Treasurer, recommending expansion of the most-costly item in the organization's budget. He also recognized that managing a proceedings issue would take considerably more rime than working with submitted papers. In spite of chis, he saw the differences between a paper given at the annual meeting and a paper submitted for review and possible publication. He thought that the two should be separate in the formal publications of the Association. See "Report of the Secretary-Treasurer," journal ofFarm Economics (29:340-349) February 1947. CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business 77

Assuming that the existence of the Association is in perpetuity ... such a collection at the end of 100 years would be exceedingly valuable, at least from a cultural standpoint. 19

This was a powerful - and eventually a controversial - suggestion. By the late 1940s, members of the Association in virtually all states were actively turning out books, pamphlets, bulletins, and other materials. These materials, however, were not gathered or indexed in one place, where they would create an archive of the works of agricultural economists. Similarly, there was no permanent and systematic record or archive of the official business records of the Association's officers and leaders. Hobson's proposal for a Library Custodian offered the possibility of an organized and comprehensive form of record keeping. Testing the mood of the Association with respect to appointing a Library Custodian was a complicated task. The Executive Committee asked Wilbur H. Glover of the Wisconsin Historical Society to provide information and lead a discussion about developing and man­ aging such a collection and archive. The Executive Committee saw merit in the idea, and accordingly allocated $1,000 for this purpose. Hobson, along with a rotating committee of three (Glover, Mary Lacy of USDA and Anne DeWeese Taylor), were asked to manage the collection and process the materials. 20 Hobson's final suggestion related to the Association's Constitution. He felt that the organization had outgrown its Constitution. Two specific problems seemed bothersome. The Constitution did not specify who "owned" the Association's fiduciary assets and who, therefore, could buy, sell, and trade from the stock porrfolio.21 The early Constitution also failed to indicate how the Association could relate to and work with other professional as­ sociations such as the WFEA. Hobson favored appointing a special committee to examine the document and recommend changes and updates.

19 Ibid, page 348. 20 Glover was an employee of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Mary Lacy was a librarian for the BAE, and Anne DeWeese Taylor was the librarian-spouse of H.C. Taylor. Collecting, cataloging, and reporting the work of agri­ cultural economists was never a success. In the first rwo years, only nine books were submitted to Glover at the Wisconsin Historical Society. 21 This had been a problem for several years. The Association kept its surplus revenues in a portfolio of publicly traded stocks and bonds. A committee managed these reserves, and made frequent purchases and trades. On several occasions, the committee could not enter a transaction, because it could not prove to the broker's satisfaction char it either owned the assets or char it had permission to enter transactions on behalf of the Association. Hobson had seen chis occur several times during his long tenure as Secretary-Treasurer. The problem was acute enough to force lengthy discussions at a number of Executive Committee meetings. 78 CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business

The Hobson Years: 1932-1947 Born in Kansas in 1889, Hobson received degrees from the University of Kansas, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Switzerland. He served as the vol­ unteer Secretary-Treasurer of the American Farm Economic Association for 15 years - longer than any other individual. He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1920, after working for the state of Washington and the U.S. Department of Agricul­ ture. After serving in a number of federal positions, including the first Director of the Foreign Agricultural Service, he joined the faculty of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Wisconsin. He served as chairman of the department Asher Hobson from 1931 to 1948 and became Emeritus Professor in 1953. Hobson's professional Photograph courtesy of University of\Vzsconsin­ work centered on agricultural cooperatives and problems related to international trade. Madison Archives. Hobson became Secretary-Treasurer of the Association in 1932, taking over the position from W.I. Myers (Cornell). His years as Secretary-Treasurer spanned the years and the sweeping changes brought by the Great Depression and World War II. When he accepted the job, the Association had 695 members and a net worth of $6,788.68. When he relinquished the job in 1947, mem­ bership had grown to 1,448 (965 were individual memberships) and its net worth stood at $52,646.96 - an unusually successful track record for an association that had cried poverty for most ofirs 37 years.

The Executive Committee called the members together for a special business meet­ ing before leaving the 1946 conference, the purpose of which was to ask the members to ratify important changes in the organization and operation of the Association. The most important decisions, and those that would most directly affect the members, related to the journal. Beginning with the 1948 volume, (volume 30), the editors were to add a fifth is­ sue, intended to be a proceedings issue reserved for papers read at the annual meeting. The proceedings issue was not to exceed 400 pages, and the four "regular" issues taken together were not to exceed 800 pages. The proposed change, if adopted, held out the possibility of a journal that included 1,200 pages in each volume. Two changes in the Constitution also went before the members. One changed the wording of Article III to legitimize and codify the joint bookkeeping arrangement with the Western Association (and later the Canadian Society). A second amendment changed Article IV to allow the Executive Committee to extend seats to the three most recent past presidents of the AFEA, as well as to the presidents of any national or regional association with which the American Farm Economics Association had entered into joint membership agreements.

Winter or Summer; Joint or Alone? At some point after its December 1946 meeting, the Executive Committee finally made the difficult "winter or summer" and "joint or by ourselves" decisions relating to the an­ nual meeting. The 1947 annual meeting of the Association was held on September 8-11 at North Baptist Assembly, a conference facility operated by the American Baptist Association and located near Green Lake, Wisconsin. 22 The 1947 program stretched over four days, in order to provide a casual and slow-paced meeting experience. It allowed attendees to take

22 Derailed minutes of meetings or records of correspondence regarding the Executive Committee's decision are not available. A one-line note on the title page of the May 1947 issue of the Journal informed members of the plans for 1947. Ir said, "See page 593 for announcement of the Annual Meeting." Page 593 (in the August 1947 issue) told the reader "See page 799 for announcement of the Annual Meeting." Page 799, also in the August 1947 issue, was the first page of an eighr page, very detailed preliminary program. A ninth page provided train and bus schedules between Chicago and the Conference Ground. A brief final section of this ninth page said, "Be sure to notify J.C. Clark, Green Lake, Wisconsin, of the time and place of your arrival and whether coming by train, bus, or private car. Also stare first meal." CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business 79

full advantage of the rural, vacation-like qualities of the site. The decision proved to be a good one from the membership's perspective; more than half of the Association's individual members, some with their families, attended and expressed a preference for summer meet­ ings in future years. However, moving the meeting to the summer months brought a number of new prob­ lems for the journals editors and for the Association's officers. Holding the 1947 annual meeting in the summer made the November issue of the 1947 journal a de facto proceedings issue. The editors decided to print the issue in two parts: Part I for papers that had come to the editors through conventional channels, and Part II for papers read at the September 1947 meeting. The questions regarding when and where to stage the meetings resurfaced in the early 1950s. The AFEA presidents were aware of the trade-off between meetings with other eco­ nomic specialties and the highly focused meetings catering to only agricultural economists. They addressed the problem in the Presidential Report that each retiring president was obliged to give as he left office. Most members saw the advantages of summer meetings, but they were not unanimous in their willingness to abandon the joint winter meetings. At the annual business meeting in 1953, R.G. Bressler (California) moved and Raleigh Barlowe (Michigan) seconded " ... that the Executive Committee (or the President) be authorized to explore the arrangement of a full joint meeting with the Allied Social Science groups about every third year." 23 The motion carried. Incoming President Thomas Cowden (Michigan) then indicated that plans were already under way to contribute several sessions to the winter meetings in December 1954. The issue surrounding the Association's participation at the winter meeting became so contentious that the Executive Committee under President Harry Wellman (California) in 1953 offered the opportunity for members to vote their preference among three different options for the organization's meetings. Results of the vote are as follows: 24 • Hold a joint winter meeting one year in three 66 votes • Have the major meeting in the summer and strengthen the AFEA's contribution to the winter meeting 106 votes • Hold only a summer meeting 33 votes

The preponderant number of votes enjoyed by the second option seemed satisfactory to the leadership and to the members. Since 1954, the AFEA and its successor organizations have followed the practice of holding a major meeting in the summer and arranging to pres­ ent a small number of sessions at the winter meetings. The major challenge stemming from this decision was the appropriate placement of proceedings from the winter meetings in the Journal. Between 1956 and 1996, the papers presented in AFEA and AAEA sessions of the winter meetings were published in the May issue of the journal - the JFE from 1956 then the AJAE beginning in 1968. Publication of the papers from the winter meetings moved to the Review ofAgricultural Economics when the American Agricultural Economics Association

23 "Annual Business Meeting," Journal ofFarm Economics (35:1022) December 1953. 24 In 1953, the Association boasted a membership of 1802 individuals, yet only 205 cast their votes. This was rypi­ cal behavior for the Business Meetings held at each Annual Meeting. The Business Meeting was generally held in the first morning time slot on the last day of the three-day meeting. Attendance at the business meeting was so small that there was always a worry chat a quorum would not be present. And this was true regardless of the importance of the issues on the agenda. This lack of participation in the qusiness affairs of the Association has held true in all the years up to the present (2010). This behavior is unlikely to change. 80 CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business took over its publication in 1997, and beginning in 2010, papers from winter and summer meetings will appear together in the annual Proceedings Issue of the American journal of Agricultural Economics.

An Archive/Library Becomes Reality The Executive Committee thought Hobson's plan for a Library Custodian had merit, but they knew that collecting the written works of the members and other agricultural economists would be challenging. The technical and subject matter issues addressed by ag­ ricultural economists multiplied rapidly, as did the places and methods of publication for their work. Collecting, organizing, and storing the work of the entire profession seemed impossible, even though such a collection and archive, once completed, would undoubtedly be valuable to the entire group. A committee of two - Sydney Hoos (California) and Henry Keller, Jr. (Rutgers) - sug­ gested that materials published by members, especially journal articles, be classified into categories and published according to subject matter. The Executive Committee agreed and outlined a complex plan for grouping, indexing, and publishing the materials. 25 For better or worse, no evidence remains to show that the items were ever grouped or published. Nor is there any direct evidence that sub-committees or editors ever started the time-intensive process of bringing materials together. The Executive Committee did not give up entirely on the idea, however, responding to the suggestion made by Hoos and Keller. In a special ac­ tion, the Committee recommended that the Association publish books consisting of reprints of important and especially insightful articles that had appeared in the journal. 26 Those present at the September 1947 Executive Committee meeting discussed the possibility of an archive or a depository for the collected works. WH. Glover continued to consult with the Association on this topic. He took the Boor and presented a detailed description of what would be required to put such a depository in place. His remarks in­ cluded objectives, collections, the "Library Custodian" position, and the need for funds. The Library Custodian Committee (Glover, Lacy, and Anne Taylor) recommended that the Executive Committee " ... be authorized to seek means of providing a special grant .... " After a very slow start, and operating with no assurance of funding, the collection of publications for the Association's Library-Archive finally began to move forward. Glover received over 50 hardbound books and numerous pamphlets, bulletins, and papers. How­ ever, he had not yet developed a system for classification and storage, and there was no ar­ rangement for a permanent location for the growing collection. The Wisconsin Historical Society in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin Library system appeared interested in housing the collection, but made no definite commitment. The non-trivial question of binding loose materials (bulletins, circulars, speeches, and the like) and making the collec-

25 The Minutes of the Executive Committee meeting held on September 7, 1947 indicate that its decisions regard­ ing procedures " ... are based upon a report prepared by a committee composed of Sidney Hoos and Henry Keller Jr. " 26 The books were to relate to a single theme (farm management, agricultural policy, marketing, etc.) chosen by a special committee that would then have significant control over the book's production. The first such book was to be devoted to agricultural policy with O.B. Jesness as its general editor. Jesness asked Herrell DeGraff (Cornell), F.F. Elliott (USDA), L.P. Gabbard (Texas), and H.R. Wellman (California) to assist him. The policy book, scheduled for publication in 1949, was the first of several books that the Association considered or eventually published. CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business 81 tion useful to researchers also remained unresolved. 27 Glover noted that the library had " ... over 50 bound volumes and a quantity of bulletins and offprints." He went on to say" ... we have been disappointed that some of the veterans of the Association have not yet been able to present their work. "28

_Announcement

C7 HE LIBRARY of the American Farm Eco­ ___,/ nomic Association is now receiving copies of the significant works of its members. The object of the Library is to maintain a complete collection of the original contribution of the Association's members and other pioneers in this field. They will be kept in a central location and made avail­ able to scholars who wish to follow- the develop­ ments in this field and to others who have need of a comprehensive collection.

Members of the American Farm Economic As­ sociation are urgently requested to contribute their publications to this collection. All contributions should be bound in permanent form. All acquisi­ tions will be acknowledged through the Journal of Farm Economics.

Send publications to

WILBUR H. GLOVER, Library-Custodian 305 Agricultural Hall University of Wisconsin MADISON 6, WISCONSIN

Copied from an un-numbered page at the back of Volume 30, Number 2, May 1948, of the Journal ofFarm Economics.

A Second Summertime Annual Meeting The timing and location of the annual meeting were still controversial issues when Hobson called to order his final meeting as president. The Executive Committee noted that those who attended the 1947 summer meeting were satisfied with the sessions, the loca-

27 The journal began listing recent works in the field as early as 1926 or before. These appeared in the Journal as lists of "books received," "new publications," "bulletins received," "publications received," or under some similar heading. While it is tempting to think that these lists indicated materials received by the Library Custodian, there is no evidence that this happened. 28 Wilbur H. Glover, "Report of the Library Custodian," Journal ofFarm Economics (30:821) November 1948. 82 CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business tion, and the time of year. Some, however, recognized that moving to summer-only sessions would eliminate important intellectual ties with the AEA. Hobson's choices, as he saw them, were as follows: • The AFEA could decide to rotate its annual meetings between summer and the holiday season in alternate years. Meetings in the summer would be primarily for agricultural economists, while meetings during the holiday season would be held jointly with other social science associations and societies. • Alternatively, the AFEA could have its key annual meeting in the summer and ar­ range for a more modest role in joint winter meetings with other organizations.

The 1947 Executive Committee still made no lasting decision, and the issue remained on the table as the members left the North Baptist Assembly. Sometime after the sessions at Green Lake, the Executive Committee honored the membership's wish to return to the same location for the 1948 meetings. A two-line note in the "News Notes" section of the February 1948 issue of the Journal confirmed that the AFEA had reserved the conference ground for September 13-16, 1948.29 The newly elected Executive Committee, headed by President WG. Murray (Iowa), met for a one-day session in Chicago in early February, 1948. The agenda included routine financial and logistical concerns, as well as two new issues arising from the annual meeting. Even though the 1948 summer meeting was set, President Murray continued to discuss the possibility of a 1948 holiday-season meeting joint with the AEA and the American Statisti­ cal Association. The Executive Committee encouraged him to continue the discussions, but the choice between summer and winter did not go away. The members preferred a summer meeting, and they wanted it held at a location away from a major city. In an effort to satisfy the wishes of the members, the Executive Commit­ tee discussed the possibility of meeting on college or university campuses. Michigan State College in Lansing and the Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph were possibilities and D.B. DeLoach, president of the Western Farm Economics Association, invited the AFEA to meet jointly with the WFEA at some yet-to-be-decided time and location in the West. With all of these options and some uncertainty regarding the opinions of the members, the Executive Committee opted to defer a final decision until summer. Many of the themes discussed at the one-day Chicago session in February were still on the agenda when the Executive Committee met in September 1948 - again at Green Lake, Wisconsin. A decision regarding the location of the summer 1949 meeting was now urgent-

29 At the last Executive Committee meeting presided over by Asher Hobson, Hobson wrote into the record the nine standing committees of the Association. They and their members were (the first name after the committee's name is the Chairman of the committee): • Auditor. M.L. Mosher • Election Tellers. F.W Peck, T.K. Cowden, R.J. Eggert • Library Custodian. WH. Glover, Mary G. Lacy, Anne Deweese Taylor • Marketing Research. Leland Spencer, M.T. Buchanan, George F. Dow, Harlow Halvorson, Charles W Hauck, Irwin R. Hedges, Marvin A. Schaars, F.V. Waugh, Bennett White • Meritorious Research Awards. F.V. Waugh, J.S. Davis, WC. White • Publication Reprints. Sidney Hoos, Henry J. Keller, Jr. • Redefining Parity Price and Parity Income. H.R. Wellman. R.J. Eggert, R.K. Froker, L.J. Norron, O.V. Wells, K.T. Wright • Special Grants. Julius Hendel, H.B. Arthur, A.C. Hoffman • Wi>rk Simplification. L.S. Hardin, S.A. Engene, Paul J. Findlen, R.M. Carter, L.M. Vaughan • Hobson does not list special and temporary committees. CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business 83 ly required. Michigan State College, the Ontario Agricultural College, and a joint meeting with the Western Farm Economics Association were already possibilities. In addition, mem­ bers from the Southern States made it clear that they thought it time for the Association to meet at a Southern location, suggesting Montreat, North Carolina. Given these options and facing the need for decisive action, the Executive Committee accepted the WFEA invitation. The executive officers from the two associations, AFEA and WFEA, were asked to make a final determination regarding time and place. They opted for a joint meeting on the campus of the University of Wyoming August 17-20, 1949. The first notice to the members came in a single line of print at the top of the Table of Contents page in the February 1949 issue of the journal ofFarm Economics. The message was laconic, saying only, ''Annual Meeting, Laramie, Wyoming, August 17 to 20, 1949." There was no indication that the sessions would be on a college campus, or that the Western Farm Economic Association would be meeting jointly with the AFEA.

The Policy Committee The growth and change experienced by the AFEA in the late 1940s and early 1950s meant increased workloads for the Association's officers. This situation made unavoidable the question of whether or not it was possible for a full-time agricultural economist to be an officer of the Association, while maintaining the duties required by his employment in academic or government work. 30 Murray noted this, and appointed a fast-acting "Policy Committee" made up of members drawn from the Executive Committee (Waugh, Norton, and Butz), to inquire into the question, and into the general funding and operational prob­ lems faced by the Association. They were to report back at the next meeting of the Executive Committee. Before reporting, the Policy Committee solicited input from all living ex-Presidents of the Association. That done, it began its work by attempting to define the purpose of the organization. In the very early years of the American Farm Management Association, the purposes of the organization were: 1. To unite the interests of agricultural economists 2. To promote the study of various phases of agricultural economics 3. To disseminate information relating to the subject of agricultural economics 4. To collect and disseminate information concerning agrarian legislation 5. To hold an annual meeting. While these early purposes were consistent with the many activities that came later, by 1948, Article II of the Association's Constitution defined the purpose of the Association by saying:

3° From its beginning, the AFEA (and the AFMA before it) relied on informal subsidies provided by an office­ holder's employer - a university, the government, or a private firm. The employer would simply build the Associa­ tion officer's activities into the officer's job description, and continue ro pay his or her salary. The officer could then perform the required duties of the Association office and use the remaining time to conduct assigned business in teaching, research, or service to the industry. As the Association grew in size and complexity, the time required to perform the duties of an Association officer also grew. Although only anecdotal evidence supporting this claim is available, it is possible that a member's employer would from time-to-time deny an employee the opportunity to serve as an officer in a professional association. AFEA moved to avoid this possibility by allocating funds to the employer of the office holder. 84 CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business

"Object. The object of this association shall be to promote effective in­ vestigation and free discussion of topics and issues in Agricultural Eco­ nomics, and higher standards of accomplishments in research, teaching, and extension in this field by fostering study, writing, and contacts which contribute to these ends."

The policy committee reported, " ... it would be desirable to state our objectives more specifically, and in greater detail. We recommend that the following statement be substituted for Article II of the Constitution: Objectives: The objectives of this association shall be: 1. To encourage effective investigation and free discussion of the various topics and issues in Agricultural Economics.

2. To promote and maintain high standards of accomplishment in re­ search, teaching, and extension in agricultural economics by fostering study, writing, and contacts which contribute to this end.

3. To stimulate objective analysis and discussion of existing and proposed economic policies and programs affecting the welfare of farmers or affect­ ing the general public as consumers of food and fiber.

4. To provide a means of publication QOURNAL OF FARM ECO­ NOMICS) for scholarly analyses and research findings in the field, and other items of general interest to the membership.

5. To promote interest in and understanding of the profession of agri­ cultural economics among undergraduate students in American colleges.

6. To provide a medium for effective professional cooperation between agricultural economists and scientists in other fields.

7. To solicit the interest and support of farmers, consumers, and other economic groups in the study and analysis of the economic problems of agriculture. 31

The Policy Committee also considered the organization's finances, and agreed with an earlier determination that a reserve of $50,000 (which was already on hand) was enough to see the Association through any foreseeable financial calamity. Annual dues could remain at $5 per year for at least one more year. However, the.long-run financial stability of the organi­ zation would require additional members.32 Additional members would eventually increase the workloads in the various administrative offices of the Association, so the committee advised larger allocations to the officers for secretarial and clerical assistance. In the event costs began to outrun revenues, the Policy Committee was prepared to respond by reducing the size of the Journal by eliminating the proceedings issue and limiting the number of pages in each of the other issues. The other somewhat mechanical concerns of

31 "Report of the Policy Committee," journal ofFarm Economics (30:825) November 1948 32 The Committee used elementary economic concepts in dealing with the relationship between membership and costs. Since the only real cost of a new member was the $2.50 associated with printing and mailing one more copy of the journal, a new member paying full dues of$5 per year provided a guaranteed 100 percent profit to the organization! CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business 85 the Policy Committee dealt with the switch from one holiday-season meeting to two meet­ ings, one summer and one winter, each year. The expectation was that the summer meeting would be the larger and more specifically focused on agricultural economics of the two. The final recommendation was for the Association to find some way to honor the memory of its past presidents, but the committee was unable to agree on an appropriate honor. The Ever-Costly Journal Editor Warren Waite opened discussion of two important issues during the September 1948 meeting of the Execurive Committee. The composition charges per page in the journal had increased from $1.29 in 1944 to $2.50 in 1948. At the same time, the size of the journal had increased from 842 pages in 1944 to over 1,500 pages in 1947. This meant not only increased charges from the publisher; but also increased costs in the editor's office. In response, Waite asked for financial assistance to enable him to hire additional clerical help. The Executive Committee responded by asking Waite to keep the length of the regular issues below 200 pages, and the proceedings issue below 400 pages. In the Executive Com­ mittee's apparent view, the key to cost containment lay in limiting the size of the publication.

In Summary The late 1940s were active years for the Association. The war years had disrupted the normal evolution of the organization, and had made it relatively easy to make changes as the leaders put the pieces back together. These years saw increased cooperation replace marginal tolerance between the American Association and the regional associations. It saw answers to the "when" and "where" questions that had plagued the annual meeting, as well as the beginnings of an awards program to showcase and reward excellence among the members. In fact, the period was one of immense productivity for the members: books, papers, bul­ letins, circulars and the like grew in number on what seemed a daily basis. The leadership appointed a committee to investigate and make recommendations regarding a systematic way to store these materials and make them accessible to potential users. The committee generated ideas and discussed the project with outside consultants. It seemed a good and useful idea, but it did not take hold. The storage and retrieval problem remained to be ad­ dressed at a later time. 86 CHAPTER SEVEN • Back to Business CHAPTER EIGHT Some Major Problems

The AFEA decided to hold its summer 1949 meeting jointly with the Western Agricultural Economics Association (WAEA) on the campus of the University of Wyoming in Laramie. This meant that the annual meeting would be independent from the usual winter meetings of the AEA, ASA, and other economics-related associations and societies. The Executive Committee recognized that some loss of potentially valuable interaction would occur if this affiliation ended, but meeting with only the WFEA provided more opportunity for the As­ sociation to arrange interesting and well-focused sessions. Members of the Western Association defined themselves as agricultural economists. Some were members of the American Association and a small number of non-Western members of the AFEA were also members of the WFEA. The two associations shared a number of members in common; thus, the 1949 meeting was not a huge meeting of distant cousins, but was more like an intimate meeting of siblings.

The Western Farm Economic Association The Western Farm Economics Association came into being as the result of an informal "exploratory" meeting held in Reno, Nevada, in 1927. In March of that year, EB. Headley, Chief of the Department of Farm Development at che University of Nevada, and Robert Stewart, Dean of the College of Agriculture at the same university, invited the agricultural economisrs from the eleven western states to meet in an effort to form a Western Society ofAgricultural Economisrs. The plan was to meet in June of 1927 - just three months after Headley and Stewart had met - to lay our a program and to formalize an organizational structure for rhe group to follow in 1928. Following the plan, representatives of eleven western stares met at the University of California at Berkeley on July 6 and 7, 1928, to ratify the organization and to name it the Western Farm Economics Association. Twenty-two men qualified as charter members. One year later, the association boasted 78 members. The WFEA could be distinguished from tbe AFEA by its members' intense interests and studies of natural resource problems - land use, irrigation, property rights, conservation, forestry- as well as the more common topics studied by all agricultural economists. Its annual program, held in June of each year, usually included papers on resource-related topics. The agricultural economists in the West had a claim on tbese kinds of is­ sues and, understandably, they did not want to lose what was, in effect, their brand identity by diluting their interests and skills in the larger association of agricultural economists. From its beginning, the Western Farm Economics Association considered the possibility of becoming a part of the AFEA. It was not a comfortable question. Members of both associations used the same tbeories, concepts, and inetbods ro examine several of the same categories of problems. There were good reasons to join with the AFEA, but there were also good reasons to retain the Western identity. By the late 1940s, the western group decided tbat tbey would benefit from a joint meeting with tbe AFEA. They invited the larger group to hold a combined meeting "somewhere in the West." The negotiations for a combined meeting went back and forth with the outcome being the AFEA's acceptance of the WFEA's invitation to hold a joint meet­ ing on the campus of the University of Wyoming in the summer of 1949. At tbat time, membership in the Western Farm Economics Association had reached 499 and included a significant number of non-academic, non-government, private-sector members. Since the first joint (or combined) meeting in 1949, tbe Western group has met jointly with the AFEA whenever the latter's annual meeting has been held somewhere in the West. In the other years, it has held its own meeting. The WFEA did not publish a journal until 1977. However, from 1929 through 1976 it did publish the proceedings of its annual meeting. It also published a "proceedings issue" in 1927, but it is very difficult to find. The first easily available issue dates to 1929. It includes programs and reporrs from the two prior meetings. From 1977 until 1991, WAEA published the Western journal ofAgricultural Economics. In 1992, the name of the journal changed to Journal ofAgricultural and Resource Economics.

87 88 CHAPTER EIGHT • Some Major Problems

Even with the changed venue and a more relaxed format for the technical aspects of the meeting, the business aspects of the Association remained essentially the same as before. The problems of the missed meetings, the condition of the budget, the switch to meeting in the summer or fall from the holiday season, and a score of seemingly trivial, but some­ times insoluble, issues were still on the agenda for the Executive Committee when it met in Cleveland on December 30, 1948, several months before the general sessions in Wyoming.

Cleveland, 1948. Executive Committee Only The Cleveland meeting was stormy. Although the committee anticipated tight budgets over the next three years, it budgeted an additional $1,500 to the Secretary-Treasurer's office to help defray the costs of clerical help. Another $750 was budgeted for editorial assistance in the Editor's office. A "Special Awards Committee" gave a report urging the Association to add an awards program for undergraduate students. After lengthy discussion, the Executive Committee, which had frequently gone on record as being in favor of additional awards, rejected the special committee's proposal because an undergraduate essay contest and public speaking contest would be "too ambitious" and too hard to manage. 1 After this rejection, the Executive Committee approved an award for the outstanding PhD dissertation submitted to a faculty in a domestic college or university.2 The plan was to include one top award and two honorable mention awards. Although monetary prizes were to accompany the honors, no dollar amounts were specified. Dissertations from 1946, 1947, and 1948 were eligible for consideration in the first year of the competition.3 The Cleveland meeting also yielded a proposal that required discussion and approval by the Association's membership. For some time, the Association had accepted graduate stu­ dents as junior members asking that they pay annual dues of $3.00 to receive the journal and to enjoy the other privileges provided to regular members. The 1948 committee proposed a constitutional amendment to formalize this practice. The proposed amendment would alter Article III to include the sentence, "The Executive Committee may establish a junior membership open only to graduate students. The annual dues for such membership shall be $3.00 per year."4 Another problem the Executive Committee faced stemmed from the possible re-ap­ pointment of the once-dissolved Marketing Committee. In its earlier years, the committee had proved ineffective. Now, in 1948, the American Marketing Association was asking for cooperation from the AFEA on efforts related to cooperative marketing and the marketing of agricultural commodities.5 The Executive Committee accordingly revived the Marketing Committee, which took up this chore and began to weigh the possibilities of publishing a book to include selected marketing-related articles that had appeared in the journal ofFarm Economics.

1 "Meeting of the Executive Committee," journal ofFarm Economics (31 :387-389) May 1949. "Domestic" referred to the USA. PhD candidates in the Canadian schools were ineligible for this award. 3 The "three-year" rule was an effort to catch up after the hiatus that World War II had caused in the completion of dissertations (and theses). By the following year, 1950, only one year's output of dissertations was considered. 4 "Meeting of the Executive Committee Cleveland, Ohio," Journal ofFarm Economics (31:389) May 1949. 5 The American Marketing Association evolved because of several changes and mergers of its parent association, the National Association of Teachers of Advertising. It was expanding rapidly in the 1940s, and many of its activi­ ties fir well with the activities underway in the field of farm economics. A.J. Brown (Illinois), M.C. Bond (Cornell) and D. Barton Deloach (USDA) made up the committee to work with this organization. CHAPTER EIGHT • Some Major Problems 89

In its last act before adjourning in Cleveland, the Executive Committee voted unani­ mously to accept the invitation to hold the 1950 annual meeting at Montreat, North Caro­ lina.

Laramie, Wyoming Meeting in Laramie, away from the general economists and economic theorists, gave the agricultural economists time to concentrate on the problems of agriculture and to dis­ cuss the appropriate scope of the Association's activities. The papers presented at the Laramie meeting reflect this focus. Some were devoted to the troubling aspects of the rapidly evolving federal farm policy. Others discussed price level problems associated with income payments made to farmers. Still others concentrated on the problems of initiating trade with other parts of the world. The agricultural economists from the West brought a new dimension to the sessions; they talked about land, water, reclamation, and other natural resource issues. Titles of their papers included phrases and terms like "future of the Great Plains," "extreme weather risks," "federal aid to irrigation," "directions for land economics research," and "Missouri River Development Program." These words and terms were not new to the profession. Most had appeared in earlier writings. However, in Laramie these words represented themes that were different from the Association's historical bill of fare. They made a forceful claim that the agricultural economists of the future would need to expand their interests to include natural resource policy issues. The Executive Committee could not escape its obligations while in Laramie. The com­ mittee faced two major but familiar problems: the budget (a perennial problem on the com­ mittee's agendas) and the form of organization for the growing organization. The Budget I Unsurprisingly, the budget was the central issue. Costs of providing services, especially printing and distributing the journal, had increased rapidly in the late 1940s. By 1949, the journal required nearly' two-thirds of the Association's total budget, leaving very little for awards, administration, clerical help, travel, and ocher activities.6 In many respects, the journal drove the budget, while the membership, asking for more pages and more sophisti­ cation, drove the journal. Efforts to add members, always recommended as the solution to the organization's financial problems, began to Bag as the search for new members became increasingly difficult. In addition, when new members joined, they aligned with established members to beg for an expanded journal and more services while, also along with established members, they argued against and voted against increases in membership dues - by far the Association's major source of revenue. 7

6 During the 1947 fiscal year- December 1, 1946 to November 30, 1947 - printing rhe Journal cost over $6,100, or 65.7 percent of the Association's total budget. Mailing and fulfillment costs are not included in the figure. 7 At the time of its organization in 1910, the annual dues for the AFMA were set at one dollar. Since the early as­ sociation did not publish a journal, the minimal dues were adequate to cover the organization's expenses. When the AFMA merged with the MAE in 1919, the instant decision to publish a journal required annual dues to increase to two dollars per full member and one dollar for associate members. Annual dues increased to $3 in 1925 and to $5 in 1926. The dues remained at this level until 1956 when they increased to $7 per year. (Five dollars in 1926 had the same purchasing power as $7.68 in 1956 dollars. The same line of reasoning indicates that the 2009 dues would be $54.34, in order to maintain the purchasing power present in 1926. Increases in membership dues outstripped inflation during the period.) 90 CHAPTER EIGHT • Some Major Problems

Few options were available to supplement the income from membership dues. The Secretary-Treasurer supplemented the Association's income by selling back issues of the Jour­ nal and by selling modest amounts of advertising space in some issues, but neither source produced significant revenues. 8 The Executive Committee polled the membership to see if they would agree to a $1.00 registration fee to help defray the costs of the annual meeting. The members responded by passing a resolution allowing a registration fee of at least $1.00 - but not to exceed $2.00 - to be levied against individuals attending the annual meeting.9 A registration fee helped, but it did not solve the general budget problem. Thus the Executive Committee went through what was becoming an annual ritual. The 1949 Secretary-Treasurer's report showed that the year's revenue was insufficient to cover the year's expenditures. After searching one more time for additional ways to add revenue or cut costs, the committee made the usual recommendations: (1) Find new members. (2) Instruct the editor to ask authors to shorten their submissions. (3) Stop printing discussions and other non-essential items. The goal was 800 or fewer pages in the four regular issues and no more than 400 pages in the proceedings issue. The "Note to the Membership" (below) shows the Journal note used by the editor to notify the membership of the restrictions placed on journal submissions. The Budget II Early in the life of the American Farm Economic Association, the Executive Committee used the journal to communicate the possibilities of the organization's success. In part, the committee wrote, "The finances ofany association are usually the sum and substance ofits success or failure. The American Farm Economic Association is no exception." 10 This is an important and lasting truth - practically an iron law - among voluntary organizations, and each suc­ cessive AFEA Executive Committee seemed troubled by the prospect that financial failure would occur during its time in office. Many messages from the Executive Committee to the members told oflimited funds and restricted activities. The general impression was that the Association always lived on the edge of financial disaster. But did it? The published Treasurer's reports for the early years indicate that annual surpluses, small as they might be, were more frequent than annual losses. Although the re­ cords are not consistent over time, they show that the net worth of the Association increased demonstrably over its first few decades. The list that follows the note shown below illustrates the gains in net worth at five-year intervals over the twenty years leading to 1950.

8 Issues of the Journal published in the late 1940s and early 1950s often carried several pages of advertisements for other economics-related journals. The typical advertisement was a sample table-of-contents for an issue of the advertised journal. These were not generally sources of revenue. The advertisements were "traded" among technical journals so the Journal ofFarm Economics was advertised in the same journals that were advertised in it. From time ro time, this practice became an issue for Executive Committee discussion. 9 "Proceedings of the Annual Business Meeting," Journal ofFarm Economics (31: 1298) November 1949. 10 "Forward," Journal ofFarm Economics (1:1-2) June 1919. Italics are added to emphasize the practical truth and universal applicability of the statement. CHAPTER EIGHT• Some Major Problems 91

NOTE TO THE MEMBERSHIP

In order to keep expenditures in line with income the Executive Commit­ tee instructed the Editor to limit the Proceedings (Part II of this issue) to 400 pages and the total size of the annual volume including four regular issues and one Proceedings Supplement to 1200 pages.

Papers at the Laramie meetings have been shortened considerably, yet the Proceedings are in excess of the limit set. Authors have been most cooperative.

The editor requests that you review the Proceedings in some detail and comment on the following: 1. Should the printing of full-length papers be limited to those present­ ed at the general meetings with only a digest printed of the papers and discussion at each of the sectional meetings?

2. Should dues be raised and all the material presented at the annual meetings be printed?

3. Should the same procedure be followed next year with more severe cutting, or should authors be given rigid limits at the time they are invited to prepare papers?

Copied from journal ofFarm Economics (31:756) November 1949, Part 2.

Year Cash Account Surplus Net Worth 1930 +$1,065 $3,463 1935 +$1,819 $10,537 1940 +$1,986 $28,386 1945 +$4,681 $43,046 1950 -$3,082 $54,717

In general, the membership was not aware of the organization's net worth, and from the beginning, the Executive Committee and other leaders protected the Association's capital reserve by cautious investing coupled with a rigid disposition against using the reserve or the interest that it generated to pay current expenditures. 11 In the late 1940s and early 1950s, expenditures - especially those associated with the journal - grew more rapidly than revenues. With the one activity requiring nearly all of the expendable revenue, the leadership fell back on its time-honored method of increasing reve­ nue: attracting more members. This time, the Executive Committee urged current members to ask colleagues to join the organization and an informal "membership committee" of 100

11 This statement is too strong. The Association's financial information was readily available to all readers of the "re­ ports" section of the Proceedings issue of the Journal. It was also reported- usually in hard copy and accompanied by a report from the Secretary-Treasurer - at the Annual Business Meeting. Very few members chose to attend the business meetings and, apparently, very few read the written or printed reports. 92 CHAPTER EIGHT • Some Major Problems persons operated for a brief period. 12 Additionally, several presidents of the era wrote per­ sonal letters to members who had let their membership lapse. These efforts appeared to meet with some success. Over 270 new members joined in 1951 and another 140 joined in 1954. Memberships, especially associate (junior) memberships and institutional memberships in­ creased permitting the Association's activities, especially the printing and even the expansion of the journal, to move forward. For the moment, the investment portfolio was safe. 13

Organizational Matters The time required to manage the organization had increased demonstrably in the years after WWII. The association's size and complexity imposed a number of burdens on the elected officers and the individuals who agreed to serve on the more active committees. In his 1948 report, President WG. Murray (Iowa) wrote that the tasks associated with admin­ istering the Association had become very demanding, and were made even more severe by an election process that made it possible for all existing officers to be replaced in one election. The result of such a situation would be that inexperienced officers would be asked to deal with the problems and operations of the Association. Such a complete turnover ofleadership was in fact occurring in 1949, and Murray was fearful of the lack of continuity from year to year. In his Presidential Report he said: In passing the baton to our next president, O.V. Wells, I have two sug­ gestions. First is the need for a study of our constitution including some changes in our election machinery to make for more continuity in our officers. This year all four officers and the editor are changing. The fact that a new president may have had no contact with the executive com­ mittee prior to his election is, I believe, a serious handicap. The necessity to carry forward projects for several years plus added activities such as the special awards program and student chapters make it desirable that we elect a president a year in advance either as a vice-president or as a president-elect.

Murray continued with a second suggestion: My second suggestion is the need for a wide participation in the prepara­ tion of the programs. The AFEA has expanded to the point where it is difficult for the president to prepare the programs without considerable assistance. Since some of the meetings are now being planned over a year in advance, a president-elect might be a welcome aid to the president, especially if one of his duties was service on the program committee. 14

Wells paid attention to Murray's suggestions. While at Laramie, he asked the Executive Committee to prepare amendments to Articles IV and V of the Association's constitution. After approval by the members, the amended Article IV called for an Executive Commit-

12 This committee had no chairman and it never met. It was composed of individuals from college departments and government agencies who informally agreed to talk with colleagues and others about the possibility of joining the AFEA. Similar "committees" formed in later years. 13 The budget continued to drive many activities during the decade of the 1950s. Five of the six operating budgets of that decade ended their year in the red - one so severe as to require the Executive Committee to sell financial as­ sets (stocks and bonds) valued at nearly $10,000 to help defray the cost of publishing a Directory for the members. 14 WG. Murray, "Report of the President, 1948," Journal ofFarm Economics (31:190-191) February 1949. The report was likely given to the Executive Committee at its December 1948 meeting in Cleveland. CHAPTER EIGHT • Some Major Problems 93 tee made up of a president, a president-elect, two vice-presidents, the two most recent past presidents, and the Secretary-Treasurer. Presidents of associations with which the AFEA had a working relationship (such as the WFEA and the CAES) would also be voting members of the Executive Committee. 15 The amended Article V established the rules for voting. Among other things, the Article specified, "For the year ending in 1950, the ballots shall provide for the election of both a President and a President-Elect. Thereafter the ballots shall omit the office of President." 16 This marked the beginning of the three-term presidency still used by the Association. The Varied 1950s The 1950s brought new sets of challenges and opportunities to the American Farm Economic Association. The organization's formative and early growth years, 1920 to 1950, had been used to good advantage in showing the scientific and intellectual communities that agricultural economists indeed had something useful to say about farms, farming, and farm related issues. Alliances developed with the Social Science Research Council, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Census Bureau, and other organizations concerned with economic and agricultural problems. The Association's first major publication, Readings on Agricultural Policy, reached the market in the closing months of 1949 and proved to be a success. The Association moved ahead with plans for a similar volume in the area of agricul­ tural marketing. 17 The articles submitted to the journal during the early 1950s dealt with federal farm policy. Most raised questions, then reached conclusions based on elaborate descriptions, logic, and the extensive use of regression/correlation techniques. Regional comparisons were popular, as were the applications of particular policy tools to particular crops or groups of crops. Articles based on linear programming also began to appear with more frequency. The first came in 1951, but before the decade had ended, more than 100 articles, discussions, and notes told Journal readers how to use linear programming or described results of research that had used the tool. 18 Linear programming proved to be a revolutionary tool for research economists, especially those who studied questions similar to those studied by members of the American Farm Management Association. Even so, during this period of well-documented success and progress the Association seemed to turn inward. No more letters on AFEA letterhead went to the President of the United States or to the Secretary of Agriculture, and affiliations with the old and familiar associations began to erode. It seemed that the AFEA had proved itself to others, and it was

15 "Proceedings of the Annual Business Meeting," Journal ofFarm Economics (31:1298-1300) November 1949, Part 2. 16 L.H. Simer!, "Proceedings of the Annual Business Meeting," (31:1298-1299) November 1949. 17 Oscar B. Jesness, ed., Readings on Agricultural Policy; assembled and published under the sponsorship of the American Farm Economic Assn. Philadelphia: Blakiston Co., 1949. The Association had published earlier docu­ ments under the auspices of the Social Science Research Council, bur Readings on Agricultural Policy was its first effort at publishing a collection of writings by members of the Association. 18 The first JFE article to make explicit use of linear programming was Frederick V. Waugh, "The Minimum-Cost Dairy Feed (An Application of "Linear Programming")," Journal ofFarm Economics (33:299-310) August 1951. In a note at the end of his paper, Waugh gives credit to R.P. Christensen and R.L. Mighell for their article "Food Production Strategy and the Protein-Feed Balance" which appeared in the Journal ofFarm Economics in May 1951 - one issue before his own paper. Waugh essentially says that Christensen and Mighell came very close to using full-scale linear programming and that a revision of their paper could make several breakthroughs. 94 CHAPTER EIGHT• Some Major Problems

time to look at itself and ask, "What can we do now?" Or, "How can we improve what we are doing?" These were legitimate - if broad- questions, but the questions that required the attention of the organization's leaders seemed to center on the budget (and therefore mem­ bership), student (graduate and undergraduate) members, awards programs, and the rela­ tionship between the Association and other economics-related scientific societies - especially the American Economic Association, the American Statistical Association, and, increasingly, the relatively new Econometric Society.

Student Clubs Through the 1940s and 1950s, student clubs, sometimes referred to as "sections" or "chapters," were prominent on the nation's college campuses. Students majoring in a par­ ticular field joined for social and scholarly activities. The clubs became support groups for students who later in life might find it useful to recall some of their friends and associ­ ates from their college days. Generally, the universities sanctioned student clubs with little thought regarding how they might relate to regional or national associations of professional agricultural economists. Moreover, the clubs at any one university did not necessarily have a relationship to similar clubs at any other university. The AFEA Executive Committee noted the isolation of the individual student clubs, and discussed the possibility of reaching out to undergraduate majors in the field. However, there was no immediate effort to bring student clubs into the organization until the late 1940s, when the Executive Committee asked Earl Butz (Purdue) to inquire into the possibility of welcoming undergraduate students into the AFEA.19 After meeting with several groups of students, Butz reported that active clubs were present at Oklahoma State, Iowa State, and Purdue. He recommended changes in the As­ sociation's Constitution to allow certain privileges to members of student clubs. The change involved expanding Article III by adding: "Student sections of the American Farm Econom­ ics Association may be authorized in colleges or universities that offer courses in agricultural economics, farm management, or allied fields. Establishment of student sections shall be un­ der such rules as the Executive Committee may decide. 20" The Executive Committee asked only that a student club's school grant degrees in agricultural economics or a closely related discipline, and that a student could not become an affiliate member of the AFEA unless he or she was already a member of a local student club. Butz envisioned an organization for the student members arranged in a fashion parallel to that of the parent organization. The students could elect their own officers and decide on the time, place, and content of their own meetings. While the flexibility thus accorded may have been appropriate, Butz failed to provide an outline of a program or a list of awards that would help integrate the students into the parent organization.21 In the following year, First Vice-President Bushrod Allin took over the task of oversee­ ing the student chapters. He emphasized the de facto policy that Butz had established the year before: The AFEA was to encourage and advise student clubs, but not to interfere with their organization or management .

.19 Butz became the liaison agent between the student clubs and the Executive Committee as a result of his being First Vice-President of the Association. The job followed the position. 20 "Minutes of the Executive Committee, September 13, 14, 16, 1948," Journal ofFarm Economics (30:815-16) November 1948. 21 Earl Burz, "Report on the Establishment of Student Chapters," Journal ofFarm Economics (30:823-24) Novem­ . ber 1948. CHAPTER EIGHT • Some Major Problems 95

In 1950, President Warren C. Waite took positive steps toward the student chapters. He praised Butz and Allin for their preliminary work and charged the new liaison, Joseph Ackerman (Farm Foundation), with the responsibility of developing a way to integrate the students more fully into the ongoing activities of the AFEA. By 1952, twenty-nine student chapters had formed a national organization and established an account with the parent organization. 22 The meeting planners - both student and full members - planned a debate contest for undergraduates at the 1953 AFEA annual meeting, to be held at Oregon State College. As in other AFEA competitions, the question of prizes and awards arose only after the competition was in place. The Executive Committee voted to use certificates and annual subscriptions to the journal as prizes. 23 Ackerman - not being an academic himself and having had little direct contact with students in earlier employment - asked to be relieved as the liaison between the student clubs and the Executive Committee. Joe Mutti (Illinois) replaced him in time to be the advi­ sor for the clubs when they met at Oregon State College in 1953.24 Time taken in the 1950s to sort out the meaning and usefulness of student clubs was time well spent. The undergraduate student members became an interested - and interest­ ing - part of the annual meeting. The student competitions changed slightly over time, but continued to include a speaking contest, a debate contest, and in some years, an essay contest. The more contemporary and very popular "Academic Bowl," fashioned after the TV game show "College Bowl" appeared on the list of student competitions in the late 1980s.

The Awards Programs It seems that no part of the American Farm Economics Association activities have re­ quired more discussion in Executive Committee meetings and other meetings than the or­ ganization's awards programs. Although considered even earlier, the awards programs began under the supervision of the "Committee on Medals and Awards" appointed by President Sherman Johnson (USDA) in 1943. In February 1945, President Eric Englund (USDA) fol­ lowed the recommendations of the committee and suggested that "financial inducements" accompanying the awards would improve the level of scholarship evident in the published work of the members. By December of 1945, incoming President L.J. Norton (Illinois) had put in place an award recognizing the author(s) of the outstanding article to appear in the journal during the year. The award was more than just an honor. It included a $100 cash prize, which came from the Association's general fund. The general fund could not sustain annual disbursements for prizes and awards, so President Waugh (USDA) appointed a "Special Grants Committee" to solicit $5,000 from business firms and industries. Funds thus raised were to be used to assist in financing the Association's awards program. The committee hoped to do its work in one-year. The hoped­ for year proved to be more than enough time. By the end of the year (1947), the committee had collected nearly $13,000.

22 Dues for the student chapters were paid to the Association's Secretary-Treasurer and were kept in a separate ac­ count that could be used only by the student clubs. 23 "Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee, American Farm Economic Association, University of Illinois, August 28, 1952," journal ofFarm Economics (34:988) May 1952. 24 Mutti was not the First Vice President of the Association. He had been active in the committee structure of the Association and he, along with Larry Witt (Michigan State) were possible candidates to talte over Ackerman's responsibilities with the student clubs. Mutti proved to be an excellent choice. 96 CHAPTER EIGHT • Some Major Problems

Although nearly $13,000 in prize money was available in the special awards account, President O.V Wells (USDA) could not find members willing to serve on a "Committee on Special Awards" for the 1949 annual meeting. In view of this, Wells appointed a committee to examine the entire awards program. The committee's work was finished by year's end, so at the beginning of his presidential term in 1950, President Warren Waite (Minnesota) was able to announce a new series of awards. There would now be awards for the outstanding article appearing in the journal, for published research, and for dissertations submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree. Plans called for three $250 awards for published research. Authors whose work was in this competition had to identify their submission as being in one of seven fields recognized as part of broad discipline of agricultural economics.25 Only one prize could go to published research in any one of the seven fields, and the author, or at least one author of submissions with multiple authors, had to be less than 40 years of age. 26 Publications from 1947, 1948, or 1949 were eligible for the competition. The PhD awards included one $250 dollar prize and two $100 special (honorable men­ tion) awards for dissertations completed in 1947, 1948, or 1949. The dissertation award could be in any field related to agricultural economics. There was no age limit for the au­ thor, but a school granting the PhD degree could submit only one dissertation. No paper or dissertation could receive more than one award, but an author could submit a publica­ tion based on a prize-winning dissertation. Under these rules, the Association could award $1,200 in prizes during each year. Few members argued the value of an awards program, or even the choice of activities considered for awards.27 Many, however, disagreed over the disparity among the prizes, the total cost of the programs, and the time required to select winners. Changes in rules and method of selection occurred quite frequently, as did changes in monetary awards. Under an early set of rules, one person could not win more than one award. Later, the rules changed so that one individual could win several awards. Eventually, the awards program officials proposed a lifetime limit on the number of awards a single member could receive. The Ex­ ecutive Committees of the 1950s tried to rationalize the program and in doing so, they often did little more than provide impetus for another round of indecision. By the mid-1950s, the lineup of awards was: • Award for best Journal article: ($100) Winner selected by the journal's editorial council.: • Awards for published reports of research in agricultural economics: (Three awards of $250 each). Each award was given in a different field of Agricultural Economics. Only publications prepared by persons 40 years of age or less at the time of publi­ cation were permitted to enter this portion of the competition

25 The accepted fields included farm management and production economics, agricultural marketing, agricultural prices, agricultural finance, land economics, theory and methodology, and agricultural policy. 26 The 40-year-old age limit was in effect for only one year. 27 Two lines of argument have persisted through the years. One says the awards program requires too much time. Judging papers or even PhD dissertations chat are well within the mainstream of agricultural thought and practice is an almost impossible job. Conscientious judges can cake days or weeks trying to sort the best from the merely good. A second argument suggests that awards may be good for the persons who win chem, but there can be no evidence to suggest that an award system improves the quality of work done in the profession. Somewhat fragile evidence of chis last pe~ception stems from the notion chat no one sets out to write either a journal article or a dissertation just because the award is there. CHAPTER EIGHT• Some Major Problems 97

• Awards for doctoral dissertations: (Three awards of $250 each). Theses in any field or sub-field of Agricultural Economics are allowed. 28

Even with these rules, the awards program continued as a work in progress. The various Executive Committees continued to struggle with the program and small changes in the rules appeared almost annually. One other award made its appearance during the 1950s. As early as 1947, then-Presi­ dent Waugh (USDA) opined that the Association could grow in strength and influence if it had a more sophisticated awards program - especially one that included awards for distin­ guished individuals who had made notable long-term accomplishments to the Association and the discipline and were designated as "Fellows of the Association." Waugh was very cautious in this suggestion. In the final paragraph of his report, he makes his concern clear by saying, "I am well aware of the danger that the designation of Fellows may, like honorary college degrees, become honors that are not earned and are given to old men, too late to do them any good."29 His proposal, actually, little more than a suggestion at the time, lay idle until revived in the mid-1950s. By 1957, the idea had matured into a "Fellows Program" that identified and honored the special achievements of individual members.

28 Condensed from "Awards for 1954" in the News Notes section of journal ofFarm Economics (35:648-49) No­ vember 1953. Similar notes appear in later issues of the journal. The student awards are omitted from rhis list alrhough the officers and the judges for the student contests are named. 29 Frederick V. Waugh, "Report of the President," Journal ofFarm Economics (29:340) February 1947. Waugh was asking for several awards, but only the one pertaining to Fellows appears in detail. 98 CHAPTER EIGHT • Some Major Problems

Fellows of the Farm Economic Association In his Presidential Report, Waugh noted the success and popularity of the recencly inaugurated Distinguished Publica­ tion Award. Because of chis, he wanted to expand the list of awards. He noted chat scientific societies in agriculture-related disciplines, as well as chose in ocher social sciences, presented various kinds of awards to individual members to recognize their special achievements. Waugh felt chat the AFEA should do che same as a way of honoring members who had made Thomas Nixon notable and lasting contributions to agricultural economics. John D. Black Photo courtesy ofMinnesota Carver Photo comtesy Waugh suggested " ... chat a small committee be set up to Archives, University of ofthe Journal ofFamz consider more widespread recognition of special merit. One lvfbmesota. Economics. possibility that should be considered is that of designating a limited number of Fellows of the Farm Economic Association. If the committee finds that such a seep is desirable, it should propose to the 1947 annual meeting appropriate measures for choosing an initial group of Fellows and for selecting addi­ tional Fellows from time to time." Waugh's proposal lay idle for nearly a decade, until 1956 when President H. Brooks James (North Carolina) brought the issue back to life by appointing a "Committee on Recog­ nition of Outstanding Agricultural Economises." The com­ Joseph S. Davis Photo Garnet Wolsey Forster courtesy ofStanford Photo courtesy ofthe jour­ mittee of four headed by F.F. Elliott (Maryland), and includ­ University. nal ofFann Economics. ing Harold B. Rowe (USDA), Waugh, and Joseph Ackerman (Farm Foundation), reviewed the awards programs of a num­ ber of societies chat were similar in size and purpose to the AFEA. The committee also interviewed and polled department heads in U.S. colleges and universities to determine the dis­ positions that these administrators held toward honoring an elite group of scholars as "Fellows of the Association." Two problems emerged. The first question was an obvious one about the method of selection to be employed; the second Asher Hobson Photo Edwin G. Nourse Photo referred to the belief chat the award would likely go to older courtesy of UniversitJ 1 courtesy ofBrookings. of\Fisconsin-1\1adison members of the association - members who by their deeds Archives. were already recipients of che honor and respect of their peers and other members. Even in the face of these stated obstacles, the committee moved ahead to oucline a method of selecting an initial group of ten Fellows of the American Farm Eco­ nomics Association. Their plans called for honoring the ten at the annual meeting in 1957 and for smaller classes of up to three additional fellows named in each successive year. The committee's plan was accepted and the following were named Henry C. Taylor Photo as the first class of Fellows: 1A courtesy Farm Foundation. John D. Black Thomas Nixon Carver Theodore W Schultz Joseph S. Davis Garnet Wolsey Forster Photo courtesy ofMEA. Asher Hobson Edwin G. Nourse Theodore W Schultz Henry C. Taylor Frederick V. Waugh Milburn Lincoln Wilson Photos and shore biographies of the original ten Fellows ap- pear in the first few pages of che December 1957 issue of the Journal ofFarm Economics online at http://chla.library.cornell. edu/cgi/t/textltexc-idx?c=chla;idno=5033566_4119_006. Photos of the original class of ten are reproduced here. Milburn Lincoln" Wilson Photo courtesy ofSpecial Frederick V. Waugh Collections, National Photo courtesy ofMEA. Agricultural Libmry. CHAPTER NINE Progress- the 1950s

The 1950s were not kind to farmers in the United States. When the decade began, the na­ tion had approximately 5.4 million farms that averaged slightly more than 220 acres in size. By the end of the decade, farm numbers had dropped to less than 4.0 million and average farm size had increased to about 300 acres. Net farm income per farm household, perhaps a superior indicator of what was happening in the industry, was less than $2,500 per farm in 1950, rising to slightly more than $3,000 per farm household by 1960. Inflation during the period ensured that none of the modest increase in income was reflected in purchasing power. In fact, the 1950 purchasing power of the 1960 net farm income was approximately $2,043, a loss of about $500 per farm in constant-dollar terms. 1 Meanwhile, the median family income for all families in the United States stood at $3,319 in 1950 and $5,620 in 1960. The figures are not exactly comparable, but they demonstrate the severe income dis­ advantage of farm households during the 1950s. Agricultural economists did not seem to focus on this increasing gap in real income compared to the general population. They had lived through World War II, and were using the 1950s to study and understand the problems left by the war. They were learning to work with an industry held together by government policies and subsidies, and they devoted at­ tention to some retraining in a scholarly discipline that had enjoyed tremendous progress in the sophistication of the tools it used to examine economic problems. The journal ofFann Economics, still an indicator of what the discipline and the members of the Association were doing, carried an eclectic array of articles. Land use and ownership were popular topics, as were the "temporary'' and "emergency'' government programs that never seemed to go away. The journal also carried numerous articles on agricultural and food problems in other na­ tions, particularly those that could be traced to war-caused disruptions. The journal and thus the Association, gave a hint that the AFEA was becoming more international in its outlook. Other changes were noteworthy as well. The "Notes" were now longer than before. Sometimes a note would have an author and one or even two discussants. In a way, it was as if the Notes section had become a journal within a journal; nevertheless, many innovative articles began as Notes. The number of book reviews increased, but it is difficult to look back from the 21 st Century and find reviews of books still known and used in the discipline today. Agricultural economists seldom wrote classics - or if they did, the books were not necessarily reviewed in the journal. The long-standing concern about graduate student participation in the annual meet­ ing also took odd turns. The major issue had always centered on finding ways to subsidize graduate student travel to the annual meetings. In the early 1950s, however, some inter­ ested parties, including meeting planners and organizers; focused attention on unintended consequences. They feared that if large numbers of graduate students attended the annual meetings, they would fill the speaking slots ordinarily filled by recognized and prominent

1 Calculated from information in U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial· Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Part 2 pages 441 and 483. 99 100 CHAPTER NINE • Progress - the 1950s members of the profession. If this happened, surely there would be a decrease in participa­ tion by recognized scholars. Although this complaint was widely shared, the major concern continued to surround ways to finance graduate student travel. Several plans and suggestions came forward, but none showed lasting promise. The graduate students (and others) were enthusiastic when, beginning in 1955, the Association arranged for an employment service or "job fair" to be in place and active at the annual meeting. Potential employers and potential employees could register for the op­ portunity to visit with each other, and read materials submitted by registered participants in the sessions. The employment service looked promising, and in the event worked reason­ ably well. Although records are very limited, a 1969 report indicated that approximately 220 potential employees met with about 150 potential employers at the annual meeting in 1969. The Employment Committee went on to work with the U.S. Employment Service and other agencies in the U.S. Department of Labor. In 1973, the committee developed a "registry" for all agricultural economists. The registry listed nearly 3,000 persons in 1979. Although numbers are not available by year, the registry still exists and the employment service remains as a permanent part of the annual meeting.2 The revitalized "Marketing Committee" - M.C. Bond (Cornell), D.B. Deloach (USDA), and Aubrey Brown (Kentucky) - worked with the American Marketing Associa­ tion to plan and carry out a conference on consumer preferences held in conjunction with the 1950 winter meetings in New York City. Leaders in the field wrote and delivered impres­ sive papers, but the turnout of only 50 to 70 individuals was disappointing.3 This modest showing did not deter the Association's leaders from moving ahead with a planned book of readings on agricultural marketing. The Association's experience with the 1949 book on agricultural policy had been favorable, so the presumption was that the same firm, the Blakiston Company of Philadelphia, would also publish a marketing book. By 1952, the marketing book manuscript was complete, but the Association could not come to terms with Blakiston. The Executive Committee shifted its attention to the Iowa State College Press, which agreed to a publishing contract. When finally published in 1954, Readings on Agricultural Marketing did not attract attention from the anticipated group of readers. Edited by F.V Waugh, it divided into eight sections, each containing from three to seven excerpts from other writings - some from members of the Association and oth­ ers not. By 1957, three years after it reached the market, it had sold only 633 of the 1,500 copies printed in the first (and only) press run. The Association abandoned the book, and negotiated with the Iowa State College Press to pay approximately $850 of the $3,000 loss incurred by the publisher. This experience was, understandably, not a happy one for the Association. The 1949 policy volume had been quite successful, and led the Association to develop long-term plans for several books of readings based on the writings of its members. Plans were under way for a book on farm management and production economics when the marketing book ap­ peared and failed. After the failure, the Association did not venture or even consider a return to book publishing for several years. In the summer of 2009, Amazon.com, the online book vendor, listed several copies of Readings on Agricultural Marketing; a new copy was available for $80.00, while used copies were available for as little as $17.42 each.

2 Members retained the option of participating in the employment service operated by the AEA at the winter meetings. 3 Plans made by a joint planning committee had anticipated 200 attendees at the conference. CHAPTER NINE • Progress - the 1950s 101

At the 1951 Executive Committee meeting in Guelph, Ontario, Earl Butz (Purdue) and Charles L. Stewart (Illinois) offered a motion that each annual meeting of the Association open with a "Presidential Ad­ dress." After much discussion, the Committee acknowledged that the president was too busy to prepare a major address but given the new organizational arrangement, the President-Elect could provide a scholarly address to set the tone for the meeting.4 Harry Wellman (California) was the first member elected to office as President-Elect, but the timing was Harry Wellman Photograph courtesy of not right for him to prepare and deliver a major plenary address, so the The Bancroft_ Library University ofCalifornia, initial opportunity for this speech was delayed until 1955, when Karl Berkeley Brandt (Stanford), the Association's second President-Elect, delivered the opening Presidential Address at the annual meeting.5 He spoke using the tide "The Orienta­ tion of Agricultural Economics" and opened with the modest claim: When I chose this subject I had no ambition to shoulder the burden of a critical survey of agricultural economics today 45 years after the found­ ing of our Association .... Nor was I prompted by misgivings about our profession's performance in the pursuit of truth or the services [our pro­ fession] renders .... I wish merely to raise some questions about the orien­ tation of the main body of economic thought and the further action of our profession. 6

From there, Brandt moved to a brief and insightful history of the discipline, and issued a warning against allowing methodological sophistication to cause the investigator to lose sight of the central economic problem that lay behind the investigation. The following year, H. Brooks James (North Carolina State College) gave the address under the tide, ''Agriculture in the Years Ahead."7 James began by using several paragraphs to outline the history of the themes that had occupied members for the first 45 years of the As­ sociation's life. He then moved into the main body of his message by saying, "If our profes­ sion is to continue to grow, to develop, and to gain recognition, we must continue to prove to our fellow scientists and to the public that we can make a worthwhile contribution to society." He divided the outlook for the future into eight separate parts that, taken together, included the themes that James thought merited "additional attention" from Association members during that era. The eight included (1) marketing and price analysis, (2) produc­ tion economics, (3) interregional competition, (4) farm-nonfarm resource adjustments, (5) public policies affecting agriculture, (6) theory and methodology, (7) education, and (8) op­ portunities for agricultural economists.8 With modest changes in labeling, these eight would still be appropriate in 2010.

4 The new format called for an opening address but the President-Elect was under no obligation to define a theme for the meeting. He or she had complete freedom with respect to the topic and style of the address. 5 An address prepared and given by the President-Elect has opened each annual meeting since that time. Although the work of the President-Elect, the address is commonly referred to as "The Presidential Address." 6 Karl Brandt, "The Orientation of Agricultural Economics," journal ofFarm Economics (37:793-806) December 1955 7 H. Brooks James, ''Agriculture in the Years Ahead," Journal ofFarm Economics (38: 1093-1101) December 1956. The combination of the Brandt address and the James address provides more than just a state-of-the-art piece from the mid-1950s. 8 H. Brooks James, "The Orientation of Agricultural Economics," Journal ofFarm Economics (37:1094) Decem­ ber 1956. 102 CHAPTER NINE • Progress - the 1950s

The library/archive originally envisioned by Asher Hobson and W.H. Glover gained approval from the Executive Committee in 1947, but the idea thereafter languished until the mid-1950s. The last disbursement of Association money for rhe library project appeared to be a $30 expense item submitted by the Secretary-Treasurer in 1949. The library/archive collection found its way into the minutes of the August 1952 Executive Committee meeting only as follows: "Hobson's activities as the library custodian of scientific material published by members of the Association was noted. Cooperation of members in building up this library was solicited."9 This was to be the last reference to rhe library/archive until the 1960s. The location of the annual meeting moved west to Oregon State College in 1953. 10 Mutti (Illinois) and Ackerman (Farm Foundation) worked to bring additional structure to the undergraduate program and Editor Larry Witt (Michigan) made sincere pleas for exten­ sion personnel and classroom teachers to submit manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. On August 19, 1953 during the annual business meeting, a motion from the Boor asked " ... that the Executive Committee of the American Farm Economics Association be authorized to explore the possibility of setting up an advisory committee to government agencies on the agricultural statistical data they [the agencies] collect and disseminate for use by agricultural economists." 11 There is no record of a vote on this proposal, and the is­ sue does not appear in the records of later meetings. However, the fact that the motion was made indicates that some members felt that the Association and its members could be, and perhaps should be, of particular service to federal agencies. The Past-Presidents Speak Out The 1954 annual meeting returned to the east, to Pennsylvania State University. On the day before the official meeting began, the Executive Committee met with all of rhe Associa­ tion's past presidents who had come to State College for the sessions. Reasonably enough, the sitting leadership was seeking the counsel of those who had gone before them. 12 The past-Presidents were not modest in expressing their opinions about the condition and per-

9 "Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting," journal ofFarm Economics (34:996) December 1952. 10 An interesting prelude to the Oregon State meeting was Earl Butz's attempt to secure private rail cars for mem­ bers and their families to use in traveling from Chicago to Portland, Oregon. Butz, who at the time held no office in the Association, wrote no fewer than 12 letters to the Great Northern Railway in an effort to reserve two Pullman cars. First class fare was $132.25 and accommodations were available as follows: Upper berth $18.40 Lower berth $24.15 Roomette $33.81 Double Bedroom $53.07 Double Compartment $68.02 There is no indication in the records of either the Association or in the archives of the Great Northern Railroad that Butz was successful in implementing his plan. A June 16, 1953 letter from Earl Butz to Harry Wellman indicates that Butz planned to fly from Chicago to Portland. The Butz letters are in the AAEA Special Collections at the National Agriculture Library. 11 The motion came from D. Gale Johnson (Chicago), and R. Barlowe (Michigan), both powerful and influential members of the Association. "Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting," Journal of Farm Economics (35:1022) December 1953. 12 The "sitting officers" who had invited the past presidents ro the discussion included President Joseph Ackerman (Farm Foundation), President-Elect Karl Brandt (Food Research Institute), Vice-Presidents WW Cochrane (Min­ nesota) and J. Carroll Bottum (Purdue), Secretary-Treasurer Lowell Hardin (Purdue), Editor Lawrence W Witt (Michigan State College), Associate Editor Raleigh Barlowe (Michigan State College), and Book Review Editor Harold Halcrow (USDA). CHAPTER NINE • Progress - the 1950s 103 formance of the Association. Although there is no formal report regarding the deliberations, the individuals who had already served as President made the following observations about the organization and its 1954 leadership: • The current leaders spend too much time on planning the program for the annual meeting, meeting with other organizations, and meeting with the regional associa­ tions. Too much time is spent on the size of the reserve fund and age limits for awards. A committee should be appointed to analyze the status of the organization. The editor should be allowed to add more pages to the Journal. • The journal should include more book reviews . The Association should take strong positions on policy issues. • All members should understand the need for unity in the profession .

In addition to these criticisms and suggestions, M.L. Wilson (by this time a private consultant to government agencies and universities), who had been president of the AFEA in 1925, suggested the formation of an ''Agricultural Social Science Council" as a means of gaining stature among the several societies, foundations, and councils that worked with the physical and biological aspects of agriculture. 13 While Wilson's Agricultural Social Science Council was never formed, his suggestion may have been partially satisfied by the Social Sci­ ence Research Council's renewed interest in agriculture in 1956.

Deconstructing the BAE The middle 1950s seemed to come and go without any major changes or initiatives that would enhance the Association, or lead to significant changes in the way that agri­ cultural economists related to the economic problems on farms, in related industries, or in agricultural policy. However, one major political/administrative event did cause great concern among members of the Association. From its founding in 1922, scientists who did the majority of the agricultural economics work done by the U.S. Department of Agricul­ ture worked for the USDA'.s Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Most professionals usually referred to the bureau as simply the BAE. The BAE attracted into its ranks some of the finest and most highly trained economists available at that time. It worked on problems that came to its attention, and further used observation and logic to ferret out problems that were not always readily apparent. The agency was embroiled in philosophic and political controversy from its beginning when it was asked to develop data gathering systems, pricing schemes, and land use schemes for occupied and unoccupied agricultural lands in the United States. Actions of the BAE did not usually affect the AFEA, nor could the AFEA have a major ef­ fect on the actions of the BAE. However, many of the leaders and prominent scientists who worked for the BAE were members and leaders of the AFEA, so BAE policy and BAE action were frequent topics of discussion among members of the Association. Nowhere is this more obvious than when, after 31 years of existence (1922-1953), the USDA disbanded the BAE and moved its various clusters of economists into other USDA units and other federal agencies. The official order to disband came in early November 1953. Two months later in February 1954,journal editor Lawrence Witt (Michigan), pub­ lished "The Fragmentation of the BAE" as the lead article in the journal. The article began with a list of the seven outstanding agricultural economists who had served as Chief of the

13 The comments from past presidents come from materials held in the Special Collections at the National Agri­ cultural Library in Beltsville, Maryland. 104 CHAPTER NINE • Progress - the 1950s

Bureau. The paper then broke into seven short articles by prominent scholars: O.V Wells (USDA), J.D. Black (Harvard), P.H. Appleby (Syracuse University), H.C. Taylor (Retired from USDA), H.R. Tolley (Ford Foundation), R.J. Penn (Wisconsin), and T.W Schultz (University of Chicago). 14

H.C. Taylor, who had been the first Chief of the BAE, captured the nature of the action by asking: Why this dismantling of an admittedly effective organization?

He answered his own question thus: The answer [to my question] came from Assistant Secretary of Agricul­ ture J. Earl Coke who said" ... the Secretary [of Agriculture] and the Re­ organization Committee ... feel that there are some important advantages to organizing and bringing together the appropriate team of scientists or researchers to attack particular problems even though this does involve putting agricultural economists, engineers, biologists, entomologists, etc. together in the same organization. In short, the leading principle in the reorganization plan has been to look at the problems facing the farmers and the industries that handle farm products rather than the scientific background or training of the particular personnel involved." 15

Taylor then raised another question: This is a frank statement. The question is will the service reaching the farmer possess as high quality when the primary organization is based upon problems as when based upon sciences? 16

Subsequent issues of the journal included a number of articles and notes relating to the reorganization of BAE. Most agreed with the strongly skeptical tone of the February 1954 article about whether the reorganization could or would improve the quality of the econom­ ics work done in the USDA. In addition to the articles and notes related to the BAE, the journal of the mid-1950s carried a variety of articles on a diverse set of economic problems. The number of articles related to on-farm problems decreased, as did the number of articles directed specifically at federal farm policy. The flow seemed to be toward more science, research, and methodolo­ gy.17 No matter what the direction of the flow, the articles published in the journal provided strong evidence that the Association's members were broadening their areas of expertise and attention.

14 Wells, Taylor, and Tolley had each served as Chief of the BAE. Wells was Chief at the time of the reorganization. All except P.H. Appleby were or had been long time members of the AFEA. Appleby had been a journalist for many years before serving in several high-level administrative posts in the U.S. Department ofAgriculture. 15 Careful reading here leads to the suggestion that this might have been an early call for multi-disciplinary re­ search. 16 H.C. Taylor, "The Reorganization of the Economic Work of the USDA," journal ofFarm Economics (36:12-13) February 1954. 17 In a 1954 Journal article, Carl J. Arnold (Michigan) and Raleigh Barlowe (Michigan) reported trends over the first 35 years of the life of the Journal ofFarm Economics. They noted that three classes of subject matter articles (including articles, notes, proceedings papers, and discussions) - agricultural policy, land economics, and market­ ing- dominated the number of contributions and the number of pages in the Journal. These three themes typically made up over 35 percent of articles and pages. Carl J. Arnold and Raleigh Barlowe, "The Journal of Farm Econom­ ics - Its First 35 Years," journal ofFarm Economics (36:441-452) August 1954. CHAPTER NINE • Progress - the 1950s 105

What Matters to Members? The 1956 election of officers made Harry Trelogan (USDA) President-Elect and put him in line to give the Presidential Address at the annual meeting held in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina in August 1957. Trelogan's address was an extensive commentary on the status of the Association and the changes needed to help the Association move forward. As his talk moved toward its conclusion, Trelogan asked that the ushers provide a short questionnaire to each member of the audience. The questionnaire asked members who were present to indicate what services provided by the Association were important to them. The following table indicates how those responding regarded the importance of the four most obvious activities or "products" of the Association.

Table 9-1: Percentages of respondents indicating degrees of importance of each of four Association activities or products Percent of respondents saying Product or Activity Somewhat impor- Very important Not so important No answer cant Journal 97 3 Annual meeting 93 6 Student activity 40 47 11 2 Awards 35 48 17

The written materials that stemmed from the survey indicated that few members had strong feelings about anything other than the journal and the annual meeting. A short writ­ ten summary of the survey is descriptive, but it provides little information other than that shown in the table. 18 Trelogan got what he asked for: a rough indication of what the mem­ bers thought was important.

Members from "Industry'' Membership lists from the very early years of the Association's life show a small num­ ber of members affiliated with firms or organizations other than educational institutions or government research agencies. By the 1950s, these numbers had dwindled, so that very few of the Association's members were drawn from non-academic or non-government employ­ ment. At the Executive Committee meeting in Winnipeg in late summer 1958, the Com­ mittee made plans for a category of members called "sustaining members." The hope was that this designation would attract members from firms that were in some way affiliated with agriculture. Sustaining membership was available for $100 per year and it allowed the sustaining member firm to send one voting individual to the annual meeting. Official records listed this individual as an "industry economist." Ivy Duggan, Vice-President of the Trust Company of Georgia and a long-time member of the Association, took on the task of recruiting sustaining members. 19

18 This brief comment stems from materials in the Association's Special Collection at the National Agricultural Library. 19 Duggan was born in Georgia and received degrees from Clemson, Ohio State, and Mississippi State. He served in university, government, and private-sector positions before taking on this assignment. Sustaining memberships do not appear on membership lists until 1970. The category grew to include 56 members in 1983. Only six firms/ individuals remained in this category in 2006. 106 CHAPTER NINE • Progress - the 1950s

In 1959, Duggan called together a committee of 16 members to determine a strategy for enticing industry economists to join. The committee concluded that the Association was useful for academics, but not for agricultural economists working in industry. The recruiting effort provoked a letter from Oakley M. Ray (American Federation of Manufacturers and formerly a faculty member at Purdue) to Larry Boger (Michigan) that made the Association's apparent lack of usefulness to industry clear, and indicated that changes could not occur until the planners invited more industry economists to participate as speakers or discussants on the annual program.20 Even so, Duggan's efforts resulted in 25 firms joining as sustaining members. 21

Corresponding Members Still another membership category appeared in the late 1950s. In 1958, the Interna­ tional Cooperative Alliance (ICA) approached the Association asking for the designation of a "Corresponding Membership" for economists from other nations who had come to study in the United States under the auspices of the ICA. 22 The former student - now back in his own country - would pay two dollars in annual dues and the ICA would pay an ad­ ditional $11 to the Association. The dues and payments insured that the Association could afford to send all of its publications to the overseas member. There were 55 corresponding memberships when the ICA program began in 1958. Numbers ofICA members increased to more than 200 in the early 1960s, then gradually decreased until the last two dropped their memberships in 1975.

The Social Science Research Council - Once More With Feeling The question of the Association's relationship with the Social Science Research Council re-emerged as the 1950s were ending. The relationship had begun in the 1920s when the SSRC's Advisory Committee on Economics and Social Research in Agriculture published a two-volume mimeographed book titled "Research Method and Procedure in Agricultural Economics."23 This widely circulated book included all the topics that a college-level statistics book of the era would have included. It was especially useful because it used language that an informed upperclassman in agricul­ ture - particularly agricultural economics or farm management - could un­ derstand. Additionally, it used as applications and examples problems that might occur in farming situations. The book opens with a straightforward CourtesyofSSRC statement of purpose: "The objective of the Committee ... in preparing this volume is to summarize as much as possible the experience of agricultural economists in planning, orga­ nizing, and executing research in this field."

20 The Oakley Ray letter is a part of the Association's materials held by the National Agriculture Library. 21 Secrerary-Treasurer Lowell Hardin aided Duggan by sending letters to 62 "known groups" char mighr be inrer­ ested in becoming sustaining members. 22 The Inrernational Cooperative Alliance (!CA) is an advocacy group for cooperatives. Not exclusively for agricul­ tural cooperarives, the Switzerland-based organization began in 1895. In 2008, ir had 219 member cooperatives in 87 countries. It is the world's largest non-governmenral organization (NGO). 23 Social Science Research Council, Research Method and Procedure in Agricultural Economics, New York, 1928. The Preface of the documenr lists John D. Black, L.C. Gray, E.G. Nourse, and H.R. Tolley as members of the sub-committee responsible for the documenrs. The inside front cover names these four plus H.C. Taylor, Joseph S. Davis, C.J. Galpin, and G.F. Warren as committee members. The two-volume work carries little evidence to indicate its publisher. It appears to have been simply a 1928 mimeo put out by the agricultural subcommittees of the SSRC. The volumes show their age as well as the maturity of inferenrial statistics in the 1920s. The symbols and Greek-letter notations frequently used in statistics were hand written in ink in each copy of the two volumes. CHAPTER NINE • Progress - the 1950s 107

The Social Science Research Council's "Committee on Agricultural Economics" re­ sumed active cooperation with the AFEA in 1956. This time, the SSRC committee worked with a committee of agricultural economists to determine whether research in the agricul­ tural economics field was competent and incisive. 24 The two committees made their de­ terminations after holding eight seminars in eight prominent departments of agricultural economics and units irt the USDA. After collation and editing, the reports from the eight seminars yielded the forward-looking book, American Agriculture and Agricultural Econom­ ics, 1955-75: A Report ofthe Committee on Agricultural Economics. The committees made a joint statement in the Foreword to the text: " ... individual members [of the committees] have referred over and over again to our failure as a profession to anticipate problems; it has been said that we are always working on yesterday's problems. This shortcoming has been attributed to the institutional organization of much of the research in agricultural economics. "25 Herman Southworth (USDA), a member of both the early (1928) committee and the 1956 committee, commented on the 1956 report in an article in the Journal ofFarm Eco­ nomics. An excerpt from the article reads: The present undertaking has grown out of a report prepared for the SSRC Committee on Agricultural Economics by a Subcommittee on Fragmentation of Research. This subcommittee ... grew out of discussion of the failure of our profession to follow through systematically in many areas of research [and] the tendency to By from project to project without ever taking time to consolidate our gains. The question was whether this might be an important limitation upon the effectiveness of our work, and whether the time was not therefore ripe for setting a few people aside to attempt comprehensive compilations and appraisals of the status of research in various fields. 26

The work of the committees did not end with the publication of the second SSRC book, or with the Southworth article. The committees also prepared a list of eight "neglect­ ed areas of agricultural economics research." The list evolved as it moved from committee member to committee member and from institution to institution among the eight institu­ tions that hosted the initial seminars. At completion, the list of"neglected areas" included: • Technological change. • Agriculture in an era of abundance. • The changing structural relationships in production and distribution. • Relationships between agriculture and industry. • The role of American agriculture in the world economy. • The use of power (e.g. electricity and gasoline engines) on the farm. • Income goals for farm families.

24 The agricultural economists working with the SSRC were H. Brooks James (North Carolina), R.G. Bressler (California), Willard Cochrane (Minnesota), Earl Heady (Iowa), D. Gale Johnson (Chicago), Erven Long (Tennes­ see), Kenneth H. Parsons (Wisconsin), Herman Southworth (USDA), and Lee Martin (North Carolina). 25 Social Science Research Council, American Agriculture and Agricultural Economics, 1955-75: A Report ofthe Com­ mittee on Agricultural Economics. Raleigh, North Carolina, June 1956. page ii. 26 Herman Southworth, "The AFEA-SSRC Committee on New Orientations in Research," Journal ofFarm Eco­ nomics (41:1461-1466) December 1959. 108 CHAPTER NINE • Progress - the 1950s

Systems of thought, research methods and research findings. 27

In December 1958 George Brinegar (University of Connecticut), speaking for the SSRC committee, asked the AFEA Executive Committee to appoint a sub-committee from the SSRC committee to look into the extent to which agricultural economists were actually directing resources and efforts to neglected areas named by the SSRC.28 In response, incom­ ing president Willard Cochrane (Minnesota) appointed a nine-person "Committee on New Orientations in Research." He named Southworth as chairman. The committee had a three­ ye~r life, during which it coordinated AFEA's activities with those of the SSRC. Southworth, also editor of the journal at the time, encouraged members to submit to the journal manu­ scripts relating to the "neglected areas" and "new orientations" themes.

Lending Expertise The Executive Committee faced a new and different kind of problem when it met in 1959. The leaders of the American Dairy Association approached the officers of the As­ sociation to ask if the AFEA would provide judges for a research competition planned by the American Dairy Association. As envisioned by the Dairy Association, a $1,000 award was to go to the person or persons who developed the outstanding milk marketing research program. Discussions ranged over two meetings of the Executive Committee, but the com­ mittee finally decided against participation because: 1) the AFEA had no real interest in becoming involved in competitions sponsored by other associations, and 2) the committee concluded that agricultural economists had no special competence to judge the kind of competition that the American Dairy Association was proposing. The decade's final Executive Committee meetings included discussions that are extraor­ dinary by any measure. The Association was approaching its fiftieth year and a celebration was in order. The Committee discussed an issue that quickly became contentious: When should the celebration be held? Arguments developed over the selection of one year as the true 50th - 1959 or 1960.

27 From materials held for the Association at the National Agriculture Library. No evidence is available to indicate that the list should imply any special prioriry among the nine. 28 Brinegar brought this issue to the meeting of the Executive Committee held in New York in 1959. His inter­ est was recorded at some length in "Minutes of the Executive Committee," journal ofFarm Economics (41:1577) December 1959. No follow-up is mentioned. CHAPTER TEN Celebrating Fifty Years

Fifty years - half a century! - is a long time. It was perhaps even longer in the late 1950s when the AFEA began to plan its Golden Anniversary celebration. Life expectancies were shorter, very few people had become acquainted with the hectic tempo of computer-based life and living, and speed limits on many highways stood at 50 or 55 miles per hour. People lived at a pace that made 50 years seem a very long time. As a result, anything or any event that reached 50 years was worthy of note and celebration. Restaurants quietly noted on their menus that they had been in operation ("serving the townspeople" was the way it was said) for 50 years. Banks reaching this milestone proudly noted that they had survived inflation, depression, and war, and marriages that reached the 50-year mark were cause for huge family celebrations. So why should the American Farm Economic Association be different? The officers and the members seemed to agree that a celebration, or at the least some kind of recognition, was in order. If they agreed that a celebration should take place, though, the Association's members were perplexed by the task of choosing a year for the Golden Anniversary Celebration. There was never any doubt regarding the date when the Association was organized. That happened on July 27, 1910, the final day of the fourth USDA Summer Graduate School held that year in Ames, Iowa. All available documents attested to this. Even though the date of the Asso­ ciation's founding was certain, two questions remained: When had fifty years passed? When should the organization celebrate? One plausible line of argument said that 1910 should count as the Association's first year. If this is true, and if one counts off succeeding years one-by-one, the fiftieth year would be 1959. Some members accordingly wanted to choose this date. A second group of mem­ bers, looking at the same question, simply added fifty to the starting year and concluded that 1960 was the year for the Golden Anniversary. A third group, dissatisfied with either choice, argued that the Association did not truly function during the three years of World War II when various war-related agencies interceded and prevented meetings and other activities. These members argued that on that basis the fiftieth anniversary would occur in 1962 - or should it be 1963? The question of which year was not an idle one. If held in 1959, the celebration would be at Cornell University- already selected as the place for the 1959 annual meeting. If held in 1960, Iowa State College, already recognized as the birthplace of the organization, would host the celebration. There is some logic to the argument over 1959 versus 1960. The Association of Ameri­ can Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations (AAACES) had sponsored a Summer Graduate School at Cornell in 1908. At the time, Cornell was without a doubt one of the nation's leading colleges in the field of agricultural economics and farm management, with the added social cachet of being associated in the public mind with the Ivy League. Lib­ erty Hyde Bailey, G.F. Warren, Thomas Hunt, and others had a curriculum for agricultural economics in place, and were doing their best to serve the needs of New York's agricultural clientele as well as to expand interest in farm management to other colleges and universi- 109 110 CHAPTER TEN• Celebrating Fifty.Years ties. The faculty at Cornell wanted an organization to hold the fledgling discipline together. Warren, who was a major spokesman for the Cornell establishment, implored those who at­ tended the Cornell Summer Graduate School to plan to attend the 1910 Summer Graduate School at Ames. He implied that it was necessary for the group to meet again if economists interested in farm management were to have a society of their own. Warren's early zeal and persuasiveness gave Cornell a legitimate claim when the Association's members looked for a place to hold the fiftieth-year celebration. However, the fact remained that the formal organization of the Association took place on July 27, 1910 in Ames, Iowa. By the late 1950s, the Iowa State College of Agriculture was among the leading schools of agriculture, and the economists and farm management experts who worked at the Iowa State College of Agriculture were keen to hold the Golden Anniversary celebration at the place where the American Farm Management Association had its official beginning. Ithaca or Ames? 1959 or 1960? Several of the AFEA's Executive Committee(s) tried to deal with these choices, but repeatedly came up with tie votes, tabled motions, and no deci­ sion. The eventual solution accepted by the leadership was a compromise that put some of the Golden Anniversary activities at Cornell University in 1959, while saving others for Iowa State University in 1960. Even so, the controversies did not end. There were questions about the nature of the celebration, who should be in charge of each portion, and who should make the detailed plans. 1 Controversy broke out between the Statistical and Historical Re­ search Branch of the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service,2 and the Agriculture History Society. 3 Each wanted to plan the sessions. 4

Heady Hall Photograph courtesy ofIowa State University. Warren Hall Photograph courtesy ofBill Price III.

1 The December 1959 issue of the journal lists an anniversary committee bur it is not clear when the committee was appointed. Members were L.W Witt (Michigan) as chairman, O.C. Stine (retired fi-om USDA), and S.W War­ ren (Cornell). No one from Iowa State College was a committee member. The committee did not write a report, so its part in deciding how the celebration(s) should proceed is unclear. 2 A number of agricultural economists from the disbanded BAE transferred to this Statistical and Historical Re­ search Branch in the Agricultural Marketing Service. 3 The AFEA had a long history of formal and informal interactions with the Agriculture History Society. The historians were at Saratoga when the AEA formed and from time to time, the History Society held joint meetings with the AFEA. 4 Unpublished papers held in the National Agriculture Library leave the impression that the debate surrounding the Anniversary was very contentious. Several major actors held strong views regarding how the celebration should unfold. The available material does not form a complete picture of what actually happened, however, there is a record of controversy over meeting rooms, seating assignments at the head table at the banquet, and who should room with whom in the hotels. CHAPTER TEN • Celebrating Fifty Years 111

The planners wanted a scholarly paper (or papers) to document and explain the emer­ gence and evolution of the Association. The suggested title: "Background and Develop­ ments - 1890-1920." This was to be followed by a second paper (or papers) dealing with "The Work of the AFEA 1920 to 1950." The next group of papers would recall and docu­ ment the officers and programs, and elaborate the Association's work with other organiza­ tions such as the Census Bureau and the Social Science Research Council. The plans called for expanding the proceedings issue of the Journal to include informative papers regarding the contemporary status of scholarship in the various sub-fields of agricultural economics. In the end, very few of these proposed activities came to pass. The actual published record of the two-year celebration includes only three papers in the December 1959 (proceedings) is­ sue of the journal, and two papers in the December 1960 (proceedings) issue of the journal. 5

The Cornell Celebration Papers - 1959 The December 1959 issue of the Journal turns to the papers commissioned for the Anniversary after revealing the 1959 class of Fellows of the Association and publishing the address given by the President-Elect, Willard Cochrane (Minnesota). The anniversary pa­ pers appear in a section titled "The Fiftieth Year - American Farm Economic Association." . O.B. Jesness (Minnesota) was first to speak under the straightforward title, "The First Fifty Years. 6"

Jesness began with harsh, almost intimidating, words by saying: WHAT is my assignment? Is it to demonstrate a living-in-the­ past senility which some of you hot-blooded youngsters asso­ ciate with anyone who has reached the biblical benchmark of three score and ten? Am I expected to extol the good old days and to deplore the evil days of modernism and the ways of the juveniles? The architects of the program charted no course for me .... [Before dismissing] what has gone befor":··· let us recall O.B. Jesness Photograph courtesy ofMinnesota that the present would be as impossible without a past as it Archives, University of wol).ld be hopeless without a future. Minnesota.

After affirming that his purpose was to talk about the Association rather than the pro­ fession, Jesness turned to an insightful discussion that touched on what had gone before as well as what would come in the "second half of the first century [of the Association's life]." He emphasized that each generation lives with the feeling that all possible progress has al­ ready occurred, but that the same generation looks back and then forward to find that much remains to do. Jesness does not lay his notions of progress at the feet of those in the Associa­ tion but asserts that the Association has facilitated progress in almost all aspects of the work that farm management experts and agricultural economists do. Karl Fox (Iowa), who presented under the title, "The Current State of Agricultural Economics: Methods and Potentials in Agricultural Economics Research," came next on the program.7 Fox referred to the fiftieth year only in his opening sentence. He then moved to a

5 Interestingly, R.G. Bressler (California) who was President during much of the planning phase and who made an impressive effort to compile a list of "Charter Members" of the Association, said nothing about the Anniversary in his Presidential Report to the Members. 6 O.B. Jesness, "The First Fifty Years," Journal ofFarm Economics (42:900-908) December 1959. 7 Karl A. Fox, "The Current State of Agricultural Economics: Methods and Potentials in Agricultural Economics Research," Journal ofFarm Economics (41:909-916) December 1959. 112 CHAPTER TEN • Celebrating Fifty Years discussion of the research methods available in the field. His main point was that many research tools were (and are) available either to expand the research capabilities of the profession's researchers, or to assist them in answering problems in applied economics. 8 The final paper in this series was "The Current State of Agricultural Economics: The Policy Controversy" by G.E. Brandow (Pennsylvania). In it, Brandow took issue with the notion that economists have not lived up to expectations or to their potential in their work with farm and agri- Karl Fox Photograph courtesy ofthe Fox Family. cultural policy. He did not put all the blame on the economists. Instead, he suggested that they work in such a complex policy arena that no one can give the correct advice to the individuals who actually formulate and define agricultural policy. Taken together, the three papers provide a glimpse of history, as well as a strong sense that agricultural economists could have done more during their first fifty years. With the possible exception of the astringent opening to the Jesness paper, the three provide gentle nudges and simple remedies. They are appropriate_ commentaries for a celebration.

The Iowa State Celebration Papers - 1960 The Association met in Ames, Iowa in mid-August 1960 for the second half of the Golden Anniversary celebration. The table of contents for the December 1960 issue of the journal ofFarm Economics shows that the anniversary-related papers were presented in a ses­ sion designated as "The Fiftieth Year Celebration Continued." After a cordial welcome by W. Robert Parks, Dean of Instruction at Iowa State University, the chairman of the session, Willard W. Cochrane (Minnesota), introduced the two individuals who were to give papers related to the celebration. The first was Vernon Carstensen, an historian from the University of Wisconsin, speaking on the topic "An Historian Looks at the First Fifty Years of the Agricultural Economics Profession."9 The Carstensen paper was more complete and more penetrating about the roles of agricultural economists and of the AFEA than the papers given at Cornell one year earlier. Carstensen quoted the writings and addresses given by the Asso­ ciation's leaders, and showed that the science applied to agriculture had been very primitive. The paper carried the reader through the early his­ Vernon Carstensen Photograph courtesy of tory of the discipline, the formation of the Association, and the activities the Carstensen Family. of the first five decades. The paper made compelling arguments, and of­ fered descriptions - if not solutions - for many of the problems that faced U.S. agriculture during those years.

8 Fox poses an interesting question. He was writing at a time when linear programming was just coming into widespread use, and he notes that if the appropriate coefficients were available, the method could be used to specify any or several solutions to the "diet problem." He goes on to wonder how the world (and how agriculture) would change if everyone suddenly accepted the answers to the diet problem and chose to consume the low-cost diets. 9 Vernon Carstensen held a joint appointment in Departments of Agricultural Economics and of History at the University of Wisconsin. He was no stranger to agricultural economics or to agricultural economists. He served as editor of Agricultural History for many years. The anniversary paper as well as other papers by Carstensen reveal the great care he took while preparing a scholarly contribution. His anniversary paper is Vernon Carstensen, "An Historian Looks at the First Fifty Years of the Agricultural Profession," Journal ofFarm Economics (42:994-1006) December 1960. CHAPTER TEN • Celebrating Fifty Years 113

Willard F. Mueller (Wisconsin) authored the companion paper, which, in contrast to the Carstensen paper, carried the tide "An Economist Looks at rhe Next Fifty Years of rhe Profession." Mueller talked almost exclusively about the profession, while neglecting men­ tion of the Association: even so, he raised questions that remain appropriate today, especially with regard to the supply of and demand for agricultural economists. He argued rhat agri­ cultural economists were a dying breed because the major firms on both the supply side and the demand side of agriculture were doing their own economics work, and the agricultural economists working in universities and for public agencies had become little more rhan pests tolerated because rhey did little harm - in other words, they were not a threat. (Yer 50 years later agricultural economists have reinvented themselves as applied economists with various types of research interests in relevant issues of the day - climate change, water shortages, organic agriculture, obesity and hunger, and food safety to name a few.) A Fifty-Year Report Card There was much more to the anniversary celebrations rhan the five formal addresses recounted here. There were photos of early leaders, receptions, short biographies of early personalities, and posters from the colleges that granted degrees in agricultural econom­ ics. Even so, the lasting impression comes from the five papers, Not even one of the papers conveys rhe impression that the discipline had a wholly bright future. Of the five, perhaps Jesness - despite the tone of his presentation - was the most hopeful and the most positive about the prospects for the profession and the Association. Fox and Brandow do not say rhat agricultural economists had been fundamentally wrong in their conclusions and normative prescriptions, but rhey imply that as a group agricultural economists had perhaps not been as productive or as imaginative as they could be when dealing with the problems of the farm, and when working in the policy arena. Carstensen's point of view was that of an outsider looking in. His explanations and revelations went far in helping to understand how rhe As­ sociation reached its present (1960) stature, while Mueller provided lessons on technology, which he thought agricultural economists had treated too lightly. All things taken, the papers comprised a very useful mix of commentaries - not neces­ sarily on what agricultural economists had done, but on what they had not yet done -- and what they might yet do to assure themselves a stronger hold on reality in future years. They seem to offer the opportunity for a centennial celebration in 2010 to have ten speakers, each of whom can say, "Well done." Twenty-five Years Later: Another Celebration at the 75 Year Mark The next twenty-five years passed in general comfort. The Association's membership grew, money problems were not severe, and members began to rake increasing action, espe­ cially with respect to the "farm bills" that came through Congress every few years. Surely, a celebration commemorating 75 years was in order. Ar the 1982 meeting of the Executive Board in Logan, Utah, the Board members dis­ cussed the Association's approaching 75th anniversary. The discussion led to rhe appoint­ ment of an ''Anniversary Committee," along with a laundry list of ideas and suggestions for rhe content of rhe celebration. Some members wanted to commission a written history. Orhers suggested a banquet to be attended by representatives of other agriculturally-related 114 CHAPTER TEN • Celebrating Fifty Years associations and societies, recognition of Fellows and past Presidents, and papers related to the future of agriculture, as well as to the future of the Association. An ad hoc committee was formed with Ray Beneke (Iowa) as chairman. 10 One year later, during the Board meeting at Purdue University, Beneke presented a number of options, including films, displays, photos of early leaders, and a field trip into the agricultural areas of Indiana. Beneke presented a budget request for $3,367. 11 Ray Beneke Photograph courtesy ofAAEA. Representatives from Cornell, wanting to share the celebration as had been done 25 years earlier, suggested that the celebration represent "The 75 th Year" with leadoff activities at Cornell in 1984, and closing activities at Iowa State in 1985. Heated discussion of the proposal resulted in the entire suggestion being tabled, then being reintro­ duced and ultimately passing on a split vote of the voting members. Discussions and preparatory activities continued in 1984. A multimedia presentation was available for the Cornell portion of the celebration, and Beneke announced several events or conditions for the Ames portion. He indicated that (1) all activities at the Ames (1985) meeting would be oriented to the anniversary, (2) there would be special displays honoring early leaders and early highlights, (3) there would be recognition of institutions where agricultural economics was taught, (4) there would be an "Old Timers" event, and (5) a tour of the area would be available. Beneke sought $20,000 in Association funding for this lineup of events. The Executive Board allocated a much smaller sum, $5,000, and then moved to drop the allocated amount to $2,500. After discussion, the Board relented and agreed to $5,000. Interestingly, no re­ cord of these planned events appears in places other than the minutes of planning meetings and Board meetings. 12 The editors of the journal arranged for papers celebrating the 75 years to be a part of the ASSA meetings in New York City at holiday time in 1985. James Houck (Minnesota) gave the first address, "Views on Agricultural Economists' Role in Economic Thought." Houck was followed by Fox, who spoke on ''Agricultural Economists as World Leaders in Applied Econometrics, 1917-1933", and S.R. Johnson (Iowa State) speaking under the title "Future Challenges for Modeling in Agricultural Economics." Marc Nerlove (Pennsylvania) and D. Gale Johnson (Chicago) discussed the three papers. 13 The celebration of 75 years came up one more time when the editors of the American journal ofAgricultural Economics decided independently to commemorate the 75 th year of its publication. The Journal was first published in 1919, so its 75 th year was 1994. The editors planned to publish a special issue to mark the date. They aimed at publication of the issue in lace 1993. !twas a long process. In November 1991, Steve Buccola (Oregon) and Richard

'° "Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (64:1118) December 1982. 11 "Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (65:1227) December 1983. 12 The papers given at Cornell were recorded and video-taped to make it possible for members who had not been present to buy or borrow the tapes as a means of "participating" in the sessions. The taping was continued for a second year but the tapes were not heavily used so the project was discontinued. 13 These papers and discussions appear in The American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (68:375-398) May 1986. Other papers given at the AAEA winter meetings in that year also appear in this volume. The Houck, Fox, and Johnson papers are, however, the ones designated to honor the anniversary. CHAPTER TEN • Celebrating Fifty Years 115

Adams (Oregon), co-editors of the journal, announced plans for the 75 th Anniversary Issue. The special issue, was to include reprints of several papers from the first issue of the Journal Qune 1919), three papers invited from non-members and five papers selected on a competi­ tive basis from members who entered an essay contest for the honor. The timeline called for short summaries or abstracts by February 1, 1992, final drafts by February 1993, and publication by October 1993. 14

14 The call for papers (submissions) appeared on page 978 of the November 1991 issue of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. The invitation to participate resulted in a number of submissions of which ten were selected for publication in a supplement to the October 1993 issue of the A]AE. CHAPTER ELEVEN Begi,nning the Second Fifty Years

The Golden Anniversary came at a comfortable time in the life of the Association. Mem­ bership had grown steadily for a decade, and stood at 2,794 across all categories in 1960. It continued to grow almost without relent for another decade. 1 The journal expanded to 1,563 pages in 1960 and then to 1,827 pages in 1962.2 Special-topic supplements to the four regular issues and the proceedings issues appeared from time to time. Editor J.N. Niel­ son (Michigan), hoping that the Journal would provide more opportunity for dialog, dis­ continued the "Notes" section and replaced it with "Viewpoints" in the February 1963 and subsequent issues. The Notes had become longer and longer, and the authors as well as the readers began to wonder about the difference between a Note and an article. Nielson hoped to solve that problem by limiting the length and subject matter coverage of a Viewpoint. Viewpoints were limited to 400 words. The earlier Notes had worked with a 1,000-word limit. (Future editors would change the section back to Notes and other names.) Most future editors reserved space in each issue for short and sometimes controversial comments.3 The annual meeting continued as a major summer event, and the Association's leaders continued to arrange a small number of sessions for the American Economic Association meetings held during each holiday season. The budget played an important role in making possible any increased level of activity. After years of husbanding every penny and moving with great caution whenever money was involved, the American Farm Economic Association now enjoyed a modest financial cush­ ion. In 1959, cash receipts exceeded cash expenditures by more than $5,000, and in 1960, the organization's receipts exceeded expenditures by more than $8,300. Other years during this period also produced surpluses, some of which were quite large. 4 The organization's net worth climbed to nearly $75,000 in 1960, and then to more than $97,000 in 1962 - nearly double the $50,000 reserve deemed necessary in earlier years. 5 The surpluses of funds brought what may have been a sense of guilt on the parts of the organization's leaders. Since its formation in 1910, the elected officers and appointed leaders of the AFEA and its predecessor, the AFMA, had offered only token payments to

1 Every person or entity (library, commercial firm, book collector, etc.) that purchased a subscription to the Jour­ nal counted as a "member." Regular (individual) membership numbers had been slightly higher than this in 1957 (2,438) and 1958 (2,423). In 1961, regular membership began a steady annual increase that lasted through 1967 2 In 1963 and for several years beyond, the journal dropped back to about 1,500 pages each year in an effort to curb the ever-growing costs of publication and distribution. 3 J.N. Nielson, "Viewpoints," Journal ofFarm Economics (45:v.-vii) February 1963. The change was also an effort to cut down the pages taken up by "Notes." 4 Calculating cash receipts for a year and trying to make the result match membership figures was always a difficult task. Members did not pay each year's membership dues by a specific date. fu a result, dues payments reached the Secretary-Treasurer's office all through the year and it was often difficult to know if the member was paying last year's dues, this year's dues, or next year's dues. Expenses were relativdy easy to track since they appeared in the financial accounts during the year in which the payment was made. 5 The organization's net worth dropped off slightly during the second half of the 1960s because of the decision to publish a comprehensive handbook (directory) of the Association. Handbooks published from time to time usu­ ally required liquidation of some investments. The usual cost was between $5,000 and $8,000, depending on the amount of detail included in the book.

117 118 CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years help defray the costs incurred by the President, the Secretary-Treasurer, the Editor, and their offices. The Association's officers accepted - perhaps even expected - office space, clerical help, and technical assistance from the universities, colleges, agencies, and firms for which they worked. In addition, the Association's elected and appointed officers continued to ac­ cept full salaries from their employers, even while devoting much time to the affairs of the AFEA. 6 Now, with the bank accounts showing positive balances and membership growing at a comfortable pace, the Executive Committee began to discuss the question of hiring as­ sistants or compensating non-member workers, especially those who aided the President, the Editor, or the Secretary-Treasurer. The issue of hiring a professional staff simmered without resolution for several more years. However, the existence of the surpluses did embolden the leadership to take new steps to expand the influence of the organization and its members. The invited speakers at the Anniversary Meetings did not say that agricultural economists had done nothing of social worth, but all made strong statements about the profession's performance, and decried its contribution as falling far short of what it might be. The leaders had heard this particular criticism before: perhaps as early as 1942, when T.W Schultz, at the end of his tenure as editor of the journal ofFarm Economics, commented that:

"Our articles and books are in the main quite amateur. We are too busy and often too close to action to permit the deeper attributes ofscholarship to develop7 ".

This time, the Association's leaders seemed to take the criticism to heart, and set out to help provide an environment in which members and groups of members could increase their intellectual and policy-related contributions to the profession and to society. The list of proposed initiatives was long and diverse, and included items left over from previous years as well as a number of new ideas and directions. Among other things, the Executive Committee set out once again to improve the Association's ability to manage literature stor­ age and retrieval. The committee also tried to streamline the awards programs, attend to the needs of young (student) members, develop methods to publicize the accomplishments of members, and strengthen the relationships between the AFEA and other· organizations linked to agriculture or to related natural resource themes. In the very short run, all of these topics had to share time and attention with the Association's efforts to change radically its form of governance.

Governance At the time of its founding (1910), there was no real or apparent need for the American Farm Management Association to adopt an elaborate organizational structure. The charter members tended to be personal friends, and in any case were generally like-minded. A small, elected governing committee made decisions regarding the narrow range of the organiza­ tion's activities, and the only matter of real concern centered on the need for members to pay their dues in a timely manner. The merger in 1919 and the subsequent formation of

6 Many academic organizations followed a similar practice. Additionally, the practice of"working for the Associa­ tion" had a trickle-down effect. The committee members who worked with such things as awards and the student sections also depended on their employers to provide "released time" for activity related to membership in the AFEA. 7 See Schultz's extensive comments in Chapter 5. CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years 119 the AFEA brought with it a journal, more structured annual meetings, and the need for ad­ ditional revenue. It did not require a change in the Association's style of governance. A few officers elected from the membership made decisions for the group. The management challenges became more difficult as membership climbed and activi­ ties grew in number. An increase in the size of the managing body- the Executive Commit­ tee - helped, especially after specific responsibilities were parceled out to particular offices and officers. Even with the changes, the relatively informal 1910 mode of operation and decision-making persisted. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, though, conversations developed within and without the leadership group regarding the organization's governance. Those near the center of de­ cision-making power remonstrated about the time required by office holders to manage the affairs of the organization. Those outside the group of leaders complained about the degree of power vested in the small group of officers. In 1960, Harry Trelogan (USDA) submitted a report to the Executive Committee in which he described the form of governance used by each of several other professional organizations of similar size and purpose. While the report generated some interest, no changes followed because of the expense involved in changing to a more "standard" form of governance. One year later Bushrod Allin (USDA) used a part of his Presidential Report to revisit the governance issue, and to take the opportunity to point out that subsidies from the lead­ ers' employers were unlikely to continue forever. 8 During the 1964 summer meetings at Purdue, C.D. Kearl (Cornell), long-time Secretary-Treasurer of the AFEA, introduced for discussion the possibility of hiring a part-time Executive Secretary for the Association.9 The Executive Committee listened to his reasoning, but made no changes. However, Kearl's comments, as well as other indicators, pointed to the need for a serious examination of the Association's governance and management. Finally, at an April 1966 Executive Committee meeting, President Kenneth Bachman (USDA) appointed a committee charged with revis­ ing the organization's Constitution to permit the possibility of incorporating the Associa­ tion as well as making other changes. 10 Bachman asked Elmer Learn (California) to serve as chairman. 11 By the time of the 1966 winter meetings, the Learn Committee had expanded its own charge to include the possibility of changing the name of the Association and the name of the journal. These added tasks quickly became problematic: one group of members felt that the word "agricultural" defined the Association too narrowly, while another group felt that the word ''American'' was similarly narrow. A third group, meanwhile, preferred to keep the present names. The Committee, seeking reliable information from the members, arranged to poll the membership regarding the possibility of changing names.

8 Bushrod Allin, "1961-1962 Report of the President," Journal of Farm Economics (44:1784-1785) December 1962. 9 "Minutes of Executive Committee Meetings, Purdue University," journal ofParm Economics (46:1453) Decem­ ber 1964. 10 The members of the Executive Committee were well aware that simply incorporating the organization would not solve the problems of inadequate funds, the need for an executive secretary, or other problems. However, incor­ poration would give the AFEA additional legal status and allow it to enter into activities that heretofore had been very difficult to consider. 11 The committee members were Elmer Learn (California), Ken Robinson (Cornell), Clifton Cox (Armour Foods), John Southern (Ford Foundation), Robert Firch (Arizona), John Redman (Kentucky), Neil Harl (Iowa), and Joseph Ackerman (Farm Foundation). 120 CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years

The polling was complex. Ir asked all members, even those who desired no changes, to express their preferences by ranking possible names for the Association and for the journal. The resulcs of the poll - referred to as an "advisory vote" - showed that of the 1,499 ballots cast, 997 opted for a change in the name of the journal. 12 Of these, 514 selected "American Journal of Agricultural Economics" as their first choice. A total of 502 votes came from individuals who did not want to change the name of the journal. Most in this group did not select an alternative name, but 167 indicated that their first choice among the listed pos­ sibilities was ''.American Journal of Agricultural Economics." The second choice vote among all ballots favored the name "Agricultural Economics Journal." 13 A similar process determined the preferences for changing the name of the Association. Among the 960 who voted "yes" for a name change, 646 listed ''.American Agricultural Eco­ nomics Association" as their first choice. In the group of 472 who voted in favor of making no change, 201 indicated chat if they had to live with a change, ''.American Agricultural Economics Association" would be their first choice. 14 The results of the advisory vote came before the membership at the annual Business Meeting on August 15, 1967. Bachman, by then the immediate Past-President, moved to adopt the favored names and to make the changes effective on January l, 1968. After some minor verbal skirmishes relating to the words "agricultural" and ''.American," the required two-thirds of those present voted in favor of the changes. On January 1, 1968, the old American Farm Economics Association became the American Agricultural Economics As­ sociation (AA.EA), and the journal ofFarm Economics became the American journal ofAgri­ cultural Economics (AJAE). The day's business did not end with the change in names. The Constitutional Revi­ sion Committee arranged to put forward a new constitution for a vote of the membership. The following year at the summer meeting in Bozeman, Montana, President C.E. Bishop (North Carolina) used a part of his "1967-1968 Report of the President" to explain the name change and changes in the governance of the organization. 15 He said: Effective January 1, 1968, the name of the American Farm Economics Association was changed to the American Agricultural Economics As­ sociation, and the name of the JOURNAL OF FARM ECONOMICS was changed to the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECO­ NOMICS. The American Agricultural Economics Association was incor­ porated in the State of Iowa on December 28, 1967. It is incorporated with a registered office in the Department of Economics at Iowa State University in the city of Ames. The registered agent is Neil E. Harl, to whom this Association is greatly indebted for his untiring efforts and sage

12 The complete results appear in the journal ofFarm Economics (49:1621-1622) December 1967, pt. 2. 13 The other options for a re-named journal were ''Agricultural Economics Journal," and "Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics." 14 The other options for re-naming the Association were "The Agricultural and Food Economics Association," ''Agricultural Economics Association of the United Scates," ''Association of Agricultural Economists," and "Rural Economics Association." 15 Bishop failed to mention that the Association's members had voted 1,312 to 27 in favor of incorporation and that the first task of the newly elected Execurive Board required that the officers transfer all of the assets of the old AFEA to the new AAEA CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years 121

advice over the past two years. The corporation has been registered with the Internal Revenue Service, and in view of its educational purpose has been accorded an exemption from federal income taxes. 16

The changes that have been effected have placed our Association on a much more business-like basis and have made it a much more democratic association. Membership on the Executive Board is distinctly different from membership on the executive committees through which the busi­ ness of this Association has been conducted in years past. The Executive Board is larger than the former Executive Committee, providing more channels through which members of the Association can express their views with regard to the activities of the Association. This is of particular significance when it is noted that the framers of the constitution included a provision instructing the nominating committee "to take full cogni­ zance of the need for geographical, functional and organizational repre­ sentation on the Executive Board." These changes virtually assure a shift in the power structure of the Association and a much more democratic structure in the future.17

The new officers - now a Board of Directors rather than an Executive Committee - took over their duties at the annual meeting in Bozeman, Montana in 1968. 18 They included: • Harold Breimyer (University of Missouri), President • Dale Hathaway (Michigan), President-Elect • C.E. Bishop (University of North Carolina), Past-President (elected two years ear- lier) • C. Del Mar Kearl (Cornell), Secretary-Treasurer (appointed) • John H. Southern, (USDA), Director • Dale E. Butz (Illinois Agricultural Association), Director • Jimmye S. Hillman (Arizona), Director • John 0. Dunbar (Purdue), Director • Clifton R Wharton, Jr. (Agricultural Development Council), Director • William 0. Toussaint, (North Carolina), Director

The new Constitution called for six Directors, who would serve staggered three-year terms, with two new directors elected each year. The Constitution also called for broad subject-matter representation, so the six newly elected directors divided into two groups, teachers and researchers in one group and all others in a second group. The length of the terms for the first group of six Directors was established by drawing lots. The lots selected

16 In a personal communication with the author, Neil Harl (Iowa) indicated that the Association obtained its 50l(c)(3) exemption in 1951. The 1967 re-application to the IRS was submitted so as not to raise questions with the IRS authorities. The same hdd true after the formation of the AAEA Foundation in 1984. AAEA is one of the few educational associations to enjoy 50l(c)(3) status. 17 C.E. Bishop, "1967-1968 Report of the President,• American journal ofAgricultural Economics (50: 1767-1769) December 1968. 18 Although officially designated as a Board of Directors, the members and the unofficial documents of the Associa­ tion preferted to refer to the officers as the Executive Board. 122 CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years one member from each group to serve a one, a two, or a three-year term. The result gave one­ year terms to Southern and Hillman, two-year terms to Butz and Wharton, and three-year terms to Dunbar and Toussaint. 19 The new pattern of governance was complete and in place.

Caring for the Literature of Agricultural Economics The Golden Anniversary, and the efforts to change the Association's governance, did not diminish interest in finding a way to safeguard and make accessible the vast literature created by agricultural economists over the previous five decades. Two forces were hard at work to ensure that the expansion of the literature would continue. The first stemmed from the fact that agricultural economists were applied- scientists, devoted to helping a clientele made up of millions of farmers and the processing and marketing institutions designed to move farm products to final consumers. Doing so on a one-on-one basis was not possible, so published reporrs, bulletins, pamphlets, circulars, articles, and books disseminated in­ formation to the discipline's clientele. A second motivation was driven by the places where agricultural economists found employment. From the early years onward, the majority of agricultural economists worked for the public - either in colleges of agriculture, or in some branch of state or federal government. Personal progress or achievement in these settings was difficult to measure, so printed documents or appearances with clientele groups provided a surrogate for profits or economic success. This yielded a huge volume of materials, loosely described as "the literature of the profession." Neither the Association, nor the disparate and far-flung places of employment of its members, had done an adequate job of providing for the maintenance or long-term use of this literature. This was not a new problem. As early as 1946, Asher Hobson noted this accumulation of literature, and talked about an archiving system supervised by a "Library Custodian." Hobson's suggestion languished until revived by the Executive Committee in 1960, when Harry Trelogan (USDA) expressed a need for a system to maintain the records of the Asso­ ciation and the literature of agricultural economics. Some months later and also at Hobson's urging, the Wisconsin Historical Society submitted a proposal to become the depository library for the official records of the Association's business activities, as well as for the lit­ erature produced by the Association's members.20 The proposal called for departments of agricultural economics and related agencies to submit three copies of all publications and other printed materials to the Wisconsin Historical Society for processing and safekeeping. The Executive Committee accepted the proposal, but made no special arrangements regard­ ing the retrieval or use of the literature once it was in the archive. Similarly, there was no effort to hire or appoint a Library Custodian and there was no budgeted expenditure for any aspect of the activity. In the summer of 1961, President Nicholls asked Trelogan, Bennett White (USDA), and Harold Halcrow (Illinois) to serve as a Committee on Literature Retrieval. The commit­ tee began immediately to search for funding for the depository.

19 The ''American Agricultural Economics Association Reports and Minutes" section of the December 1968 pro­ ceedings issue of the American Journal ofAgricultural Economics provides detailed information regarding the transfer from the old co the new form of governance. Outgoing President C.E. Bishop's report (pages 1767-1769) and the "Minutes of the Initial [Meeting] of the Governing Board" (pages 1794-1797) are especially interesting. All com­ mittee reports published in this section are lengthy and detailed. 20 See Chapter 7. CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years 123

Progress toward developing a retrieval system was complicated, in part because of the number and variety of players involved. The National Science Foundation, i:he National Agricultural Library, and the Social Science Research Council all felt chat they had interests in a retrieval system for the agricultural economics literature, but there was little agreement on how the system would look or how it would work. Mr. Foster Mohrhardt, a special col­ lections librarian at the National Agricultural Library, worked with Trelogan's committee to prepare a proposal for funding from NSF. The proposal asked for funds to study and imple­ ment a usable storage and retrieval system. In an effort to remove some of the confusion surrounding the classification and retrieval of materials, the AFEA Executive Committee budgeted $2,000 for a "bibliographic control study." LT. Littleton, Acting Director of the D.H. Hill Library at the North Carolina State University, undertook the study, using the grant to finance his PhD studies in library science at the University of Illinois. He eventually completed a dissertation tided, "The Bibliograph­ ic Organization and Use of the Literature of Agricultural Economics." The research for the dissertation was based on a sample of 1,400 of the approximately 9,000 accessible citations of published work identifiable as the work of agricultural economists.21 Littleton estimated chat the indexing and citation services chat were already serving agriculture mentioned less than one-third of the documents and ocher literature authored or created by agricultural economists. John Scott (Illinois) submitted a Viewpoint based on Littleton's work to the May 1966 Journal ofFarm Economics. In part, it said: I should like co propose chat the American Farm Economic Association (perhaps with initial help from research grants) establish and maintain a bibliographic classification-and-recall system for the field of agricultural economics. This bibliographic-recall system could be sold by subscrip­ tion to departments of agricultural economics, institutional libraries, and interested commercial companies, and probably to some individuals. An IBM card could be coded for each article, book, bulletin, etc., published in the United States, or published abroad by AFEA members.22

In 1968, the Committee on Retrieval of Agricultural Economics Literature published a report in the recently renamed American journal ofAgricultural Economics. 23 The report was extensive. It called for "establishing an American Agricultural Economics Documentation Center with the National Agricultural Library, and publishing a printed bibliography of ag­ ricultural economics licerature."24 The proposed bi-monthly bibliography would include all basic bibliographic information, key words, and an abstract written by the author. The cost

21 The main points from Littleton's dissertation appear in an article in the December 1967 proceedings issue of the JFE. See I.C. Littleton, "Publication, Indexing, and Retrieval of Agricultural Economics Literature," Journal ofFann Economics (49:1561-1572) December 1967. Littleton recommended close cooperation with the National Agricultural Library and various indexing services. He also recommended developing a specialized information center for the exclusive handling of the profession's literature. 22 John T. Scott, "Retrieval of Agricultural Economics Literature," journal ofFarm Economics (48:830-832) May 1966. 23 The decision to move ahead with the literature retrieval activities was occurring at the same time chat the Ameri­ can Farm Economic Association was deciding to incorporate and change its name to the American Agricultural Economics Association. The rwo discussions and decisions are not related. The literature review mechanisms would likely have emerged without the re-naming of the Association or the Journal. 24 "Report of the Committee on Retrieval of Agricultural Economics Literature," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (50:1788-1791) December 1968. 124 CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years to the Association, first estimated at approximately $40,000 per year, eventually dropped to $15,000 per year when the National Agricultural Library, the Economic Research Service, and the Statistical Reporting Service agreed to share many of the costs. The Executive Board voted to move ahead with the Docu­ AMERICAN mentation Center, and with the bi-monthly publication of The BIBLIOGRAPHY American Bibliography of Agricultural Economics. The Center OF .. acquired documents from authors and transferred the bib­ AGRICULTURAL::;.< ECONOMICS ' " liographic information to electronic tape. The tapes became a master file for publishing a hard-copy periodical relating to "'"tJC•~.CUOJtlU1W.U.O•Olll-. the fast-growing literature. Members of the Association were l>

25 The Literature Retrieval Committee submitted a detailed report of its activities and plans to the proceedings issue of the 1969 volume of the American journal ofAgriwltural Economics. The report provides a description of the history and development of the retrieval process as well as the organization of the agency responsible for creat­ ing and distributing the bibliography. See Harold Abel, "Report of Committee on Literature Retrieval," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (51 :1665-1674) December 1969. CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years 125

Another Look at the Profession's Literature While the Documentation Center prepared to publish the American Bibliography ofAgricultural Econom­ ics, members of the Association discussed ways to make the discipline's literature available, understandable, and useful to others - members and non-members alike. One way was to prepare comprehensive reviews of materials published in each of the discipline's several sub-fields. This idea was not entirely new: Journal editor James Nielson (Michigan) had commissioned or encouraged several review articles during his tenure as editor. C.E. Bishop (North Carolina) noted the possibility of a comprehensive review in his 1967-68 "Report of the President," and, in his "1969 Presidential Report," Harold F. Breimyer (Missouri) indicated that the Associa­ tion was nearly ready ro commission a set of books based on reviews of the recent (1940-1970) contributions ro the literature of the major sub-fields of the discipline. In the February 1963 issue of the journal ofFarm 1 Economics, Lee Martin (Arkansas) published an incisive review of literature related ro economic growth, so Breimyer discussed with him a broader set of papers covering other aspects of agricultural economics. 26 By 1970, Martin (by this rime ar Minnesota) headed an eight-person committee charged with overseeing the publication of an unspecified number of volumes of review essays focusing on rhe literature of agriculrural economics that had emerged in the period 1940-1970. The activity took the name "The Post-War Literature Review." In December 1975, the committee submitted an extensive report that included outlines of three volumes: Volume I. "Traditional Agriculrural Economics" made up of seven chapters written by ten authors. Voluin~ II. "Quantitative Methods in Agricultural Economics" with six chapters and nine authors.

Volume III. "New Fields in Agricultural Economics" with 23 chapters and 20 authors. 27 As in other cases, the Association had difficulty finding a suitable publisher for rhe completed volumes. Afi:er unsuccessful attemprs to negotiate with commercial publishing firms, the Association contracted with the University of Minnesota Press. Volume I, Traditional Fields ofAgricultural Economics, 1940s to 1970s, was printed and published in 1977. Volume II, Quantitative Methods in Agricultural Economics, followed in 1979. Volume III, Economics ofWelfare, Rural Development, and Natural Resources in Agricultural Economics, 1940s-1970s, all edited by Lee Martin, reached the market in 1981. A fourth volume, Agriculture in Economic Development- unplanned when rhe project began - completed rhe set in 1992. In all, rhe four volumes rouch on most of the themes char agricultural economists pursued during the decades after World War II. Taken together, the four volumes include 2,903 pages, written by 47 leading and well-known figures in the profession. The set remains an encyclopedic examination and summary of the scholarly activities in the field during the aforementioned period. Although all four volumes are our of print, copies of each are available through online booksellers.

The Awards Programs The years after the Golden Anniversary began with a major change in awards open to graduate students: an award for the outstanding MS (MA) thesis replaced the graduate student contributed paper (essay) competition. Master's candidates could now submit their thesis work in competition for three awards of $100 each, plus the possibility of an honor­ able mention award. Other awards were available for PhD dissertations where entrants com­ peted for three $250 awards and the possibility of an honorable mention award. Three $250 awards were also available for published research, and one $250 award went to the author(s) of the outstanding article in the Journal ofFarm Economics (and later the American journal ofAgricultural Economics).

26 Harold Breimyer, "Report of the President," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics" (51: 1646) December 1969. 27 The Committee's progress through its first five years is outlined in "Report of rhe Post War Literature Review Committee," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (57:1013-1014) December 1975. The report includes preliminary names of chapters and possible authors. Volume I was ready for rhe printer when the committee filed its report. 126 CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years

There was, however, a serious problem with the awards program - a problem that was practical in nature, rather than philosophical (or even financial). Judging the entries required an overall chairman and 25 to 35 members to fill positions on subcommittees for each of the awards. Finding members willing to serve on the committees was difficult, and participating on a subcommittee was even more difficult because of the substantial time commitment required to make reasoned judgments among documents and essays chat might have nothing in common except the fact that they were in the competition. On its surface, the awards lineup and program seemed straightforward and reasonable. Even so, the details - especially chose related to the age of the author, honorable mention awards, and the total number of awards an individual could receive - came up for discussion and re-discussion at almost every meeting of the Board, whether the old Executive Commit­ tee or the new Board of Directors. 28 Selecting Fellows (Another Award Program) The method for selecting Fellows of the Association was subject to frequent adjust­ ment. Selection required the efforts of two committees, the Executive Committee (Execu­ tive Board) and the Fellows Selection Committee. The process seemed simple enough: In general, one of the two committees narrowed the field of applicants by reviewing materials submitted in support of the candidates. This resulted in a short list, which passed to the second committee for a final decision. The short list typically included approximately twice the number of names than would be selected for the honor in a typical year. The second committee then had the option of selecting for the honor any number of individuals from zero to the recognized maximum number specified by the rules at that time. 29 The common perception surrounding the process suggested that if the Executive Com­ mittee reviewed the large pool of applicants, the short list would include only older indi­ viduals who had been faithful members, and who for years had made steady contributions to the activities of the Association and to the profession. The Executive Committee feared that if the Fellows Selection Committee compiled the short list, it would include younger scholars who showed great promise, but who might or might not become lifelong members contributing to the activities and the image of the Association. These different views contributed to distrust between the committees. This distrust boiled over from time to time, and required much discussion within the Executive Com­ mittee (Board) regarding which committee should hold which role in the selection process.

28 Emery Castle (Oregon) was active in the awards program for several years in the late 1960s. Before complet­ ing his third year as "general chairman" in 1970, he surveyed the sub-committee chairmen and estimated that 1.6 professional man-years had been required for just the judging of the entries. He then wrote a lengthy report to the Directors saying, among other things," .. .I would be less than honest if I did not write into the record my belief [that] the award program is a liabiliry rather than an asset to the profession. My subjective evaluation is that the excellence it recognizes would exist in its absence. I further believe that such excellence might be directed toward objectives somewhat more meaningful than the winning of an AAEA award." E.N. Castle, "Report of the Awards Committee," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (52: 177-78) December 1970. 29 The maximum number of individuals named as Fellows of the Association in any one year changed from time to time. In the very early years, only two were selected. These maximums changed to three to four, and then to six as the Association grew and as comparisons were made between the AAEA and similar societies in other scholarly fields. CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years 127

When the distrust reached intolerable levels, the roles of the two committees were switched. This addressed the immediate problem and bought a period of relative peace, albeit at a high cost in time within the decision making committees.30 Undergraduate Students: the SS-AFEA and SS-AAEA The undergraduate clubs or sections emerged stronger than ever after the Golden An­ niversary years. By 1960, student organizations related to agricultural economics were in place in 37 colleges or universities. The national student organization had officers, published a newsletter, and participated in public speaking, debate, and essay-writing competitions at each summer meeting; in later years, this would include an "Academic Bowl" format patterned after television game shows, a format that proved quite popular among under­ graduate participants. By 1962, the number of clubs (chapters) expanded to 40. The 1962 student members forwarded two proposals to the Executive Committee: one was a proposal for naming and awarding a prize to the Association's outstanding undergraduate teacher in agricultural economics, and the other proposed that AFEA devote a program or workshop to improving the effectiveness of college teaching. The Executive Committee responded to both suggestions by asking the student members to prepare detailed proposals for consider­ ation at a later meeting. The students suggested a workshop on undergraduate teaching practices and methods as a useful way to satisfy a need among the teachers in the profession. Questions arose over whether the workshop was to provide information to help present students prepare for a career in college-level teaching, or whether the purpose was to improve the teaching skills of faculty already in the classrooms of the nation's departments of agricultural economics. In their final proposal, the students asked for a workshop "To bring together teachers of agri­ cultural economics from the United States and Canada for discussion and exchange of ideas to improve the quality of undergraduate teaching in agricultural economics."31 The students sought sponsorship from AFEA, WFEA, CAES, and the Farm Foundation. The $5,000 request included full funding for two planning meetings, a workshop for 60 participants, and publication of the proceedings. The proposal dealt with an essentially unexplored area of effort. It was well thought out, complete, and deserving of favorable consideration. The Executive Committee accepted the request with few changes. The workshop, held July 21- 24, 1963 in Bemidji, Minnesota, attracted eighty-four faculty. 32 The workshop was a smashing success, so much so that a second workshop, this time themed "A Symposium for Teachers of Agricultural Economics," was held on the Virginia Tech (then known as VPI) campus August 17-20, 1966. Funding for the symposium came from grants from AFEA and the Committee on Education in Agriculture and Natural Re­ sources (CEANAR) of the National Academy of Sciences. A number of private firms made

30 Variations of this argument continue to this day and the order of the committees' work continues to shift back and forth. 31 This and other elements of the proposal appear in "Report of the Student Activities Committee," journal of Farm Economics (44: 1793-1798) December 1962. Emphasis is added. 32 A three-page summary of the workshop appeared as Charles Beer, "AFEA Workshop on Undergraduate Instruc­ tion," Journal ofFarm Economics (45:1522-1524) December 1963. 128 CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Yea,:s donations to provide additional funding. The second teaching symposium attracted 90 par­ ticipants. Part II of the February 1967 issue of the journal of Farm Economics reports the major addresses given at the symposium.33 This same cohort of student members also asked that the Executive Committee con­ sider a "Distinguished Undergraduate Teacher Award" for annual presentation, beginning in 1965. The Executive Committee accepted a set of rules and procedures for selection and allocated $250 for the award.

Publicity The telling remarks in the Golden Anniversary record - to the effect that agricultural economists were not working to capacity - continued to reverberate within the ranks of the Association's leadership. At a 1961 meeting of the Executive Committee, C. Del Mar Kearl (Cornell) suggested that a "publicity committee" might be helpful in providing the public with information regarding the relationship between agricultural economics and the broader world of economics. President Bushrod Allin (USDA) accepted the suggestion and appointed a four-person committee chaired by Jerome Parlmutter (USDA) for the task. The charge to the committee was to investigate ways and means of shining a light within the organization on activities worthy of publicity, as well as to look at efforts to use the press and other media to help agricultural economists tell their story. The committee was up and running hard by 1963. It invited editors, magazine writ­ ers, radio commentators, and others associated with the media to attend the Association's annual meeting in Minneapolis in late August. A specially designated pressroom was staffed with representatives from several land grant universities, ready and waiting to assist the guests from the media. In addition, the Association held a dinner for the visiting reporters and writers. Materials about the Association, its newly elected officers and the Association's Fellows were available, and university media specialists were on hand to help in any possible way. The results were disappointing, however, with only a small contingent of the media at­ tending, and none picking up "publishable" news from the conference. The Publicity Com­ mittee vowed to do better the following year. Most publicity activity in 1964 and 1965 was devoted to working with the members in an effort to sustain membership, and to aid program planners in putting on a superior sum­ mer meeting. In December 1964, the Executive Committee decided it was time for another essay contest. The contest in the 1940s had been a success, and there may have been some residual interest available for capture. The new contest was to award prizes to the authors of 13 papers dealing with "Effective Competition and Changing Patterns in the Marketing of Agricultural Products." Prizes ran from a first prize of $5,000 down to five honorable mention prizes at $250 each. 34 The prize money came from the National Association of Food Chains, with the stipulation that the donor would remain anonymous until after the contest.

33 "Proceedings of a Symposium for Teachers of Agriculcural Economics," Journal of Fann Economics (49: Parr II) February 1967. Although the student sections were not so heavily involved in the planning or execution, the Associatiqn held a third teaching workshop in Gainesville, Florida in August 1972. Major addresses from it are published as Part II of the November 1973 issue of the American journal ofAgricultural Economics, 34 The prizes were: First place, $5,000; second place, $2,500; third place, $1,000; five honorable mentions at $500; and five honorable mentions at $250. CHAPTER ELEVEN • Beginning the Second Fifty Years 129

Alas, this contest did not catch the eye of the public in a way that the earlier contest had. There were 45 entries, nearly all authored by individuals recognizable as members of the Association. A panel of three judges eventually selected Allen B. Paul (USDA) as the winner for his entry, "Pricing Below Cost in the Soybean Processing Industry." His entry was one of three of the thirteen winning papers to focus on a specific commodity. The others dealt with institutional processes and marketing firms, particularly farmer cooperatives. The judges announced the winners at the summer meeting in 1966 and printed the essays in a special supplement to the August 1966 issue of the journal. By 1966, the Publicity Committee decided to make another effort to work directly with the media. All authors with work accepted for presentation at the summer meeting were asked to prepare 50 copies of a press release based on their presentation. A pressrooin was set up with telephones and media specialists from nearby universities. The stage was set to flood the media with information about what agricultural economists do and what their work means to those directly involved with agricultural and to the general public. Only five speakers complied by preparing a press release dealing with their work. The Publicity Com­ mittee repeated the entire effort the following year, but only 12 speakers responded. The effort was intense, but it seemed that the work of agricultural economists - at least the work they shared with each other at annual meetings - was of little interest to the farm-related media. The officers who took control of the Association after the change in governance in 1968 chose to disband the Publicity Committee.

After Reform Comes Revitalization The Association emerged from this period with a new form of governance, and a more streamlined way of approaching the problems it had faced in earlier years. The activities, with the exception of the Documentation Center (and the short-lived American Bibliography ofAgricultural Economics) and the effort to publicize the organization's activities in a broad­ ened arena, seemed much the same as before: a journal, two annual meetings, awards, and student activities. The time had come to expand the boundaries of activity. CHAPTER TWELVE Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests

The American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA) entered rhe 1970s wirh 3,201 regular members, of whom 2,667 resided in rhe United States. There were also 578 student members, 99 corresponding members, and 39 sustaining members, making for a total of 3,917 individual members. Subscriptions to rhe journal went to individual members and to 1,735 domestic and foreign libraries. Total members and" subscriptions reached 5,652 in 1970 - a figure lower rhan the previous rhree or four years, possibly because of recessionary economic conditions in rhe United States and orher Western economies.1 The 1969 journal (Volume 51) included, 1,718 pages but the high and increasing costs of publication forced rhe editor to cut total page numbers for 1970 (volume 52) to 879. Most of rhe reduction in page numbers came from rhe proceedings issue. In 1970, rhe Association's cash receipts reached nearly $124,000, while cash expenses stood at $98,000. There were 27 standing committees assigned to assist wirh rhe major day­ to-day activities, and six liaison appointees assigned to maintain contact wirh other groups - mainly scientific or scholarly societies - involved wirh U.S. agriculture. More rhan 200 members served on one or another of rhe Association's committees. Oddly (and perhaps un­ fortunately), most of rhe committees did not file annual reports, and many escaped mention in rhe minutes of eirher rhe Association's Executive Board meetings or its annual business meetings. Someone appointed rhe committees, but what were rheir duties ... and what did rhey accomplish? The presidents and orher officers had to be concerned, and in fact were concerned. They showed their concern by appointing a number of ad hoc or special "evalu­ ation committees" to review rhe old and rhe new activities undertaken by rhe Association. The idea was to determine if the activities, and by extension the committees rhat ran them, fit with rhe purposes of rhe organization and wirh rhe desires of rhe members. The known problem areas were familiar ones: rhe journal and orher publications, awards programs, undergraduate student activities, planning for rhe annual meeting, and expanding rhe mem­ bership to include more extension economists, industry economists, and agricultural econo­ mists who were not necessarily associated wirh universities or with branches of government. The American Journal of Agricultural Economics Leo Polopolus (Florida) took over as Editor of rhe journal in 1972. The journal had become increasingly expensive to produce, accounting for nearly two-rhirds of rhe Associa­ tion's total expenses in 1970 (and only slightly less rhan rhat in 1971). The possibilities for increasing revenue rhrough such rhings as advertising, surcharges, and newsstand sales were not good, so Polopolus presented four alternatives to rhe Executive Board: (1) levy page

1 The number of regular members, especially those in the United Stares, devdoped a cyclical pattern. Membership would decline for two or three years, then show a significant increase during the years when the Association pub­ lished a Handbook or a Directory. The first Handbook after the 1968 name change appeared in November 1972. 131 132 CHAPTER TWELVE • Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests

charges, (2) eliminate discussion papers from the proceedings issue, (3) strictly enforce limits on the length of articles, and (4) stop printing "soft materials" such as news notes, announce­ ments and the like. 2 Polopolus expanded on his suggestions. He argued that if the journal did not levy page charges, the Association would have to use some other method to reduce the huge propor­ tion of the Association's income required to produce it. He mentioned three other possibili­ ties: increase the annual dues, reduce the size and frequency of publication, or re-allocate the AAEA budget. None of these seemed desirable or even possible at the time. Like many editors before him, Polopolus outlined his disposition toward the journal and begged for added submissions from teachers, industry economists, and extension econo­ mists. Even though these groups constantly asked for more exposure in the journal, publish­ able submissions from them did not materialize. Meanwhile, the criticisms persisted. The minutes of an October 1972 meeting of the Executive Board include the report of an "ad hoc Committee on the Role of the journal and its Problems." In part, the committee wrote The committee noted that the purpose of the AAEA Journal is broadly to present research findings, professional experiences, reviews, obser­ vations and news pertinent to those in the profession. Rising printing costs, increased number and quality ofJournal submissions, and a diverse membership call for a review of the role and operational "format" (article length, content, Proceedings papers-discussions, association business re­ porting, i.e., the entire scope, content, authors, readers and users of the present Journal). [Committee chairman L.T.] Wallace moved that a com­ mittee knowledgeable about the Journal be appointed by the President to make such a review for the Executive Board of the AAEA in the next year. 3

In 1973, Stephen C. Smith (Wisconsin) agreed to chair a committee to evaluate the journal and make recommendations regarding its future. Because of the importance of the subject, the Executive Board allocated funds to help this group pay expenses associated with a June 1974 meeting (the committee itself referred to the meeting as a "seminar") in Wash­ ington, DC.4 Prior to the seminar, Smith asked each academic department of agricultural economics, the USDA, and business members to hold conversations among themselves re­ lating to the strengths and weaknesses of the journal and to submit to the Smith Commit­ tee, as it came to be known, written results stemming from the deliberations. Most of those contacted responded.

2 Earlier editors had suggested most of these changes as well. The page charge was the most drastic of the sugges­ tions. Many professional societies already used them to help pay for publication of their journals. From the begin­ ning, Polopolus (along with some others) hoped that an author's employer or other benefactor would pay the page charge, which could be either voluntary or mandatory. 3 This report appears two times in the notes and minutes of the Executive Board meetings. It first appears as part of minutes of a Gainesville meeting held on August 19, 1972. "Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting, Gaines­ ville Florida, August 19-23, 1972," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (54:998) December 1972. It appears a second time in almost identical wording in ''AAEA Reports and Minutes," American Journal ofAgricultural Eco­ nomics (56:1239) December 1974. The second entry reports the date when Wallace made the motion as October 25, 1972. There is no record of an Executive Board meeting being held on that date. 4 In general, the Association operated on the principle that committee expenses should be borne by the members of the committee. There were exceptions for special cases. This evaluation of the journal was very important to the future of the Association, so the Board of Directors was quick to agree to pay the expenses associated with a meeting of the group. CHAPTER TWELVE • Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests 133

The evaluation committee submitted a four-page report in December 1974.5 In it the committee first indicated the importance of the journal to the Association and to its mem­ bers. It then listed six criticisms focusing on the increased complexity of the articles, the narrowness of the published articles, the fact that the journal had stayed at approximately the same size while the Association had grown, and the impression that the individual issues were dominated by methods-oriented articles authored by young members at the expense of scholarly work done by mature agricultural economists. A final criticism implied that regular members desired more input in the process used to select the editor. 6 The Smith Committee offered several recommendations for the Editor and the Editori­ al Council. These centered on the appropriate use of mathematics in a social science journal, the need for authors to develop and report the policy relevance of their work, the selection of the editor, and the manuscript review process. In a final section of its report, the committee made general recommendations about the Association's publications policies. The commit­ tee favored more transparency in the process. It also asked the Editor and Editorial Council to consider adding opportunities to publish by increasing the number of journal pages avail­ able for articles, and by initiating the publication of a newsletter. The committee was not sympathetic with the notion of revising the journal to make it easier for authors to use their published work in discussions of promotion and tenure. In a final comment, the report said, "Given the priority that members attach to a quality journal, a reallocation of resources in favor of the journal or journal-related activities should be considered. "7 Determining the extent to which future editors used these recommendations is diffi­ cult. Reading subsequent issues of the Journal reveals that the use of mathematics continued, "soft" material continued to be printed, and the size (number of pages) of the journal did not change appreciably. The Board, however, did not disregard the Smith committee's re­ port entirely. At a 1974 meeting, Castle (Oregon) brought forward a motion asking for the appointment of a committee to examine the possibility of using a newsletter to take some pressure off the journal. At the same meeting, Wallace (California) moved in favor of a vol­ untary page charge of $40 per page with those who paid the charge receiving, without cost, 100 reprints of their work. The motion specified a start date of February 1975.8 The Annual Program I: Contributed papers Program planners for the summer and for the winter meetings also faced a continuing dilemma. The time allowed for the meetings was too short for everyone to describe their activities, progress, and problems. Additionally, the Association had two cadres of members

5 "Report of the AJAE Evaluation Committee," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (56: 1239-1243) De­ cember 1974, pt. 2. 6 The Editor is an appointed rather than an elected position. For many years, the President with the approval of the Executive Committee made the appointment. This same method of selection carried over to the Board of Direc­ tors. This was necessary because of the coincidence of agreements and approvals that must accompany the sel~ction. Not only does the President have to find a capable person who is willing to become editor, bur he also must be certain that the person's employer is willing to allow the person to devote huge amounts of rime to the editorship without direct compensation from the Association. A final qualification surrounds the rime a person remains as the editor. Given the nature of the job, it is best if the editor holds the position for more than one year. Even a well-run election process cannot monitor all of these requirements and qualifications. 7 "Report of the AJAE Evaluation Committee," American Agricultural Economics Association (56: 1243) December 1974. 8 At the following Business Meeting, Ruttan (Minnesota) initiated an unsuccessful attempt to eliminate the page charge and rely instead on additional funding from an increase in dues. 134 CHAPTER TWELVE • Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests asking for the attention that the annual meeting brought.9 One cadre included individuals who were always on the cutting edge of science, theory, and methods; the other included rec­ ognized members who were close to the state and federal problems and policies that affected agriculture and the resources used to produce food and fiber. The temptation was to ask in­ dividuals from these groups to fill the speaking slots as often as possible - perhaps every year. This choice, however, would deny opportunities to younger, not-yet-proven scholars, many of whom were working on critical problems. One possible way to deal with the problem was to allow the program committee to select its desired line-up of speakers for a set number of program slots, and to leave other slots open for unplanned contributions from members. Almost certainly, there had been contributed papers in earlier years, but now the Asso­ ciation sought to provide a specific place for contributed papers on the programs of the win­ ter meetings. 10 A session with five such papers was on the program in 1956. 11 The number of contributed papers grew, and moved to the summer meetings in 1957. An announcement in the February 1960 issue of the journal indicated that contributed papers were appropriate in four broad classes of work: • Consumption, marketing, and distribution • Farm management and production economics • Land economics, farm finance, and institutional economics • Teaching Agricultural Economics12

The announcement went on to specify that contributed papers could not exceed seven double-spaced typed pages, a maximum of five papers would be selected in each group, a rwo-page abstract was to be given to the session chairman (for possible publication), and the author should bring 50 copies of the paper to the meeting. The selection committee chose eighteen papers for presentation at the 1960 summer meeting. President Willard Cochrane (Minnesota) explained the addition to the program in his 1960 year-end report with a very simple statement: "In an effort to provide additional op­ portunities for new men with new ideas to participate in the Summer Meetings, the Con­ tributed Papers Sessions were made an important part of the total program."13 The contributed papers were an instant success: four sessions of five papers each were on the program in 1961. In 1962, there were 19 contributed papers, and by 1969, theses­ sion chairmen received 105 papers, of which 31 were selected for presentation. In 1969, and in each succeeding year, contributed papers were more numerous than papers invited by

9 In many respects, these two groups needed time slots on every program. The first rold of new theories, methods, and approaches ro economic problems, the second told of public-sphere actions that could have a profound effect on the work done by agricultural economists. 10 No single word or phrase captures adequately the place held on the program for these papers and their authors. They ·represent unplanned additions to the program. Authors themselves decide to submit the papers for possible, but not assured presentation. The papers move through a selection process to determine if they have content that will be accurate and interesting to the potential audience. If so, the author is offered time for presentation, subject to availabiliry of time and space on the program. There is no guarantee of publication. 11 The five papers are published in their entirery in the May 1956 issue of the Journal ofFarm Economics. The authors were well-known members of the profession, and the papers range from 4 to 17 pages in length. 12 ''Announcement for Sectional Meetings for Contributed Papers," Journal ofFarm Economics (42:222) February 1960, Pt.1. 13 Willard Cochrane, ''Annual Report of the President," Journal of Farm Economics (42:1528-1529) December 1960. CHAPTER TWELVE • Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests 135

the program committee. Contributed papers took the name "Selected Papers" in 1976. Ab­ stracts of the papers appeared in the Journal until 1999, when 40 journal pages were required to print brief abstracts of the 372 papers selected for presentation.

Posters By the late 1980s, the selected papers part of the program seemed well settled, but-more and more submis­ sions faced rejection for lack of time to present them in the regularly scheduled time slots. The Association, i following the lead of many other scientific and professional groups, decided to use posters and poster sessions to provide additional opportunity for more members to present results of their ideas and their research. The first "Poster Session," held at the 1988 summer meetings in Knoxville, used 21 invited displays to show chat posters.could _be an effective way-to communicate scientific, theoretical, or applied material. Posters were an instant su~cess. Each annual meeting since 1988 has made time and space for an increasing number of post­ ers. In 2009; 114 AAEA posters were· on display at the summer meeting in Milwaukee.

The Annual Program II: Undergraduate Student Programs and Activities The programs intended for the benefit of undergraduate students continued to be a problem through the 1970s. No one doubted that the students were pleased to be able to at­ tend the annual meeting, and even more pleased when they took trophies, prizes, and other honors back to their home departments. However, the Association had serious concerns about the student programs, the most prominent of which related to the lack of profes­ sional agricultural economic content. True, some years earlier the students themselves had argued for, found money for, and organized a workshop devoted to university-level teaching. The workshop was so successful that the Association appropriated the idea, and continued with a second teaching workshop and then a third within the next few years. This left the undergraduate students with a debate contest, an essay contest, and a public speaking con­ test - hot much more than they might have had when they were members of 4-H clubs, or involved with the high-school level Future Farmers of America. Members of the Executive Board felt that the programs arranged for the undergraduate students should have more content related to agricultural economics. Two Association-level committees, the Education Committee and the Student Affairs Committee, were charged with guiding the Association's student programs. In 1972, the Executive Board passed a resolution appointing a special committee to evaluate the Asso­ ciation's student-related activities. The following year, the special committee recommended that the Executive Board combine the Education Committee and the Student Affairs Com­ mittee into a new "Resident Instruction Committee." The new committee, appointed after the 1973 annual meeting, was charged with planning student activities for the 1974 annual meeting and developing a long-term plan for student involvement in the Association. The recommendations were quick in coming. The Resident Instruction Committee recommended discontinuing the debate, essay, and public speaking contests after the 1974 annual meeting. A second recommendation asked the President and the meeting planning committee to include a session on teaching in each future annual program. The committee also asked the editor to include a regular section in the journal to deal with matters related to teaching. Additionally, the chairmen of the selected papers sections were asked to save one slot in each of their time allotments for a paper contributed by a student member of the Association. By the mid-1970s, though, the undergraduate programs were gone. The Asso­ ciation continued to urge student attendance and involvement in its activities, but there was very little opportunity or incentive for the undergraduates to want to be involved. 136 CHAPTER TWELVE • Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests

The Annual Program III: Who and Where? The late 1940s decision to hold the annual meeting on college campuses was driven by the desire to reduce the costs associated with meetings in commercial facilities. In the early years, meetings at the University of Wyoming (1949), the Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph (1951), the University of Illinois_ (1952), Oregon State College (1953), and the Pennsylvania State College (1954) made the financial issue clear. 14 Members attending these campus-centered meetings could live in low-cost dormitories and eat at college-operated caf­ eterias for a fraction of the cost that came with staying in a downtown hotel in a major East­ ern city. The move to campuses meant that the Agricultural Economics faculty at the host college or university often spent much of the preceding year performing organizing chores best done by a convention bureau rather than an academic department. It was an obvious question related to the distribution of costs and benefits. Should the host school's faculty and staff bear all of the costs associated with staging the meetings, in order to allow the attendees an opportunity to save themselves some of the high costs of meeting in commercial facilities? The structure of the meetings provided few options for relieving the dollar and time requirements faced by the host institutions. One such option, however, arose. For several years, the local planners had prepared social/cultural/educational tours and activities for spouses and children of members to use while the meetings were in progress. The programs were costly, took time to organize, and had no real meaning related to the purposes of the Association. The Executive Board was quick to notice this and decided that, beginning with the 1974 summer meeting, the host school had no obligation to prepare a spouses and children's program beyond the provision of a hospitality room and a list of baby sitters. The spouses, many of whom looked at the annual meeting as a rela­ tively inexpensive family vacation, were quick to mount a counteroffen­ sive. They signed petitions, wrote letters, and made phone calls in an effort to get the Executive Board to reverse its decision. In the end, the decision held, but President Emery Castle (Oregon) felt the need to re­ Emery Castle Photo­ graph courtesy ofthe spond and explain the position of the Association. In his 1973 "Report AAEA. of the President," he wrote: It is with regret I report a misunderstanding, or a failure of communica­ tion, between the Executive Board and the wives of some Association members which developed during the past year. Perhaps the story can best be started at the time of the 1971 annual meeting. At that meet­ ing, one of the regional association representatives to the Executive Board asked the Executive Board to take some action to reduce the burden of hosting women's and children's activities at annual meetings. At a subse­ quent meeting of the Executive Board, action was taken to permit host institutions, after the 1973 annual meetings, to limit women's and chil­ dren's activities, if they wished to do so, to the provision of a hospitality room and a list of baby sitters.

14 The 1950 annual meeting was held at Montreat, North Carolina, a rustic conference facility owned and oper­ ated by the Presbyterian Church. CHAPTER TWELVE • Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests 137

During the 1972 annual meeting, the Executive Board discussed a site for the 1977 annual meeting. At that time no invit~tion had been received from a university to serve as a host in 1977. The Board voted to go to a commercial site in 1977 for experimental purposes.

These two independent actions apparently were interpreted by some as a move on the part of the Executive Board to discourage the attendance of women and children at annual meetings. I am in receipt of a collection of petitions signed by numerous wives of Association members protest­ ing actions which, in fact, have never been taken. Your Executive Board has encouraged me to communicate individually with each person who signed one of these petitions and explain, as carefully as possible, the po­ sition of the Board on this matter. I will also express my appreciation, as well as that of the Board, for the input to the decision process of the As­ sociation by those wives who signed petitions and wrote letters. Beyond this, permit me to say on behalf of your Executive Board that women and children are welcome at all of the [future] sites and locations.

Castle's comment (likely the most carefully crafted paragraphs ever to appear in a presi­ dent's report) continues with a list of the locations of the next four annual meetings and one more paragraph explaining the nature of the decision. 15 Three of the four subsequent meetings were on college campuses. The Executive Board selected a commercial site in San Diego, California for the 1977 sessions. In addition to being well attended, the San Diego sessions received high marks as a venue for AAEA activities. 16

Forgotten Constituents: Extension, Teaching, and Industry Within a very few years after the formation of the AFMA in 1910, a sub-group of agricultural economists became expert in communicating information developed in the laboratories and test plots at the universities. The passage of the Smith-Lever Act in 1914 provided these experts in communication an organizational opportunity in the form of the Cooperative Extension Service that quickly became an integral part of the land-grant Col­ leges of Agriculture. The Extension Service eventually had offices in most of the nation's counties and most departments in the colleges of agriculture. Many agricultural economists with graduate-level training found a home under the Smith-Lever umbrella as faculty of departments of agricultural economics and members of the Association. They became master teachers and applied researchers, but found their students among farmers; marketing, consumer, and public policy organizations; and others with interests in food and agriculture, often working far from the university or college campus. 17 Lacking op­ portunities for day-to-day contact with other agricultural economists, and needing to serve

15 Excerpted from E.N. Castle, "Report of the President," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (55: 1035- 1036) December 1973. 16 The move to commercial facilities had the not-so-obvious effect of transferring additional organizing obligations away from campus facilities and giving them to the already over-committed Executive Board. 17 In reality, it was not this easy or chis clean. Long before 1914, many states and counties had roving agricultural experts hired to help farmers find more effective ways to use their resources and find their markets. The Smith-Lever Act institutionalized the efforts and began a trajectory that eventually led to the Cooperative Extension Service, a broadly based set of institutions designed to provide hands-on assistance in many rural situations. 138 CHAPTER TWELVE• Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests a clientele clamoring for information about the practical aspects of scientific agriculture, the extension economists found it increasingly difficult to maintain an active role in an associa­ tion that they viewed as one serving a discipline rather than an occupation. A second group of agricultural economists remained "at home," to teach the classes offered by the colleges and universities. They were extremely important, but were often somewhat separated from the mainstream of research being done by their colleagues. They accepted knowledge, mastered it, and arranged it in forms suitable for re-transmission to students in a classroom setting. They quickly noted that scientific publications relating to agriculture did not carry articles dealing with the process of teaching. While their researcher colleagues could read a scientific periodical and learn a new way of performing a labora­ tory test or a new way of manipulating data, the teachers found little opportunity and little benefit in reading or writing for an audience of scientists. As a result, many found it only marginally useful to belong to the discipline's professional association. The same kinds of problems stymied the agricultural economists who worked in busi­ ness or industry. The rewards that accrued to them came from their ability to make a firm more efficient or more profitable. While some of the investigations carried out at the uni­ versities were helpful, the messages of science reported in a scientific journal often took too long to reach the decision makers in business or industrial settings. This meant that another group of trained agricultural economists was finding little reason to belong to the discipline's leading association. The AFMA, the AFEA, and the AAEA seemed to be organizations for the use and benefit of academics - mainly for those involved in research or policy formation. All members - teachers, extension workers, researchers, and business economists - were well aware of the substantial reorganization that had taken place in the late 1960s. Many of the disaffected members wanted to find a new place and a re-defined role in the reorga­ nized Association. In 1968, outgoing President C.E. Bishop (North Carolina) recognized the changes in the Association and said: In view of the changes taking place in the structure of the Association, this appeared to be a good year in which to initiate a serious examina­ tion of the relevance of agricultural economics as a profession and the relevance of this Association to its members .... John Dunbar [Purdue], has given surveillance to extension programs in agricultural economics and offered suggestions concerning ways in which the Association can render greater service to the members of the profession engaged primarily in extension work.

The Industry Committee, under the leadership of Dale Butz [Illinois Farm Bureau] and Ronald Aines [International Harvester], undertook a detailed study of the needs of industry and ways in which this Associaxion could contribute more effectively to meeting these needs. The committee made suggestions for improved coordination between industry and insti­ tutions providing higher education in agricultural economics. 18

18 "Report of the President," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (50: 1767) December 1968. CHAPTER TWELVE • Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests 139

Extension Economists. The Dunbar committee, and the "Extension Affairs Committees" that followed, made a series of complaints regarding the inability of the Association to pro­ vide information or activities of use to them. 19 In 1966, the extension economist members lobbied successfully for an award: "The Extension Program Award," to go to an outstanding extension worker. This became two awards in 1967, and in 1971, the Association added a third award for extension work: the "Outstanding Extension Publication Award." However, extension workers themselves seemed to feel that the two main products of the Association, the journal and the annual meeting, had little to offer. In something of a "chicken and egg" dilemma, there appeared to be little heed paid to the suggestions of the various editors indi­ cating that the journal could not serve extension economists unless they themselves took the initiative and submitted quality manuscripts for possible publication. Dunbar worked diligently to establish the awards programs, and eventually saw his ef­ forts gratified. He also asked for a standing committee, "The Extension Affairs Committee," to represent the needs of extension workers as they interacted with the Association. By 1973, the resulting committee asked for and gained a program slot for a special seminar at the sum­ mer meeting. The seminar, "Responding to an Expanding Clientele," included Canadian agricultural economists handling the major speaking roles and their U.S. counterparts filling in as discussants. 20 By the mid-1970s, Charles Beer (USDA) chaired the committee and asked extension economists to develop a systematic discussion of what they hoped the Association would do for them. This issue dovetailed with the Presidential Report given by James Bonnen (Michi­ gan) at the end of his term in office. Bonnen asked all members to look at the Association, and to take note of the fact that nearly all of its products were public goods. He wanted to know what selective goods the Association could make available to the members, especially selective goods for use by extension and industry members. Robert Christensen (Massachusetts) replied for the Extension Affairs Committee, sug­ gesting the need to supplement the journal with applied work and to hold seminars and workshops at the annual meetings. The journal editor, V. James Rhodes (Missouri) suggested that the Extension Affairs Committee use a survey instrument to determine the needs and desires of the extension members. He further suggested that the committee analyze the sur­ vey results, and use the analysis as a basis for a journal article. Christensen complied, sum­ marizing results of the questionnaire and submitting a manuscript to Rhodes. The manu­ script, however, was not published. Problems mentioned by extension members seemed to focus on the journal and other publications. By this time, the Association was taking steps to inquire into the usefulness of and possible improvements in its line-up of publications. In 1978, Verner Hurt (Missis­ sippi), chairman of a recently appointed ''Alternative Publications Committee," suggested on behalf of the committee the publication of a newsletter to carry some of the "softer materials" that were carried in the Journal He also suggested that the Association divide the journal into two publications: one for theoretical and method-related material, and a second

19 From the beginning, the Association had committees charged with dealing with extension. The committee reports began in 1919 when an anonymously authored "News Notes" section appeared in Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Journal ofFarm Economics. The next volume, and several more from the early years carried regular reports from the "Extension Committee." Some of these report self-administered questionnaires inquiring about the performance of the worker/agent. 20 H.H. Austman, ''.Agricultural Economists Responding to an Expanding Clientele," American journal ofAgricul­ tural Economics (55:989-992) December 1973. 140 CHAPTER TWELVE• Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests for problem-based applied material. Hurt felt that such a move would answer some of the problems faced by extension economists who were finding it difficult to rationalize their continued participation in the Association's activities. Industry Economists. The situation was similar for Butz and Aines. Industry economists had already indicated that there was little that the Association could do for them. They drifted away keeping only a banquet at the annual meeting and the occasionally revived hope that some kind of exchange program could develop between academic agricultural economists and industry economists.21

Industry Economists College graduates trained as agricultural economists have always found employment in the private sector. Since the Association (by any of its names) seemed to favor academic and government workers, it should not be surprising that few private sector economists maintained long-term relationships and long-term member­ ships in the organization. Membership lists from the very early years show names of individuals who might have been in private sector positions, but their employment status is difficult to document. By the mid-l 970s, observers suggested chat about ten percent of the membership came from private sector employment. Even chis figure seems high. Regardless of the extent of contemporary private-sector membership, in the mid-1950s the organization began openly to court private-sector firms (agribusiness firms) to become "Sustaining Members." A firm deciding to become a Sustaining Member would be assessed $ 100 each year and would send one voting member to the annual meeting. The revenue from these memberships went to the fund that supported the Association's awards programs. In 1972, an "ad hoc Committee on Sustaining Member Classifications" recommended that the Sustaining Members category be renamed "Institutional Members." Most ocher aspects of their membership remained the same. The "Industry Committee" represented the Institutional Members and these members became "Industry Economists" in the Association's lexicon. Their numbers vary widely from year to year.

In 1967, Dale Butz (Illinois Farm Bureau) reported for the Industry Committee. His major point was that a banquet was the only part of the meeting left for industry members. They wanted additional representation on the Association's committees, and they wanted a journal that had more meaning and usefulness to economists employed in the private sector. In addition, Butz recommended a survey of industry economists to ascertain their individual opinions of the Association and its products. Butz felt that the survey would mean more if the Executive Committee or some members of the Association's central leadership sponsored and administered it. The Executive Committee demurred, however, so the Industry Com­ mittee took over full responsibility for its own self-study and questionnaire. The survey, carried out in 1967, appeared as part of the Association's official business in the December 1967 issue of the Journal ofFarm Economics. 22 The report used 16 tables and several pages of narrative to suggest that private-sector economists would like to be a part of the AFEA, but membership as constituted was of little real use to them. They wanted more

21 The industry economists were well placed to find satisfaction in ocher professional societies, such as the Ameri­ can Bankers Association or the American Forestry Association. While extension economists had several extension­ oriented associations to attract them, they did not have one devoted to farm management or agricultural econom­ ics. 22 "Summary of the Survey oflndustry Members of AAEA," Journal ofFarm Economics (49: 1608-1614) December 1967. CHAPTER TWELVE • Struggling to Serve a Diversity ofInterests 141 practical material, additional responsibility in event planning, and the opportunity to de­ velop exchanges that allowed them to spend time on campuses while faculty members spent time in industrial or commercial situations. 23 Discussions of the role of industry economists carried over to the newer Executive Board, but as in the case of extension economists, the desires of industry economists went unsatis­ fied. Some remained as members, but no industry economist ever became president of the AFEA or the AAEA, and very few have been elected to the Executive Board.24 The Teachers. Perhaps because so many agricultural economists in the colleges and uni­ versities held appointments that made them both teachers and researchers, no serious com­ plaints arose over modifying the Association to serve the needs of the teachers of agricul­ tural economics. In the early 1960s, student members paved a way for the teachers to gain additional benefit from membership by spelling out the need for a workshop on teaching methods. Since that time, some classroom-related activity, session, or workshop has been on the program of most of the annual meetings. At times, the teachers have asked for dedicated space in the journal, but no editor or editorial board has honored the request. Despite the numerous efforts to help these neglected groups ascertain and articulate their interests in the Association, nothing seemed to move the Association in the directions needed or desired by either industry or extension economists. The "sections" - which came much later - helped satisfy some of the needs felt by extension economists, but as the first century of the organization's life came to an end, the possibility of developing a broad and meaningful program for industry economists seemed as unattainable as it had thirty or forty years earlier.

23 The idea of an exchange program whereby an industry economist and an academic economist would switch jobs for a given period comes up again and again in the minutes of meetings and in the formal addresses given by economists with interests in the private secror. Although some exchanges did take place, there is no indication that a continuing program ever developed. 24 There are four close exceptions to this rule. Presidents H.C. Taylor (1920), Joseph Ackerman (1935), R. James Hildreth (1978), and Walter Armbruster (1999) were each serving as the Direcror of the Farm Foundation when they became president. The Farm Foundation is a small foundation located in Chicago that funds many activities and meetings that involve members of AAEA. It is not "industrial" in the sense that Deere and Company is indus­ trial, but neither is it a college, university, or government agency. CHAPTER THIRTEEN Reaching/or Maturity

The relatively high and stable membership through the 1970s and 1980s provided the op­ portunity for the Association to offer services and activities that had previously been out of reach: additional publications, special recognition for women and ethnic minorities within the discipline and the Association's membership, a business office staffed with trained spe­ cialists, and a fund-raising arm, among others. 1

Additional Publications From their beginnings, the American Farm Management Association (AFMA), the American Farm Economics Association (AFEA), and the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA) each published one or more periodicals. Now, with more than 4,000 members, the existing journals seemed inadequate for publication of the expanded numbers of articles, notes, communications, and other materials produced or desired by members. Attention accordingly turned to expanding the list of publications. A newsletter, a general audience magazine, and an "applied journal" were high on the list. The newsletter. During the 1960s, the Association began serious consideration of a pub­ lication that could carry information at low cost. At the time, the journal ofFarm Economics (JFE) and later the American journal ofAgricultural Economics (AjAE) carried almost all the information that passed among the governing board, the committees, the business offices, and the members. News Notes, announcements, records of awards and advanced degrees, preliminary programs for annual meetings, obituaries, committee reports, and paid adver­ tisements filled journal pages that serious agricultural economists thought should be used for articles about research, teaching, policy, outreach, and other matters pertaining to the strictly technical and professional aspects of agricultural economics. A newsletter offered a possible way to communicate "soft" material. 2 The 1973 Smith Committee, charged with evaluating the American journal ofAgricultural Economics, called attention to this possibil­ ity when it reported to the Executive Board in August 1974. In part, the committee report recommended: Eliminate from the printed AJAE, all minutes of meetings, news notes, announcements, and other "soft" material of this type. Use these pages for articles. [In 1973] about 70 pages were devoted to "soft" material. We are cognizant that members value this information and they want the Association to continue to provide it. However, this information should

1 Women and African Americans were welcome to join the Association from its beginning. Few did, so the or­ ganization came close to becoming an all-white men's club. After World War II, more women and more African Americans obtained college degrees and sought employment in agricultural economics. The Association responded by making it explicit that membership was open to all. 2 Prior to this time, the President wrote occasional newsletters to the members. The presidential newsletters in­ cluded information useful to its readers, but did not include significant amounts of information about members. No one argued that people and personal information should not be communicated among the members. The argu­ ment centered on whether or not expensive pages in a technical journal should be used for this purpose. 143 144 CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reaching/or Maturity

be sent to the members as a low production cost newsletter. Someone in the office of the secretary-treasurer might well be assigned this task with a mailing every two or three months.3

After some discussion, the Executive Board voted to move forward with a newsletter.4

Even with plans for the newsletter underway, broader issues surrounding publications remained to be resolved. In 1975, President James Bonnen (Michi­ gan) appointed an ''Alternative Publication Commit­ tee" chaired by Verner Hurt (Mississippi) to continue the work of Smith's "Journal Evaluation Committee." The new committee reported to the Executive Board in 1978. The report recommended: • Publish a quarterly newsletter for members.5 • Do not divide the journal into two magazines, one for theoretical and methodological materi­ als; the other for applied materials. • Ask the editor of the journal to commission special review articles. • Print abstracts of contributed papers and symposia, and collect full text versions of the papers for use by the Documentation Center.6 • Appoint a special committee to investigate the possibility of publishing a popular- audience or "outreach" magazine. • Continue to look at the possibility of publishing AAEA materials on microforms.7 • Appoint special committees to ascertain the costs of alternative types of publications.

The newsletter came first. In his August 1978 "Report to the Members," outgoing President R. James Hildreth (Farm Foundation) announced that the first issue of "The AAEA Newsletter" would be ready for distribution in January 1979.8 The Executive Board suggested - and Editor James Rhodes (Missouri) agreed - that publishing the Newsletter was a task appropriate for the journal editor's office. Items submitted for inclusion went to the editor's office, copy was developed, and the document was printed and mailed. Since that time, the Newsletter has been relatively trouble free. Compiling and editing each issue

3 "Report of the AJAE Evaluation Committee," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (56: 1239-1243) De­ cember 1974. 4 "Meeting of rhe Executive Board," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (56: 1246) December 1974. 5 The explicit recommendation to publish for members was essential. The Committee did not feel rhat rhe material presented in newsletter form would have great use or meaning to general readers or in major libraries. The recom­ mendation was "cost cutting" in nature. 6 In a partial follow-up to the library-custodian proposal, the Executive Board took steps to join with rhe National Agricultural Library to establish a "Documentation Center" to collect, manage, and make available abstracts and full-text copies of work done by agricultural economists. See C.E. Bishop, "Report of the President," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (50: 1767-69) December 1968. 7 The Professional Activities Committee had already inquired into the possibility of using either microfilm or microfiche (or both) as a publication medium. At least one major firm contacted the AAEA asking for the rights to publish and sell the Journal and other Association publications in some micro-form. The issue had not been settled when the Hurt Committee did its work. 8 R.J. Hildrerh, "Report of the President," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (60: 107 4-1075) December 1978. CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reachingfor Maturity 145 passed from editor to _editor for several years; later, the Newsletter had its own editor before it found a home in the Association's Business Office. The name of the Newsletter changed to The Exchange in January 1999, although the format and content remained essentially the same. Although a member can receive a hard copy of The AA.EA Exchange, it is distributed primarily on line at http://www.aaea.org/publications/exchange/. A Popular Audience Magazine. For years, segments of the membership complained that the Journal had become narrow in its focus, too technical, and impossible for non-members and non-economists to read and understand. They suggested that the Association needed a "popular magazine" - one that could help serve the outreach mission for the Association, and could help a non-economist reader learn and understand what agricultural economists do. The Hurt Committee did not have time to explore completely the possibilities for such a publication, so it asked only that the President appoint a committee to study the feasibility of publishing a popular magazine. 9 A small number of professional associations, notably the American Economic Association with its Journal ofEconomic Perspectives, New York Univer­ sity's Challenge Magazine, 10 and the National Association of Business Economists journal, Business Economics, were already in place and easily accessible to wide audiences of non-econ­ omists. There was no reason why the AAEA could not publish a similar magazine or journal. Although the Hurt Committee mentioned a popularized outreach publication in 1978, the Executive Board, with an eye on the budget, tabled discussion of the endeavor. Interest in a popular magazine seemed to wane until President Edward Schuh (Minnesota) used a part of his 1982 "Report of the President" to note: [This year] we appointed a committee to examine the possibility of an added publication to be sponsored by the association. The issue is wheth­ er there is some vehicle by which we can bridge the communications gap to make the results of our research available to a broader audience in a more expeditious manner." 11

The following year, President Leo Polopolus (Florida) asked Her­ bert Stoevener (Virginia) to chair an "Ad Hoc Additional Publications Committee." 12 Stoevener met with the Executive Board in late December 1982 to indicate that the ad hoc committee was considering five options as possible ways for the Association to expand its outreach. These were: 1. An applied economics supplement to the journal. 2. An expanded]ournal. Herbert Sroevener 3. A "Challenge-type" publication. Photograph co11rtesy of 4. An expanded proceedings issue of the present journal. Virginia Tech.

9 The Committee also reported chat the American Journal ofAgricultural Economics was too complex for the many students who had earned a BS or even an MS (or MA) in agricultural economics. By providing a magazine chat these graduates could read and understand, the Association would open the possibility of gaining members from these groups. 10 The M.E. Sharpe, Inc. owns Challenge Magazine bur it is published out of the New York University's Institute of Economic Affairs. 11 G. Edward Schuh, "Report of the President," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (64: 1096) December 1982. 12 Leo Polopolus, "Report of the President," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (65: 1203-1204) December 1983. 146 CHAPTER THIRTEEN• Reaching/or Maturity

5. Publication of the papers and proceedings of the many symposia sponsored or partially sponsored by the Association. 13

Six months later, the Stoevener Committee submitted a report reiterating its recommenda­ tion that the Association proceed with a "magazine-type" publication and suggesting that the Association explore the possibility of arranging additional symposia. 14 In each case, the purpose would be to "communicate with educators, policy makers, opinion formulators, and thoughtful members of the general public rather than merely to provide a place for agricultural economists to publish." 15 The Board accepted the report and voted to allocate $20,000 in start-up funds for a new publication. By the summer of 1984, Neil Harl (Iowa) was President, Neil Schaller (Farm Foundation) was chair­ man of the "Steering Committee for New Publica­ tions," and Lyle Schertz (USDA) had been asked to be editor of the as yet unnamed magazine. The goal was to have the magazine available for distribution by mid- 1985. Schertz came to the Executive Board meeting with three possible names for the planned publication: Neil Harl Photograph Lyle Schertz Photograph • Decisions courtesy of Neil Harl. courtesy ofAAEA. • Choices • Forums

Each potential title would carry the subtitle "The Magazine of Food, Farms, and Re­ source Use." After discussion, the Executive Board selected Choices as the magazine's title. The plan eventually adopted called for a 48-page, slick-paper quarterly magazine, with some pages printed in full color.

President Polopolus Speaks Out Leo Polopolus was very much in favor of the Association publishing a magazine that non-economists could read and understand. In the March 1983 issue of the AAEA Newsletter, he used a part of the President's column to say: "Both the AJAE and the Newsletter are essential publications worthy of continued Association support. Missing from the AAEA publications strategy is a publication which provides a non-technical, yet highly professional dialogue of major economic issues affecting agricultural economists in teaching, extension, research, government, business, industry, foundations, and international agencies. Such a "Challenge" -type Leo Polopolus Photo- b I d graph courtesy ofAAEA. pu lication cou d be oriented to the nee s of members for information about emerg- ing national and/or international issues. It would also underscore the importance of excellence in literary skills among professionals. Above all, a new publication of the Association would fill the present void sensed by many members and nonmembers who feel alienated by the apparent technical and mathematical emphasis of the AJAE." Polopolus added force to this statement in the May 1983 issue of the Newsletter by saying: "Most citizens of the United States ... have no knowledge of the field of agricultural economics. While they may have a general understanding of anthropology or chemistry, the average person on the street would have difficulty in identifying the problems and issues that agricultural economists deal with daily."

13 "Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (65: 1220-1221) Decem­ ber 1983. 14 The magazine proposal and the symposia proposal were separate issues. Both were part of a major initiative to make the work of the profession more visible and understandable to the non-economist public. 15 "Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (65:1226) December 1983. CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reachingfor Maturity 147

The entire magazine project, however, was in jeopardy because of the lack of fund­ ing. The original $20,000 helped set up an office, but potential publishers were asking for $100,000 guarantees for the technical work, printing, and distribution. An unofficial esti­ mate suggested that four years of publication would require $1,386,000, with the first year alone requiring $343,000. After much discussion (and not a little hand-wringing), the Executive Board agreed to the Association providing $60,000. This was in addition to $43,000 that Schertz and an ad hoc committee had been able to solicit from General Mills ($1,000), the Farm Foundation ($5,000), the Foreign Agriculture Service ($15,000), the Agricultural Marketing Service ($12,000), and the Federal Extension Service ($10,000).16 Seed money, at least, now being securely in hand, President William Tomek (Cornell) announced the launch of the magazine in his 1986 Presidential Report, and by 1987, over ten thousand copies of the first issue were distributed. 17 However, the direct costs assumed by the Association jumped from slightly more than $20,000 in 1986 to over $120,000 in 1987. Popularizing agricultural economics was proving to be an expensive proposition. In fact, Schertz's intent was to print from 20,000 to 40,000 copies of the first few issues. His plan was to send early copies at no cost to anyone who showed an interest, or even a potential interest, in agricultural economics. If the magazine did what the planners hoped, these free copies would generate subscriptions that in turn would provide revenue to help offset the subsidy granted by the Association. The anticipated avalanche of subscriptions failed to materialize, so the Executive Board had a continuing worry over financing for this outreach magazine that almost everyone thought was high quality. 18 An Applied journal for the Members. The newsletter and magazine were not the only additions to the Association's line-up of publications. For several years, members had argued that the AJAE's drift toward theory, concept, and method had made it oflittle use to anyone other than a trained economist. Asso­ ciation members and other interested parties asked for a second technical journal to publish, in accessible form, the results of practical, problem­ oriented research. 19 Few members argued against a new journal but, as had been the case with Choices, the expense of producing such a journal slowed serious discussions of the un­ dertaking. Early issues of Choices Magazine Photograph courtesy ofAAEA.

16 The ad hoc committee included Schertz, Chet Baker (Illinois), Joe Havlicek (Minnesota), Les Myers (USDA), and William Tomek (Cornell). 17 "Report of the President," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (68: 1402) December 1986. 18 Schertz used a variety of methods to popularize the magazine. He sent bundles of the magazine to each Land Grant College Dean or Director of Extension, requesting that they put copies in every Cooperative Extension office in their state. The magazine received high praise, but budget problems at the state levd prevented most Extension Administrators from allocating funds to purchase subscriptions. Similar tactics generated unfortunately similar results among other potential clienteles. 19 This was not a new argument. In the Association's very early years, the notion of doing applied work _as opposed to doing theoretical and technical work was one of the issues that separated the members of the American Farm Management Association from the members of the American Association ofAgricultural Economists in 1918 and 1919. 148 CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reaching for Maturity

The financial problem and some of the start-up problems for an applied journal Review of Reviewc!!' eased when the Deans of Agriculture in the Agricultural Economics Agricultural North Central States colleges and universities Economics agreed to shift responsibility for the existing North Central journal ofAgricultural Econom­ ics to the American Agricultural Economics Association. 20 The transition occurred in 1997. Volume 19 (1997) of the old North Central journal was re-named The Review of Agricultural Economics and became the "applied journal" that the AAEA had been seeking. By the end of the 1990s, the Association was publishing the American journal ofAgri­ cultural Economics as its premier scientific publication, the Review ofAgricultural Economics as an applied technical journal, Choices Magazine for the interested "lay'' reader, and the AAEA Newsletter to keep members aware of happenings within the organization and among its members. Although online delivery has changed the way members gain access to the publications, and members have some limited choices regarding which of the publications they wish to receive, these four publications are still today the four regularly scheduled information-based products of the Association.

The Business Office For almost all of the first seventy-five years of its existence, the American Agricultural Economics Association and its predecessor organizations felt quite free to use volunteer of­ ficers to conduct the Association's business. Since the organization collected dues and paid bills, it needed a treasurer, and since it held an annual meeting, it needed a secretary to take notes and distribute information. In the Association's early years, perhaps up until World War II, the organization's activities were sufficiently limited in scope that the secretary's and the treasurer's jobs were combined into one, and even then the office-holder had very little to do other than some banking activities and mailing chores. No one - secretary-treasurer or his employer - gave much thought to the subsidy that went from employer to the As­ sociation's Secretary-Treasurer. This was surely the case when F.W. Peck (USDA) became Secretary-Treasurer in 1910, or when J.I. Falconer (Ohio) followed him (1921-1926), or Cornell's W.I. Myers (1927-1932), or Wisconsin's Asher Hobson (1933-1947), or when several men took the job for one- or two-year stints during the 1950s.21 John Redman, an agricultural economist in the Department of Agricultural Econom­ ics at the University of Kentucky, became Secretary-Treasurer on January l, 1970. Soon after that, it became clear that the Secretary-Treasurer's job had become a full-time job. In March of 1977, this along with other problems related to the management of the Associa-

20 The North Central journal ofAgricultural Economics began publication in 1961 as Illinois Agricultural Econom­ ics. In 1978, it merged with similar magazines (bulletins) published by departments of agricultural economics in the North Central states. The department heads of 13 North Central departments continued to sponsor it until 1997 when they transferred it to the American Agricultural Economics Association. A note in the journal's indicia indicates that it is "sponsored by AAEA in partnership with the Southern Agricultural Economics Association, the Western Agricultural Economics Association, and the North Ease Agricultural and Resource Economics Associa­ tion." 21 This is somewhat overstated. Almost from the beginning, the Association made payments to the university homes of its major officers, including the Secretary-Treasurer. The payments were to compensate the University for space, clerical help, and ocher costs associated with the job. CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reaching for Maturity 149 tion caused AAEA President Kenneth Farrell (USDA) to ask Burt Sundquist (Minnesota) to head a blue ribbon "Committee on Management, Structure, Methods, and Procedures." The committee's task was to find ways to reorganize the duties of the Association's officers, and to identify ways to re-structure and streamline the organization's management prac­ tices. 22 The committee's work acquired a more urgent cast when President Richard King (North Carolina) received a letter dated December 7, 1979, from Robert Rudd, Chairman of the Agricultural Economics Department at the University of Kentucky, proposing that the AAEA reimburse the university for the time and services rendered by Secretary-Treasurer John Redman. The University of Kentucky asked the AAEA to absorb a significant part of Redman's salary starting on January 1, 1981, and continuing payments until Redman's an­ ticipated retirement five years later. The Association balked, and on January 2, 1980 President King replied to Rudd, indi­ cating that the Association could not meet the University of Kentucky's request. The AAEA then moved forward by putting its entire business office activity out for bid. The effort attracted four serious bids. The University of Kentucky offered to continue as host to the office for a payment of $55,000 per year. The American Economic Association submitted a bare-bones bid to handle mailing and maintaining membership lists, but not to become involved in management activities. The AEA's price was $7,000 for setting up the system and $30,000 per year thereafter. A proposal from Iowa State University called for $43,100 annually, to pay for a part time secretary, a clerk, a part time office manager, and an assistant office manager through December 31, 1983. Mel Janssen (USDA) who planned to retire from government work within a few months submitted the fourth proposal. He would take on the AAEA task for $16,000 per year, plus $30,000 per year for two half-time secretaries, along with payment of operating costs. Janssen also expected reasonable assurance of a six­ year commitment from the AAEA and from USDA regarding the location of the Associa­ tion's office. The Executive Board decided to concentrate on the USDA and the Iowa State proposals. The Sundquist committee continued its work. A report to the Executive Board in the summer of 1979 ended with several recommendations. 23 The first suggested developing specific written responsibilities (job descriptions) for each member of the Executive Board. Another called for a task force to put the database of the Association in order. The final recommendation asked for "appointment of a task force to plan the establishment of a pro­ fessionally staffed executive office to be operational no later than 1983, and to be located in either Washington, DC, or Chicago."24 This last recommendation came as no surprise to the Executive Board; rumors and suggestions for establishing a professional executive office for the Association had circu­ lated for several years. Even so, the Board chose to move cautiously. John Stovall (USDA)

22 In addition to Sundquist, the committee included Wallace Barr (Ohio), Richard Crowder (Pillsbury, Inc.), Lou Eisgruber (Oregon), Neil Harl (Iowa), Leo Polopolus (Florida), and John Stovall (USDA). All except Crowder were academic scholars who had been active in the affairs of the Association. Crowder was a highly trained agricultural economist who had been very active in the Association while holding a high administrative position in the private sector. 23 A subcommittee headed by Eisgruber wrote this lengthy report. The correct citation would be Ludwig Eisgruber. ''AAEA Survey on Management, Structure, Method, and Procedures" December 1978. Copies of this report could not be located. 24 "Report of the President," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (61:1149) December 1979. 150 CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reaching/or Maturity was appointed chairman of yet another ad hoc committee, this one charged with gathering information and making further recommendations about the switch to professional man­ agement.

A Time Line This was a very important and very confusing time in the life of the Association. Three forces - the need for restructuring and added efficiency, the desire to have an office and a salaried director, and the confusion relating to the circumstances at the University of Kentucky and at Iowa State University- combined to render impossible a simple sequence of events leading to a clear solution, or at least a rationalization, of the prob­ lems. The various committees and task forces worked simultaneously and on parallel tracks, with one moving ahead only to be surpassed by progress of another. Since real-life activity moved forward in this fashion, any description of it includes overlaps, time warps, and duplications. It is important to maintain sight of two goals: gening the administrative offices away from a campus sening, and relieving the Association of reliance on labor borrowed from another institution or agency. The Association finally reached these goals during the period from 1979 to 1983.

The Stovall Report. Prior to submitting one of several reports to the Board, Stovall, Olan Forker (Cornell), and Marshall Martin (Purdue) visited the Washington, DC offices of the American Society for Horticultural Science and the American Society of Plant Pathologists. Both societies had histories similar to that of the AAEA: volunteer office holders, located at institutions or agencies that provided office space and some staff assistance. Both had eventually developed their own business offices, and had expanded their activities signifi­ cantly beyond the publication of journals (magazines) and holding annual meetings. They were not necessarily models for the agricultural economists, but they were examples of how a larger and more sophisticated organization might work. The Stovall sub-committee also made contact with the American Dairy Science Association (ADSA), an agriculture-related association of about the same size and age as the AAEA. The ADSA was of particular interest because its professional business office staff was already offering to contract out business and management services to other scientific societies. Stovall submitted a preliminary report late in July 1979. At that stage, Stovall was pre­ pared to offer comparisons of four possible models for an AAEA business office: 1. Develop an office in either Washington, DC or Chicago, at a cost of approximately $78,000 more per year than the existing arrangement with the University of Ken­ tucky. 2. Contract with another association (such as the American Dairy Science Associa- tion) for comparable services costing berween $4.50 and $5 per member per year. 3. Contract with a commercial management firm (no cost figures available). 4. Continue with the business functions at a university setting.

The Stovall committee advised against establishing an office in either Washington, DC or Chicago. Attention turned to negotiating with the ADSA to purchase management and business services. 25 The Executive Board asked Hopkin (Texas), Harl (Iowa), and Stovall to negotiate a contract with the dairy association, but cautioned against the possible loss of control if an outside party such as the ADSA or a commercial management firm took over

25 The membership was made aware of the negotiations by a brief paragraph in the President's column in the May - 1980 issue of the AAEA Newsletter (Volume 3, No. 2) CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reaching/or Matu1ity 151

the Association's business and management functions. The negotiations seemed to begin well, but by late spring, 1980, the ADSA decided to withdraw its offer to take on the busi­ ness affairs of the MEA. In the end, the Executive Board accepted the Iowa State University proposal. Sydney James, a member of the agricultural economics faculty at ISU, and Wes Ebert, a staff mem­ ber in the same department, accepted part-time positions as Secretary-Treasurer Qames) and Director of the Business Office (Ebert) beginning January 1, 1980. Each would serve for three years, subject to annual performance reviews. Compensation for the two plus secre­ tarial and clerical help was estimated at slightly more than $43,000 per year. James and Ebert brought considerable discipline to the business office during its years on the Iowa State University campus. Office workers (secretaries and clerical staff) were officially members of the ISU staff, and received wages or salaries from that institution. The Association negotiated payments to compensate the University for their services. The arrangement was strained when - as its termination date drew near - James accepted em­ ployment at Brigham Young University, and gave notice that he could not continue in his position with the MEA. Leo Polopolus (Florida), Lester Manderschied (Michigan), Ed Schuh (Purdue), and Anne Peck (Stanford) served as a committee to find replacements for the vacant business office positions. By some small coincidence, Ray Beneke, longtime head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Iowa State, was retiring from that position in July of 1984. He agreed to take over as MEA Secretary-Treasurer at the time of his retirement. James then offered to continue as Secretary-Treasurer until after the summer meetings at Cornell in 1984, one year later than his originally planned date of departure. This fortuitous arrange­ ment worked well. Beneke inherited a well-run and efficient office that was responsible for administrative activities, financial activities, and oversight of the Association's publications, including publication of the Newsletter.26

A Building of Its Own Several side issues accompanied the decision to move the Association's Business Office away from the De­ partment ofAgricultural Economics at Iowa State University. As early as 1979, long before serious discussions of moving had begun, the Sundquist "Committee on Management, Structure, Methods, and Procedures" suggested using a Task Force to ·"Plan the establishment of an Execurive Office for the Association to be op- 1 erational by no later than 1983 and to be located in either Washington, DC or Chicago." Stovall had echoed this sentiment in his late 1979 report. His committee also wanted the business office in one of the two afore­ mentioned cities. The Stovall Committee was more explicit: it wanted the office up and running by 1983. The off-campus idea lay fallow until 1994, when Executive Secretary, Rueben Buse (Wisconsin) rented commercial office space in downtown Ames, Iowa. In late 1996, afrer the actual move,. President Vernon Eidman asked Armbruster (Farm Foundation), Christy (Cornell), and Findeis (Penn State) to join him as a "building committee" to investigate the possibility of the Association building its own facilities. No location was specified as the committee began work. The Executive Board and the AAEA Foundation Board worked together in an effort to raise $500,000 for the project. The Building Committee asked a number of possible donors before settling on people who had been close to T.W. Schultz as targets for their efforts. This group was generally sympathetic toward the project, but unable to generate pledges large enough to continue with the building plan. Comments about the building project appeared in minutes of several Board meetings held in 1996 and 1997. The last mention came from President Larry Libby (Florida) writing in a "Special Committee Issue" of the 1996 volume of the AAEA Newsletter. He commented only that the building project "is being discussed." ,

26 Ken Stone, a faculty member at Iowa State, agreed to serve as editor of the Newsletter during its first years at Ames. 152 CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reaching/or Maturity

Even though the office on the campus at Iowa State seemed to operate effectively, the Association continued to discuss an off-campus site. At the time, Iowa State University was asking several academic and professional societies to move their offices off campus, and the AAEA wanted to prove to its members and others that it had an identity independent of a university. The move would not come until early 1994, soon after Reuben Buse (Wisconsin) took over the job of Secretary-Treasurer. In January 1994, Buse, now with the tide of Execu­ tive Secretary, signed a lease for commercial office space in Ames, Iowa. With an office of its own, a reasonable expectation for a secure future, and an ever-more-active membership, the American Agricultural Economics Association had only one more step to take: Hire a full time professional Executive Director. However, that step would have to wait.

Diversity The 1970s were years of domestic turmoil in the United States. An unpopular war, violence in urban areas, the resignation of President Nixon, and holdovers from political as­ sassinations had sensitized groups and organizations regarding the importance of the "liberty and justice for all" aspects of the Pledge of Allegiance and the nation's other founding docu­ ments. This impulse often found expression in organizations and institutions in the form of statements regarding equal opportunity for all members or potential members. In 1980, Secretary-Treasurer John Redman (Kentucky) pointed out that the American Agricultural Economics Association did not have a positive non-discrimination statement anywhere in its governing documents, or anywhere in the materials that it sent to the public domain. In response, the Executive Board asked Neil Harl (Iowa) to write a resolution to indicate the open and transparent nature of the Association. The Board accepted Harl's resolution as a part of the Association's guiding rules. 27

Resolution Whereas, the American Agricultural Economics Association, since the formation of its predecessor organization on or about 1910, has been a professional organization open and equally accessible to all persons with­ out regard to age, race, color, sex, creed, ethnicity, or country of national origin, and,

Whereas, the American Agricultural Economics Association has had a strong commitment to extend membership, committee appointments, honors, awards, elective and appointed offices, and all rights of any type or kind whatsoever to persons affiliated in any manner with the American Agricultural Economics Association without regard to age, race, color, sex, creed, ethnicity, or country of national origin, and,

Whereas, the Executive Board of the American Agricultural Economics Association, acting for the Association, deems it to be advisable, desir­ able, and in the best tradition of the American Agricultural Econom­ ics Association to express formally and unequivocally its commitment to openness to all persons affiliated in any manner with said Association, and, therefore

27 "Minutes of the Executive Board," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (62: 1141) December 1980. CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reachingfor Maturity 153

Be it resolved that the American Agricultural Economics Association, act­ ing through its duly elected Executive Board, does hereby affirm a policy of nondiscrimination to all persons affiliated with the American Agricul­ tural Economics Association on the basis of age, race, color, sex, creed, ethniciry, and country of national origin. Dated at Urbana, Illinois, this 27th day ofJuly, 1980.

The timing of the resolution was ideal. Luther Tweeten (Oklahoma) was president of the Association at the time. Tweeten appointed two ad hoc committees charged with ascer­ taining the situations that confronted the two largest minoriry groups represented among the membership of the AAEA. One committee was the "Ad hoc Committee on Opportuni­ ties and Status of Women in Agricultural Economics" (CWAE), chaired by Ardelle Lundeen (South Dakota State Universiry), while the other was the "Ad hoc Committee on Opportu­ nities and Status of Blacks in Agricultural Economics" (COSBAE) chaired by Sidney Evans (North Carolina A&T). The two groups began immediately to gather information to dem­ onstrate the acceptance and the performance of their members in the agricultural economics profession as well as in the Association. Opportunities and Status ofWomen in Agricultural Economics. 28 In July 1980, the AAEA Executive Board authorized the formation of the ad hoc committee to investigate systemati­ cally the status, role, and opportunities for women in agricultural economics. In 1981, 39 women met during the AAEA annual meeting at Clemson Universiry to consider forming a women's committee to operate under the auspices of the AAEA. 29 The committee had the advantage of building on a similar committee already in place in the American Economic Association. Each committee - AAEA and AEA alike - tried to develop a roster of women in the profession, publish a newsletter, plan or sponsor sessions intended to address and ad­ vance the professional interests of female members at the annual meetings of their respective associations, and conduct empirical research related to salaries, progress through ranks, and job descriptions in the economics or agricultural economics professions.

28 Almost certainly, women had belonged to the Association from its beginning. Bressler's list of Charter Members, however, provides only initials of the 430+ persons that he was able to identify as charter members ("Charter Mem­ bers," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (54:413-415) November 1972). A 1922 list of members lists 15 women (identified as women only by given names). Twelve of these lived in the Washington, DC area and listed some agency of the federal government as their employer. 29 The Clemson meeting, announced on page 2 of the May 1981 issue of theAAEA Newsletter, suggests choosing an executive committee as one purpose of the meeting. It is not clear that all of the 39 were members of AAEA. A reasoned guess suggests that they were either members or potential members at the time they met. Although those in attendance discussed forming a new and completely separate organization, they chose to become a "committee" operating under the rules and by-laws of the AAEA. 154 CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reaching far Maturity

Biography: Sylvia Lane Few individuals have made a more significant contribution to the Association than Sylvia Lane. Although born in New York City in 1916, she came to California for her education and to develop an enviable career as a woman in what was a man's world and as an economist interested in themes related to consumers at a time when her colleagues spent the majority of their effort asking questions about the production of fuod and fiber. After an AB and MA at Berkeley and a PhD at the University of Southern California, Sylvia spent time on the faculties of USC (1947-1960), San Di­ ego State University (1961-1965), and California State University at Fullerton (1965- Sylvia Lane Photograph 1969) before J"oining the agricultural economics faculty at the University of California courtesy ofMEA. - Davis in I 969. Even in her early years at Davis, she changed the way people looked at agricultural economics and agricultural economists. Her interests lay with consumers and she taught a generation of students and colleagues that consumers and the problems they faced were an important pare of the problems that should engage economists. She wrote books and papers and served on commissions and committees ranging from local food banks to the President's Commission on Consumer Interests. Sylvia was the first woman to serve on the AAEA Board of Direcrors (1976-1979) and the first elected as a Fellow of the Association (1984). These accomplishments pale in the face of the changes she brought to the direction and interests of the Association. Sylvia Lane did not stop with being honored as a member appreciated by the AAEA Foundation. She enhanced her Appreciation Club and put in place the "Sylvia Lane Mentor Fellow­ ship." A stipend generally awarded to a deserving female student working to complete studies for an advanced degree in agricultural economics.

By 1981, just one year after its formation, the Committee on Opportunities and Status of Women in Agricultural Economics asked for and received a slot for an invited paper ses­ sion at the annual meeting. Sylvia Lane (California) presided. The four papers presented during the session were: • Ardelle Lundeen (South Dakota State University) and Annette L. Clauson (South Dakota), "The Conduct of the Survey on the Opportunities for and Status of Women in Agricultural Economics." • Linda K Lee (Oklahoma), ''A Comparison of the Rank and Salary of Male and Female Agricultural Economists." • Barbara Redman (Georgia), "The Women Who Become Agricultural Economists." • Sylvia Lane (California), "Evidence on Barriers to the Parallel Advancement of Male and Female Agricultural Economists."30

Lists of female agricultural economists - MEA members and non-members - began to appear in 1982, and by 1983 the ad hoc committee asked the Executive Board about the possibility of electing its own member-officers and developing its own by-laws. Restrictions imposed by the parent organization's Constitution and by-laws required that the women's committee develop "working rules" rather than by-laws. In the event, it made little differ­ ence. The group, now called CWAE for "Committee on Women in Agricultural Econom­ ics," developed an institutional structure that paralleled the structure of the parent organiza­ tion. By 1984, a count showed that women made up 9.4 percent of theMEAmembership, and by 1985 a CWAE Newsletter was going out three times a year to 360 members and

30 These papers come from a single session delivered at the annual meeting of the American Agricultural Econom­ ics Association held at Clemson University in 1981. They are published as a group in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics (63: 1010-1031) December 1981. CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reaching/or Maturity 155 friends. In 1988, CWAE became a standing committee of the Association, and asked to have papers from one of its symposia published in the Occasional Papers Series sponsored by the AAEA. 31 The growth and influence of CWAE in the broader Association continued. In June 1989, CWAEA had 418 members.32 Its annual activities included a luncheon at the annual meeting, a newsletter, and several symposia or paper sessions at either the summer or the winter meeting. By 1990, the decade-old committee had 12 subcommittees and was ask­ ing for a way to use the parent organization's annual dues invoice to collect $5.50 per year to help pay for its newsletter and other expenses. In every practical sense, CWAE was, and remains today, a specialized organization that operates within or parallel to the AAEA.33 Committee on Opportunities for and Status ofBlack Agricultural Economists (COSBAE). IIJ. many respects, COSBAE's origin and early life parallels that of CWAE. COSBAE emerged as a committee to help black economists find a useful and rewarding home in the agricul­ tural economics profession. Members of the initial group began immediately to compile lists of blacks in the Association or in jobs related to agricultural economics. In 1982, the AAEA Executive Board provided a grant of $8,000 to pay the costs of a questionnaire used to learn more about the incidence and activities of blacks in the profession. COSBAE requested an invited paper slot at the 1983 summer meetings as a place to report results of the questionnaire. Wallace Huffman (Iowa) acted as moderator for the three papers and one formal discussion presented during the session: • Carlton G. Davis (Florida) and Joyce E. Allen (USDA), "Black Agricultural Econ­ omists in the Labor Market: Theoretical and Empirical Issues." • Dewitt Jones (Southern University), Mack Nelson (Fort Valley State College), and Alfred L. Parks (Prairie View A&M), "Demand and Supply Factors of Black Agri­ cultural Economists." • Richard D. Robbins (N. CarolinaA&T) and Sidney H. Evans (N. CarolinaA&T), "Characteristics of Black Agricultural Economists." • Loren A. Ihnen (N. Carolina), "Black Agricultural Economists: Discussion."34

At the time the papers were prepared, there were approximately 300 agricultural econo­ mists (Association members and non-members) identifiable as black. The papers provided interesting comparisons showing that the number of black agricultural economists was in­ deed small, but those who were in the profession got there in the same way as their non­ black colleagues, and did essentially the same things to advance their careers.

31 At a meeting in lace 1985, the Executive Board approved the publication of a series "AAEA Occasional Papers." 32 During its early years, CWAE struggled with the problem of deciding who should or could be a member. Was CWAE an organization for a sub-set of AAEA members? Or was it for any woman interested in agricultural eco­ nomics? The AAEA Executive Board helped clarify the matter by refusing ro pay printing and postage costs to send newsletters, announcements, and other materials to women who qualified as agricultural economists but who did not belong to the parent organization. 33 CWAE has an informative web site at http://www.aaea.org/sections/cwae/index.htm. Among other things it includes a facsimile of the award winning poster chat CWAE prepared for display at the AAEA meeting held in Chicago in 2001. 34 These papers are published in the American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (65:981-1001) December 1963. 156 CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reaching for Maturity

Like CWAE, COSBAE became a standing committee in 1988. It also began planning a centennial celebration to recognize the 1890 Land Grant Schools at the AAEA summer meetings at Louisiana State University in 1989.35 Plans for the celebration called for a sym­ posium, "Past, Present, and Future Roles of the 1890 Institutions" to be held in the days prior to the AAEA annual meeting. During this time, COSBAE began communicating with its members using a Newslet­ ter edited at first by Ralph Christy (Cornell) and D.J. Newton (USDA). The committee developed relationships with a number of agencies and societies in the South, and worked to keep the story of the black professional social scientists available to the public. COSBAE is too small, and its members too geographically scattered, to become an independent organization. It seems content with its role as a standing committee of the AAEA. 36 Like CWAE, COSBAE provides information about its past and its future on its website at http://www.cosbae.com.

Founding a "Foundation" The Association operated as an unincorporated entity from the time of its formation (1910) until the major reorganization of its legal status and management in 1967. The period after the reorganization was one during which rhe interests and the activities of agri­ cultural economists broadened to include problems and policies related to natural resources, the environment, food and nutrition, agricultural policy, rural development, international development, and dozens of other themes. Each of these specialties or interests seemed to need special recognition, so the Association expanded its horizons with new committees, added seminars and workshops, and a more active interest in a number of national policies. Some of rhe adjustments were small, bur large or small they all seemed to need financial support. The financial needs of the new and modern organization exceeded the revenues provided by annual dues and investments. Someone suggested that the Association needed a "foundation" to assist in raising funds for the expanded agenda and list of activities. In 1982, President Leo Polopolus (Florida) asked Paul Barkley (Washington State) to chair an ad hoc committee to determine if an AAEA Foundation was feasible. The task re­ quired four years. 37 A 1984 poll of randomly selected members revealed that, by a margin of eight to one, the respondents agreed that a foundation could help the Association ac­ complish its purposes, bur very few of those polled indicated that they themselves would contribute or donate to a foundation. They expected selected individuals to contact and solicit contributions from major agri-business firms and other foundations for use by an en­ visioned AAEA Foundation. Even with this in mind, the committee looked favorably upon the possibility of an AAEA foundation. At the business meeting held in conjunction with rhe Association's 75th anniversary celebration, Barkley brought forward a motion to amend the AAEA Constitution and create a foundation. In part, it said:

35 Louisiana State University is in Baton Rouge, also the home of Southern University, an 1890 Land Grant institu­ tion. 36 The COSBAE web site offers information on the people and the activities of the committee as well as an archive of all COSBAE newsletters from 1988 to the present time. 37 The task was eased by the fact that the Association held a 1951 letter from the Internal Revenue Service giving it Section 50l(c)(3) status that allowed gifts and donations to be deductible for income tax, gift tax, and estate tax purposes. Even though gifts and donations made to the pre-foundation organization carried a tax benefit, the As­ sociation received very few gifts or donations before the latel980s. CHAPTER THIRTEEN • Reaching/or Maturity 157

Section I. Purpose of the Foundation. The American Agricultural Eco­ nomics Association Foundation is a fund-raising and capital-accumulat­ ing subsidiary of the Association. Its purpose is to solicit and collect funds from sources other than dues. The funds so collected are to be used to (a) improve the quality of work done by agricultural economists through education, retraining, and experience, (b) expand the range of clientele for whom the economic intelligence produced by agricultural economists may be useful, and (c) otherwise enhance the abilities and visibility of the profession and its members.38

The new Foundation had a governing board similar to that of the Association. Officers and members elected from the general membership struggled with the task of finding ways to raise money and determining how to best use the money in furthering the Association's purposes. The appeal for donations began in 1985. A donation of $25,000 from former president and long-time secretary-treasurer Asher Hobson (Wisconsin) provided useful seed money and the use of "appreciation clubs" helped the Foundation generate sufficient funds to start contributing to the organization's programs.39 Early disbursements went mainly to help low-income members attend the annual meeting. In subsequent years, the Founda­ tion called for proposals from members and committees that needed funds to carry out a wide range of activities consistent with the purposes of the AAEA. Raising funds was never easy among agricultural economists, but the Foundation's endowment grew from the initial $25,000 in 1985 to more than $1 .7 million in 2008. Additional information relating to the Foundation can be found in Chapter 15. All of these changes and expansions came within a relatively short period, roughly 1979 to 1985. Membership was high, agriculture was in the eye of the general public, and the Association correctly guessed that even with its flaws it was either in or close to a position of strength in the world of production agriculture, food and fiber processing, marketing, and resource use.

38 "Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (67:1336-37) December 1985. The proposed amendment had three additional sections dealing with (1) Governance, (2) Solicitation and management of funds, and (3) Selection and financing of activities. 39 Appreciation Clubs were used to honor individuals who had made significant intellectual or management con­ tributions to the American Agricultural Economics Association. The individual's friends and colleagues collected and donated funds to the Foundation. When the aggregate contributions reached a specified level, the "appreciated individual" received honors at the annual meeting. CHAPTER FOURTEEN Interactions and Alliances

By the 1970s, the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA) was in its seventh decade of existence. Over many of its years; the Association had maintained regular contact with other groups and organizations that shared its general interests. These interactions and alliances were important because, generally speaking, they allowed AAEA members to expand their horizons and opportunities. Information shared among professionals from di­ verse organizations often helped provide a more complete understanding of what was oc­ curring in the industry. Perhaps more important, most of the inter-related organizations relied on grants and contracts from the same pools of public and private money. Because they often competed for the same money, it became useful for the several groups to try to maintain a consistent set of arguments and reasons indicating the importance of expanding and improving the databases and research activities related to agriculture. Formal alliances, casual affiliations, and common friendships among associations and interest groups could last for a brief period or for several decades. Lasting or long time alli­ ances existed between the American Agricultural Economics Association and the American Economic Association, USD.Ns Economic Research Service, the Census Bureau, the Social Science Research Council, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the data gather­ ing and data using agencies of the USDA. Long Lasting Affiliations The American Economic Association (A.EA). The AEA was organized in 1885, and many early members of the AFEA were or had been among its members - and unlike some or­ ganizations, the AEA never meddled in the affairs of the AFEA or the AAEA. The rela­ tionship between the two was, and remains today, harmonious but somewhat passive. The agricultural economics associations (American Farm Management Association, American Farm Economics Association, and AAEA) originally used the huge annual AEA meeting as a setting for a winter meeting. 1 From the beginning, there were frequent efforts to coordinate themes and topics in a number of joint sessions at each year's meeting. 2

1 The AEA winter meetings have adopted the name "the American Social Science Association'' (ASSA). The ASSA has no web page and no central office. Contacts with it muse be made through the offices of the AEA in Knoxville, Tennessee. About 50 social science associations, most with a strong interest in economics, claim membership in ASSA. 2 The joint sessions were not always with the AEA. A significant number of ocher economics-related groups also use chis annual opportunity as a place and time co meet. AAEA can and does use the opportunity for joint sessions with che AEA, as well as with ocher associations such as the American Statistical Association, the Econometric Society, and the Rural Sociology Association. 159 160 CHAPTER FOURTEEN• Interactions and Alliances

However, this convivial relationship came close to ending in the years after World War II, when the AFEA was deliberating the question of whether or not to move off on its own or continue to meet with the AEA during the winter months.3 The decision - still observed - was to use the winter meetings as a place for a second, somewhat smaller annual meeting for members of the AFEA. The practice of coordinating some sessions continues. Economic Research Service (USDA). The United States Department of Agriculture has almost from its beginning employed economists and other social scientists to maintain con­ tinuous research and outreach programs related to farm, food, and natural resource issues. The USDA has from time to time redrawn the organizational lines for its social scientists: sometimes those lines were drawn more or less vertically, placing the social scientists with the physical and biological scientists who work with a particular segment of agriculture. This scheme, for example, assigns agricultural economists studying the price of milk to the same unit as scientists studying dairy animals and dairies. At other times, though, the "milk price economists" might be aligned in a more "horizontal" fashion with economists study­ ing food prices or the general stability of prices for agricultural commodities. During yet another period, the organizational model placed all economists (social scientists) in a single administrative group. Each model had advantages and disadvantages. From 1922 until 1953, most of the agricultural economists employed by the U.S. De­ partment ofAgriculture worked together in an administrative home called the Bureau ofAg­ ricultural Economics (BAE) - one of the most productive groups of agricultural economists ever assembled in the United States. The BAE economists began reassignment to their sub­ ject matter units in the late 1930s, and soon after the end ofWorld War II, the BAE ceased to exist. Early in its life the BAE brought order and reason to the data gathering and price analysis units of USDA. As time passed, it stretched its activities to include highly controver­ sial farm resettlement and land-use planning issues. This was not politically acceptable, be­ cause at the time some of the land use planning work suggested excessive - almost commu­ nistic - government involvement in farm location and land ownership. Walter Goldschmidt, an anthropologist using public money and working for the BAE, looked at several towns in California's San Joaquin Valley. The towns were quite different, some being in the west side of the valley where "agribusiness" and "industrial farming" were already taking hold in 1940, the others on the east side where small family farms were dominant. His book As You Sow was first printed as a Congressional document chat had very limited circulation because of its revelations about the federal government's land settlement policies. Congress had seen too much, and its displeasure stretched into the Secretary of Agriculture's office. The Secretary, Ezra Taft Benson, did not support the work and completed the task of dissolving the BAE. The action had no direct effect on the AFEA, but it affected many prominent members who insisted on "bringing it to the attention" of the Association. The economists who had been in the BAE were eventually placed in the Agricultural Research Service, rather than in their own service. That would come in 1961, when the USDA began to reassemble its economists into their own unit - the Economic Research Service (ERS) - which remains as the largest collection of agricultural social scientists in the federal government.4

3 The AEA knew chat its meetings would continue with or without the AFEA. The AFEA, crying to recover from the uncertainties of the war years, made its own choices regarding the relationship it would have with the larger and older organization. 4 Additional material regarding the BAE can be found in Chapter 9. CHAPTER FOURTEEN• Interactions and Alliances 161

The ERS and its predecessor agencies in USDA have always been a supporting factor for the AAEA. Many, perhaps most, of the economists employed by ERS are members of the Association, and many have served on committees, been elected to the governing boards, and even been elected president of the Association.5 Membership and leadership do not begin to describe the importance of ERS to the initiatives and programs of the Association. The administrators of ERS have been willing to assist in meeting the financial needs of the Association in such activities as funding Choices, supporting travel by members, providing meeting spaces, and generally "filling in" on the occasions when AAEA's ambitions out­ stripped its budget.

Social Science Research Council (SSRC). According to the organization's web page: The Social Science Research Council is an independent, not-for-profit research organization founded in 1923. Based in New York City, it mobi­ lizes researchers, policy makers, professionals, activists, and other experts from the private and public sectors to develop innovative approaches to issues of critical social importance. 6

The SSRC became involved with agricultural economics in 1926, when its leaders ap­ pointed an ''.Advisory Committee on Social and Economic Research in Agriculture." The committee, made up primarily of AFEA members, stepped back and asked if agricultural economists were pursuing a research agenda that provided significant benefits to society. From that time on, few if any outside organizations have had as powerful an effect on the workings of the Association or on the professional activity and productivity of individual agricultural economists. The SSRC sponsored or published scores of books, pamphlets, and mimeos relating to research methods, project selection, problem identification, and policy implications of the work done by agricultural economists. SSRC was particularly effective because it essentially became part of the Association and helped agricultural economists in many of their efforts at self-evaluation.

5 The list of presidents of the Association employed by the federal government is long and includes some of the most impressive names in the profession. William J. Spillman was the first president of the American Farm Manage­ ment Association (1910-1912) while he was leader of the early USDA's Office of Farm Management. H.C. Taylor was President in 1920, just two years before he became the administrative officer of the BAE. In more recent times, Kenneth Farrell (I 977) was president of AAEA while Administrator of ERS and Susan Offutt occupied the same two positions during 2003. 6 The Social Science Research Council is online at http:/lwww.ssrc.org/inside/about. 162 CHAPTER FOURTEEN• Interactions and Alliances

In 1939, the SSRC collaborated with the American Council on Education and the AFEA to conduct an extensive examination of the demand for and the supply of professional workers in agricultural economics and rural sociology. 7 T.W Schultz supervised the work, and eventually used the project's survey data and other information to publish Training and Recruiting ofPersonnel in the Rural Social Sciences. 8 In 1959, the SSRC joined with the MEA for a third time in order to focus on the profession's research agenda. The work moved ahead under the title "New Orientations in Agricultural Economics Research." The primary issue was the SSRC's contention that research in agricultural economics was highly fragmented, and chat researchers in the field had a tendency to ignore the policy implications of their work. The SSRC also noted chat research activities in agricultural economics often ended before the needs for subsequent or follow-on research were articulaced.9 The "new orientations" theme appeared in articles and notes written by agricultural economists in 1959 and subsequent years. 10 It may have seemed to some in the agricultural economics community that the SSRC was always looking over their shoulders. The criticism seems plausible at first blush, but any honest criticism must also recognize chat the SSRC always invited highly qualified agricul­ tural economists to be a part of the team or teams conducting its studies or evaluations. Census Bureau. The relationship between the Census Bureau and economists in the United States predates the formation of the organizations chronicled here. Francis Walker, a prime mover behind the formation of the American Economic Association, was Superinten­ dent of the Census at the start of the 1870 census cycle. He relinquished the position before completion of the cycle, because the Bureau lacked funds to pay for his services. However, a decade later he accepted the assignment as Superintendent of the 1880 Census. In earlier cycles, the general Census enumerated and published farm and farm labor data as a part of the general enumeration. Walker changed the reporting format for the 1880 census. Enu­ merators gathered information pertaining to agriculture, but Walker used a separate section of the final Census report to include data and some summaries of data pertaining specifically to agricul cure, mining, manufacturing, and fishing. 11 By 1920, economists, statisticians, policy makers, bankers, and ochers wanted more de­ tailed and more accurate agricultural data than the decennial census provided. At a Decem­ ber 1932 meeting of the Joint AFEA-SSRC Advisory Committee on Agriculture, Professor I. G. Davis (University of Connecticut) presented the results of a study he had made in an attempt to validate the accuracy of the 1930 Census of Agriculture for Connecticut. Those

7 The American Council on Education (ACE) originated in 1918 as a coordinating agency for education in the United States. Although primarily for higher education, it does not refuse membership to any organization or foundation interested in education. The AAEA is (AFEA was) not a member of ACE. Joint activities in 1939 were conducted on a contract basis. 8 T.W Schultz, Training and Recruiting ofPersonnel in the Rural Social Sciences, Washington, DC, American Coun­ cil on Education, 1941. Schultz acknowledges Lawrence W Witt's assistance in the preparation of the book. This 296-page loose-leaf book, sometimes listed as Exploratory Survey ofPersonnel in Rural Social Studies, is online in full text at http://chla.library.cornell.edu. The book is particularly interesting because it provides elements of demand and supply for technically trained and qualified personnel, something that members of the Association asked for on a regular basis in later years. 9 See George K. Brinegar, Kenneth L. Bachman, and Herman Southworth, "Reorientations in Agricultural Eco­ nomics Research," journal ofParm Economics (41:600-619) August 1959. 10 Detailed discussions of the SSRC/AFEA collaborations on this theme appear in Herman M. Southworth, "The AFEA-SSRC Committee on New Orientations in Research," Journal ofParm Economics (41:1461-1466) December 1959. 11 Data from the 1880 Census enumeration are available on line at http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/. CHAPTER FOURTEEN• Interactions and Alliances 163 who participated in the discussion decided to appoint a committee to canvass the nation's agricultural economists to learn of their experiences with census data for the years 1930 and before. A committee made up primarily of agricultural economists made two recom­ mendations: first, they asked for money to complete the verification and validation task, and second, they recommended creating a standing committee, reporting jointly to the SSRC's Advisory Committee on Agriculture and to the American Farm Economics Association, to cooperate with the Census Bureau on problems associated with the Census of Agriculture. In 1933, the American Farm Economic Association joined forces with the American Statisti­ cal Association and the Social Science Research Council to examine the agricultural census and make recommendations for its improvement. Murray Benedict (California) and John D. Black (Harvard) were the major representatives from theAFEA.12 Since that time, AAEN.s Executive Committees and Executive Boards have from time to time asked a member or members of the Association to serve on a "Census Advisory Committee." John Timmons (Iowa) accepted this assignment for several years beginning in 1946. Others including Joe Ackerman (Farm Foundation), James Bonnen (Michigan), M.L. Upchurch (Florida), LutherTweeten (Oklahoma), and Bruce Gardner (Maryland) followed him in later years. National Bureau ofEconomic Research (NBER). The NBER was established in 1920 as an independent research agency involved in the study of economic systems and their per­ formance. While most of its work has been oriented toward macroeconomics, it has always had an interest in the agricultural sector of the U.S. economy. The AAEA has responded to NBER's interest by appointing a liaison member to determine when and if there is signifi­ cant common ground between the two organizations. WI. Myers (Cornell) was appointed as AFEA's first representative in 1943. Since then, eleven individuals (six of whom served as president of the Association) have represented AFEA or AAEA as liaison to the NBER. The representative as of this writing is Jean-Paul Chavas (Wisconsin).

Recent Affiliations A number of organizations interested in enhancing research activity in the social scienc­ es began to appear and become active in the early to mid-1970s. Although there is no single reason for the uptick in interest at that time, the new Farm Bill that followed the publication of The People Left Behind may have contributed. 13 Public Law 91-524, the Agricultural Act of 1970, expanded the idea that agricultural legislation had purposes and effects beyond agriculture itself Commentaries on the bill discussed poverty, general well-being, and other secondary effects of the new law aimed at farms and farmers but which carried numerous non-farm-related side effects. 14

12 The discussions surrounding the 1930 Census of Agriculture were quite complex. They are described in the An­ nual Reports Section of the January 1934 issue of the Journal ofFarm Economics. Another view of issues surround­ ing the Census is provided by F.F. Elliott, "The 1930 Census of Agriculture - New Features and Uses," Journal of Farm Economics (13:109-122) January 1931. 13 The People Left Behind was a condensed version of a much larger work published by the National Advisory Commission on Rural Povertry. It was popular and widely read by agricultural economists, who learned from it something of the people engaged in farming in the years after WWII. See United States National Advisory Com­ mission on Rural Poverty, The People Left Behind, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967. 14 See W. Neill Schaller and R.J. Hildreth, "Toward Farm Policy Requirements for the 1970's to Improve the Well­ Being of Rural America," Southern Journal ofAgricultural Economics (2: 19-23) December 1970. 164 CHAPTER FOURTEEN • Interactions and Alliances

It is possible to speculate that the expanded scope of the 1970 Farm Bill led to a large number of professional and scientific societies competing harder than ever for influence and financial support. The time certainly seemed right for such activity. 15 Allocations of pub­ lic funds dwindled, and organizations like the AAEA had to work harder to convince the public chat agricultural economists were developing credible responses to numerous critical public policy issues. The AAEA felt chat one way to articulate its needs and its promises was through affiliation with organizations advancing similar interests. Several possible affiliations were available, but the Association developed working ties with only a few. Included were the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), the Consortium ofSocial Science Associations (COSSA), the Council ofProfessional Associations on Federal Statistics (COPAFS), and, somewhat lacer, the Council on Food, Agriculture, and Resource Economics (C-FARE). The Council on Agricultural Science Technology. After witnessing Earth Day (April 22, 1970) and attending a 1970 NSF conference relating to environmental concerns, Charles A. Black, a Distinguished Professor of Agronomy at Iowa State University, began to engage in informal conversations with agricultural scientists interested in promoting scientific research related to agriculture. Black's interests soon jelled into a formal organization, and by 1972, the newly organized and incorporated CAST began promoting agricultural science through task forces chat focused on a variety of questions and issues related to agriculture, food, and environmental themes. A number of agricultural economists served on CAST task forces, so Black approached the AAEA to determine if the Association would become a member of CAST. The first in­ quiry regarding possible membership reached the AAEA at a December 1973 meeting of the Executive Board. The Board took no action, but President James Nielson (Washington State University) appointed a committee to inquire into the appropriateness of joining CAST. 16 The committee reported that 15 agricultural societies were already affiliated, but recom­ mended against AAEA joining CAST because (1) the cost of membership was too high, (2) joining CAST could jeopardize AAEA's tax-exempt status, and (3) agricultural economists could make their contribution to CAST by continuing as individual experts serving on spe­ cific CAST-sponsored task forces. 17 Membership in CAST, however, continued to be more than just a discussion item at meetings of the Executive Board. In 1977, Kenneth Farrell (USDA) and Edward Schuh (Purdue) conducted another inquiry into the propriety of AAEA becoming a part of CAST, and the following year, Larry Conner (Michigan) headed an ad hoc committee with the same general purpose. The Conner committee conducted a non-binding "advisory vote" among members of the Association. All three committees reached the same conclusion: the AAEA need not become an official member of CAST. The possible loss of tax-exempt status and

15 A large number of not-strictly agricultural issues may also have contributed. An unpopular war, inflation, and a record-high national debt made the general population uneasy. In addition, the OPEC-led fuel crisis and the long lasting droughts in many parts of the world helped intensify the Malthusian questions surrounding the world food supply. These questions and many others may have sensitized the populace and the government ro the need for a stable agriculture, but one that would have to share scarce public monies with other public needs. 16 Dicussion was apparently very limited. The entire issue appears in the minutes as, "Tefertiller reviewed the activities of CAST ... with no decision ro join." "Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting," American Journal of Agricultztral Economics (56:1245) December 1974. 17 The report of the committee covers a number of aspects of CAST and other organizations that required con­ sideration before AAEA could make a decision ro join or not join. Written by G.E. Brandow, E.N. Castle, and W.D. Toussaint, the report is "Report on AAEA Membership in CAST," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (57:1003-1007) December 1975. CHAPTER FOURTEEN• Interactions and Alliances 165 payment of the dues charged for membership were apparently insurmountable downsides, and there was no real upside for the Association: individual agricultural economists, most of them members of the AAEA, continued to participate as members of the CAST task forces. 18 Even so, the issue of AAEA membership in CAST did not simply go away. The Ex­ ecutive Board discussed the possibility of joining CAST at meetings in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, and 1989. The outcome of the discussions was always the same: Do not join, but con­ tinue to cooperate. Finally, though, pro-CAST sentiment carried the day: the Association joined CAST in 1993, as shown in the Executive Board's minutes from a January meeting held in California. Item 24 in the minutes reads,

A discussion ensued about the benefits of rejoining COSSA and joining CAST. MOTION: [Eileen] van Ravenswaay [Michigan] moved that the Association rejoin COSSA for 1993 and join CAST, with the President negotiating with each organization as to timing and an appropriate dues structure. Uean] Kinsey [Minnesota] seconded. Motion carried. 19

By 1994, the AAEA was paying $3,000 annually to be an official member of CAST. The benefit to the Association came from AAEA's willingness to cooperate with another organi­ zation in efforts to draw public attention to the results of CAST's task force investigations of current problems facing the broadly defined agricultural industry. Consortium of Social Science Associations. COSSA began in the 1960s as an informal group of social scientists who held conversations regarding the difficulties of securing fund­ ing for research. When the federal budget cuts of the early 1980s came, the group incor­ porated and established itself as a tax-exempt 501 (c)(6) organization set up as an advocacy group, in favor of increased federal funding for research in the social sciences. By 1982, COSSA was actively recruiting additional social science research organizations to join in its appeals to Congress and federal agencies. Neil Harl (Iowa) described COSSA to the Execu­ tive Board in 1984, and in 1988, President Daniel Padberg (Texas A&M) reminded the Board about COSSA and asked Board members Richard Perrin (N. Carolina) and Gene Futrell (Iowa) to determine the appropriateness of AAEA membership. The Perrin-Futrell report was favorable so in 1989, Sandra Batie (Virginia Tech) brought forward a motion that the AAEA join COSSA on a one-year experimental basis. The Association joined as a "Membership Organization" paying $2,000 for the year's affilia­ tion. 20 Batie's motion also asked that the president appoint a three-person liaison committee to determine whether membership provided significant access to opportunities that the As­ sociation might otherwise overlook. 21 In August 1991, President Warren Johnston (Univer­ sity of California-Davis) recommended that membership in COSSA be terminated, but the following year, President Bruce Beattie (University of Arizona) suggested that membership should be continued.

18 A poll of those who had served on one or more of the CAST task forces revealed no serious complaint about the work that was done or the professional integrity of the CAST leadership. 19 "Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (75:1348) December 1993. 2° COSSA has three levels of membership based on the financial involvement desired by the organization that wishes to join. 21 "Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (71:1398) December 1989. 166 CHAPTER FOURTEEN• /nteractiom and Alliances

The COSSA membership brought concern to the Executive Board, so an AAEA com­ mittee monitored COSSA's performance before recommending continued membership in the organization. At the 1993 summer meeting of the Board, Peter Barry (Illinois) made strong positive statements regarding COSSA affiliation, and the Association's membership was renewed. Later, in 2001, the Association's tenuous financial condition caused AAEA to withdraw from COSSA; however, after a year's hiatus, membership was renewed and has continued uninterrupted since that time.22 Council ofProfessional Associations on Federal Statistics COPAFS was organized as a com­ munity of users of data gathered and published by the federal government. The organizers recognized that the federal data system was not keeping up with the social and technologi­ cal change occurring in U.S. society. The council's aim was to act in an oversight capacity, recommending changes that would modernize the collection and presentation of data. Or­ ganizing activities began in 1979. The goal was to raise approximately $70,000 to move the new organization's agenda forward. Eight associations each pledged $2,000 per year for a three-year affiliation with the Council. AAEA became the ninth. In purpose and method, COPAFS bore a close resemblance to the AAEA's extant Com­ mittee on Economic Statistics. This apparent commonality of interest led AAEA President Stanton (Cornell) to ask Bonnen (Michigan), Coats (Ralston Purina, Inc.), and Gardner (Maryland) to investigate and determine whether there was a need for the AAEA to affiliate with COPAFS. Their response was positive, so the AAEA became one of the early members of the COPAFS community of interest. COPAFS membership was useful for the AAEA, but it was clear that the Association's own Committee on Economic Statistics had strong leadership and would have pursued many of the same activities without the Council. The Economic Statistics Committee had already become an important part of the Census Ad­ visory Committee, and its importance increased when members of the American Statistical Association joined with the AAEA committee to form the Joint ASA-AAEA Committee on Agricultural Statistics.

22 Conversations and discussions regarding membership in COSSA occurred in every Board meeting from 1988 through 1995, perhaps later. The issue was obvious: Is membership in COSSA worth the cost? The recurring discussions indicated that the value of membership had been marginal. Nonetheless, the January 2009 COSSA webpage (http:/ /www.cossa.org) identifies MEA as a member organization. In the Spring of 2009 COSSA was involved with a number of projects having direct and indirect applicability to agricultural or environmental themes. An email communication with Howard J. Silver, Executive Director of COSSA says, "AAEA first joined COSSA in 1989 and remained an Affiliate for two years. It then dropped our. After much negotiating and many meetings, MEA returned in 1993. In 2001, it again dropped our for financial reasons, bur came back a year later. In 2004, the [MEA] Foundation rook over responsibility for the membership dues, and things have worked smoothly since then." CHAPTER FOURTEEN • lnteractiom and Alliances 167

Wassily Leontief Speaks Out In his Presidential address to the American Economic Association in 1970, Wassily Leontief (Harvard) criticized economics and economists because of the extent to which they had allowed theory and method to outrun data and empirical work. In the same breath, he exonerated agriculcural economists by saying: "An exceptional example of a healthy balance between theoretical and empirical analysis, and of the readiness of professional economists to cooperate with experts in the neighboring disciplines, is offered by agricultural economics as it developed in this country over the last 50 years .... Official agricultural statistics are more complete, reli­ Wassily Leomief Photo­ graph courtsey ofHarvard able and systematic than those pertaining to any other major sector of our economy.... University Archives. Agricultural economists demonstrated the effectiveness of a systematic combination of theoretical approach and detailed factual analysis. They also were the first among economists to make use of the advanced methods of mathematical statistics. However, in their hands, statisti­ cal inference became a complement to, not a substitute for empirical research. "23

If agricultural economists were to maintain the visibility and recognition of their work in applied research, they would need to press for more accurate information and data. The combined ASA-MEA Committee devoted itself to making certain that the data systems of the federal government continued to evolve and improve. The committee distinguished itself by delivering papers at the annual meetings of the MEA and by making pamphlets, newssheets, working papers, and other materials available to data users, as well as by con­ stantly recommending improvements in the data gathered by the Census. 24 The committee's greatest moment may have come in the early 1970s, when the Census Bureau indicated that funds were not available for what would be the 1974 Census of Agriculture. The Joint ASA-MEA Committee on Agricultural Statistics set about to change this decision, and after several inconclusive sessions with the Census Bureau, the Committee brokered an agree­ ment whereby the U.S. Department of Agriculture would direct and enumerate the 1974 Census of Agriculture.25 Special Affiliation I: C-FARE, the Council on Food Agriculture and Resource Economics At its eighth annual meeting in 1917, the voting members of the American Farm Man­ agement Association passed a resolution stating that the organization, as an organization, would remain apart from the politics of agriculture.26 As the years passed, it became increas­ ingly difficult for the Association to honor this resolution. Agriculture was affecting -- and b~coming ever more affected by - policy, especially at the federal level. Farm management

23 Wassily W. Leontief, "Theoretical Assumptions and Non-Observed Facts," American Economic Review (61:1-7) March 1971. 24 See, for example, [AAEA] Committee on Economic Statistics, "Our Obsolete Data System: New Directions and Opportunities," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (54:867-875) December 1972. This article was written by the Committee on Economic Statistics as a major discussion paper at the 1972 meeting of the AAEA. It was subsequently published in a number of other journals and was promoted as a working paper in the Census Bureau. Bonnen, chairman of the joint committee, went on to become president of the AAEA. His presidential address, "Improving Information on Agriculture and Rural Life" was an elaboration of themes discussed in meetings of the Joint Committee. 25 The USDA has been the major actor in conducting each census of agriculcure since that time. 26 The resolution began by saying, "[Resolved] that the American Farm Management Association as such should not pass resolutions expressing opinions on public questions .... " The resolution goes on to encourage individuals to use their skills and knowledge to become involved in the political world. Record ofthe Proceedings ofthe Eighth Annual Meeting, December 1917. Published by the Association, 1918, page 195. 168 CHAPTER FOURTEEN • Interactions and Alliances

experts and agricultural economists testified before congressional committees, wrote com­ mentaries on legislation, and frequently spoke to crowds of farmers in an effort to help them understand the sometimes-complicated aspects of the laws and parts of the periodic farm bills passed by Congress. For a while, it seemed that agricultural economics needed farm legislation as a means of justifying its existence. Similarly, federal dollars originating in the long and complex wakes of the Morrill Act, the Hatch Act, the Smith-Lever Act, and other legislation provided partial funding for research, instruction, and outreach programs in the nation's agricultural colleges, particularly those connected to the Land Grant College system. Knowing more about the availability of funds, and assisting federal legislators in identifying the need for funding agricultural economics research, seemed a necessary activity for the Association. In order to satisfy this need, the AAEA collaborated with the Economic Research Ser­ vice (ERS), the Farm Foundation, and several individual academic departments of agri­ cultural economics to form the Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics (C-FARE) in 1993.

In its first annual report, C-FARE stated its purpose as: The Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics (C-FARE) was created in July, 1993 to strengthen the national presence of the agri­ cultural economics profession by identifying key economic issues, estab­ lishing priorities, and seeking support for research, extension, and aca­ demic instruction; by working with other professions and organizations; and to communicate agricultural economics contributions to solving important societal issues. 27

Always with agricultural economics and agricultural economists in mind, C-FARE followed four plans of action by: - • Establishing links with funding and priority-setting organizations. • Contributing to public and private sector decisions. • Identifying important economic issues. • Becoming involved in outreach to other subject-matter areas.

No one can say whether C-FARE has been successful in attracting money, prestige, or influence to agricultural economics. Nor can observers know whether it has made economic issues easier for legislators and administrative committees to understand. Nonetheless, it has become amazingly successful as a broker for contacts and as a disseminator-of information. In 2007, for example, C-FARE provided 33 newsletters for the profession, conducted 34 congressional visits to report on research results and to thank members of Congress for their past support, assisted with over 20 educational seminars and forums for the profession, and reached over 190 agricultural and applied economics students with information on oppor­ tunities in the nation's capital. 28 C-FARE is a member of five coalitions involved in similar

27 1994 C-FAREAnnual Report, online at http://www.cfare.org/reporrs/l994_shtml, page 1. 28 This list comes directly from the C-FARE 2007 annual report. CHAPTER FOURTEEN• Interactions and Alliances 169

types of activities.29 The C-FARE stafflearns what is happening in and around Washington, DC and, whenever possible and/or appropriate, notifies interested agricultural economists or tries to establish contacts or meetings where AAEA members can either teach or learn.30 Special Affiliation II: AgEcon Search During the 1940s and 1950s, as recounted in Chapter 7, Asher Hobson (Wisconsin) spent much time and energy trying to establish a process that would make the literature of agricultural economics more accessible. He began with a small archive of books and papers held at the Wisconsin Historical Society and the University ofWisconsin Library. Gathering materials written by agricultural economists proved difficult, though. Authors wrote prolifi­ cally, but apparently were not greatly concerned chat anyone might want to gain access to and read what they had written. Only a small part of the profession's output reached the archive. By the late 1960s, the Association recognized the need for a mature literature retrieval system and, with the help of the National Agricultural Library, the Economic Research Service, and the Statistical Reporting Service, established the Documentation Center. Par­ ticipation was voluntary, but an author submitting an abstract of his work to the center could expect it to become a part of a digitized database as well as an entry in a bi-monthly publication, The American Bibliography ofAgricultural Economics. The documentation center succeeded, but the publication failed after less than three years of life. Robson's questions about literature retrieval remained unanswered. By the mid-1990s, academic and gov­ ernment workers had become acquainted with the possibilities chat came with use of digitized information. At the Department of -r·· ,...,, :======Agricultural and Applied Economics' Waite -~­ Library and at the St. Paul Campus Library, -~- the University of Minnesota Library System -~ [=": __ ::=:': _: _=:=--:--..;:~-~-:-==- =.a,., began conversations with the AAEA and -~~ - · · 8' the USDA about a web-based retrieval sys­ tem called ''AgEcon Search." The mechan­ ics underlying the idea were simple: anyone working in the area of agricultural econom­ ics could send electronic (digitized) copies of their reviewed work (working papers, Homepage of AgEcon Search online at http://ageconsearch.umn. edu/. conference papers, research reports, etc.) to AgEcon Search for entry into a database that would be available online and searchable by author, subject, or title. AgEcon Search asked very little from the AAEA. The AgEcon Search Coordinator wanted (1) assurance chat AgEcon Search would be the preferred computer-based informa­ tion retrieval system for agricultural economists, (2) a member of the AAEA to sic on the

29 The five are the Washington Ag Roundtable, National Rural Network (NRN), Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), Coalition on Funding Agricultural Research Missions (CoFARM), and the National Coalition for Food and Agricultural Research (National CFAR) 30 C-FARE maintains and staffs a permanent office in Washington, DC. A 12-member advisory board governs it. Three of the 12 are appointed by the president of the AAE.A, three come from the National Association ofAgricul­ tural Economics Administrators, and these six appoint another six as "at-large" members. 170 CHAPTER FOURTEEN • Interactions and Alliances

system's advisory board, and (3) seed funding, in effect, of $2,500. The coordinators (Louise Letnes and Patricia Rodkewich) who maintained the retrieval system agreed to conduct demonstrations at several MEA annual meetings, as well as at other places where significant numbers of agricultural economists gathered. The ease of adding to the database and of retrieving the well-indexed work (as it turned out in practice) was a welcome relief to users of the literature of agricultural economics. By 2009, over 170 organizations (universities, re­ search groups, government agencies, U.S. and international professional organizations, and the like) were official suppliers of documents and information for the system. Now, only 12 years after its inception, AgEcon Search has more than 30,000 abstracts and full-text documents available for immediate access. The archive includes rough drafts, partial papers, published journal articles, working papers, short papers given at annual meet­ ings, and other documents that come from or relate to the activities of agricultural econo­ mists. MEA continues payments of about $5,000 per year, which provides almost instant retrieval of thousands of documents and sends representatives to a demonstration booth at the summer meeting of the Association.31 Also fostering the eventual success of AgE­ con Search was a series of meetings of university, government, and private sector librarians who specialized in materials related to agricultural eco­ nomics. The first meeting, funded by the Farm Foundation, was called in 1981 by Daniel Badger (Oklahoma) and Barbara Hensley from the Uni­ versity of Missouri library system. This meeting Julie Kelly and Louise Lemes. brought together about 20 librarians and reference specialists, and led to the formation of the Agricultural Economics Reference Organization (AERO). AERO meets every 18-24 months to share skills and to provide networking opportunities relating to reference tools, databases, and new technologies. 32 Although the major burden of sending materials to AgE­ con Search still resides with the author, the system has been successful in helping to reach the goals that Asher Hobson sought at least four decades earlier.

Special Affiliation III: The National Association of Agricultural Economics Administrators (NAAEA) For many years, the heads and chairs of departments of agricultural economics in the land grant schools, along with other administrators, met each year to discuss the profession, prospects for the future, and other matters of professional concern.33 These were regional meetings divided into the familiar and traditional Northeast, North Central, Southern, and Western geographic regions. By the early 1990s, the groups decided to merge and organize on a national basis. The newly anticipated National Association of Agricultural Economics

31 Louise Lecnes and Julie Kelly (replacing Patricia Radkewich), long-rime Coordinators of che AgEcon Search activities at the University of Minnesota Libraries, used the November/December 2008 issue of The Exchange to re­ port chat the collection added the 30,000'h item to its collection during the fall months of 2008. They also reported chat 3,970 of the digitized papers in the collection were from AAEA annual meetings held between 1997 and 2008. Users have downloaded papers from the database 387,953 times since the inception of the AgEcon Search. Louise Lecnes and Julie Kelly, ''AgEcon Search Reaches Milestone," The Exchange (30:2) November/December 2008. 32 Extensive information regarding AERO can be found at its website online at http://are.berkeley.edu?AERO/ aero.html. The organization presently has about 65 members. 33 In the 1980s and 1990s these departmental names were changed ro various ocher designations chat indicated their changing emphasis to resource economics, consumer economics and more broadly, applied economics. CHAPTER FOURTEEN• Interactions and Alliances 171

Administrators (either N-AAEA or NAAEA) began the organization process in 1993. AB is so often the case with newly minted organizations, despite all the good intentions, there was a problem. C-FARE, another organization that cut across many university departments and administrative units, had also come into being in 1993. The potential for overlap and rivalry between the purposes and activities of the two organizations appeared to be considerable. C-FARE intended to speak for all agricultural economists in matters related to the inter­ face between the profession and public policy activities carried out in the nation's capital. NAAEA, meanwhile, began its existence under a mission statement that said: The mission of the National ABsociation of Agricultural Economics Ad­ ministrators is to improve the leadership and management of agricultural economics programs; to support the acquisition of resources to carry [on] agricultural economics research, teaching, and extension programs; and to address common needs of agricultural economics administrators.34

The problem came in the fact that NAAEA planned to levy dues against all member departments, then forward a large portion of the collected funds directly to C-FARE for use in advancing C-FARE's programs. This plan drew immediate criticism. Why should an individual or a department contribute to AAEA (which helped support C-FARE) and then contribute to C-FARE a second time by passing money through NAAEA? The issue was not an idle complaint. NAAEA planned to transfer $12,000 of its $14,700 collections in 1994 to C-FARE. This brought protest that began, as far as can be determined, with a letter from Wallace Tyner (Purdue) to Bruce Beattie (Arizona) suggesting that the plan was "unethical." Others agreed. The controversy eventually calmed, with NAAEA continuing to support C-FARE but also moving ahead with a broader agenda that included activities aimed at assisting agri­ cultural economics administrators in their tasks of managing people, money, projects, and programs. In later years, the organization submitted proposals for invited-paper sessions and organized symposia at the annual meetings, and presented a lengthy brief asking to be made a Special Committee in the AAEA committee structure. This last request was an effort to protect NAAEA, and to buy time while it incorporated and gained status as a tax-exempt group. The NAAEA became a section in the AAEA when that option became available in 2002. It has continued to cooperate with other sections, but it realizes that the primary benefits to its members stem from its role in "training" new department heads and sharing information on activities in departments and administrative units.

Summary The organizations mentioned here are far from the only ones that have touched or been touched by the Agricultural and Applied Economics ABsociation. Societies, conferences, and confederations among academics, economists, and their constituents occur quite frequently. In the century during which the AAEA and its predecessor organizations have been in ex­ istence, issues facing these groups have included matters related to economic growth, eco­ nomic stability, the manner in which food is produced and consumed, international trade in food and farm products, and government policy. Conversations among members of the

34 The original mission statement came from a December 3, 1993 meeting at Stone Mountain, North Carolina. The revision printed here was adopted August 7, 1994 at the NAAEA meeting held in San Diego, California. This statement came from materials held in private files by Bruce Beattie, University of Arizona. 172 CHAPTER FOURTEEN• Interactions and Alliances

Association on these themes have been lasting, and so intense that some of the conversations have evolved into associations or societies of their own. This trend will undoubtedly follow the Association into its second century. CHAPTER FIFTEEN Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members

Membership in the American Agricultural Economics Association peaked in the early 1980s, a time when nearly every facet of the organization's activities was growing, developing, or changing in some significant way. Over the previous decade, new members brought into the Association an expanded list of subjects to discuss and problems to study and solve. The scope of the discipline broadened, and the number of specialties within the field multiplied in number. There were now members who specialized in crop rotation, soil conservation, grain marketing, econometrics, animal nutrition, rural economies, risk avoidance, and doz­ ens of other topics. The new specialties brought new jargons and new vocabularies, making it difficult for members who embraced one specialty to talk to members in another. The high degree of specialization meant that no single theme could capture the atten­ tion of all members. Differentiation and specialization divided the membership into clusters with, for example, policy experts who talked to other policy experts, and experts in interna­ tional trade who talked to colleagues interested in international trade. The Association's long history of studies related to whole farms and groups of commodities gradually gave way to a new era based on high degrees of specialization. The bonds that held the group together loosened. Even with powerful changes among its members, the lineup of the Association's major products remained essentially the same: Two journals, a newsletter (beginning in 1978), a popular-audience magazine (beginning in 1986), and two annual meetings. 1 Each of these products was also changing. The journal seemed to change the most. Decades after its beginning in 1919, the jour­ nal was still the voice of the Association and, in a broad sense, it reflected what the members were doing. In its early issues, those published before about 1940, more than half of the articles had titles that included the word "farm" or "agriculture." The February 1980 is­ sue carried no article relating to an individual farm or farmer. It included ten full-length articles on such diverse themes as food safety, federal farm policies, community develop­ ment, and research methods. The issue's eleven "Notes" dealt with an even more diverse array of topics. 2 Natural resource themes, commodity policy, product promotion, and re­ search methods were all represented. The volume (#62) included five issues; papers from the AAEA-sponsored sessions at the winter meetings were included as part of the May issue. The

1 President Leo Polopolus compiled a much longer list of the Association's products. He wrote, "While the Ameri­ can Journal ofAgricultural Economics is still a major product of the association, some members tend ro forget about our other regular services. These include a n;ttional computerized employment registry for employers and professional agricultural economists, a computerized information retrieval service for publications and data bases, a bimonthly AAEA Newsletter, a successful teaching workshop prior to the Purdue meetings plus other programs dealing with resident instruction, an active international committee, an awards and fellows program, sponsorship of undergraduate student public speaking-essay contests and related programs, and publication of a series of books on the profession's advancements since World War II." "Report of the President," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (65:1203) December 1983. 2 By 1980, the "Notes" appearing in the journal rook on characteristics not present in earlier years. They were no longer always short, idea-driven commentaries, and single notes often had several authors. The "Notes," section, present in the journal since April 1927, ceased to appear after November 1984. 173 174 CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members

December issue was reserved for papers presented at the summer meeting, as well as abstracts of 16 organized symposia and 126 selected papers, also from the summer meeting. Reports regarding the business, legal, and financial activities of the Association also appeared in the December issue. In 1980, the first four issues required 897 pages, while the December issue filled 327 pages. The two major trends driving the evolution of the journal- diversification of topics and specialization within a topic, continued apace. By 1985, the February issue of the journal included articles on food stamps, risk, land values, farmer cooperatives, and the economic structure of the food manufacturing industry.3 Proceedings papers in the May issue focused on food processing, the farm family, and, especially, natural resources and problems related to the environment. The December 1985 issue included abstracts of26 organized symposia and 162 selected papers. 4 The diversity among symposia and selected papers/topics provided additional indications that the interests and skills of the members were drifting away from the original core concerns of the Association.5 Despite this level of diversity in the journal, existing outlets for the work of Association members were apparently not flexible enough to accommodate the increased specialization of those members. Some members began to look to alternative journals and other associa­ tions to satisfy the need to publish their work and to provide opportunities for discussion of the problems they were studying. At the end of his presidential term, Leo Polo pol us (Flori­ da) was able to say that membership had grown in each of the three years leading up to 1983. He attributed this to " ... the improved mix of services provided to agricultural economists. "6 Even with the improvements, membership began to decline shortly thereafter. At first, the decline was not rapid, but it was steady. In all except five years beginning in 1983, at least 14 and as many as 316 members left the organization.7 Most disturbing was the fact that numbers in the "regular member" category dropped from 2,967 in 1983 to 1,472 in 2006.

The Adaptive Planning Committee The Executive Board discussed member numbers and retention efforts at every op­ portunity, but the discussions were not fruitful. By the mid-1980s, regular memberships reached a peak near 3,000, fluctuated between narrow limits for five years, then began to decline at an annual rate that was impossible to ignore. In 1989, President Lester Mander-

3 The choice of the four issues, February and December 1980 and February and December 1985, is arbitrary. The comparison is included here only to show how the character of the Journal was changing. 4 The "Organized Symposia'' received little attention in the records of the Association. Began in 1977, the Sym­ posia were semi-structured discussion sessions held at the summer meeting. The meeting's printed program named the symposium's topic and one or two provocateurs who started discussions. The plan was to have at least half of the time in the symposium given over to unrehearsed discussion from anyone in attendance. The Symposia frequently went unmentioned in the Association-related pages of the Journal. However, they became enduring complements to other activities at the summer meeting. Information regarding their beginnings was conveyed to the author in a September 12, 2007 email from past-President Kenneth Farrell. 5 There is an irony here. The various forces impinging on agriculture and natural resource economics called for more sub- and sub-sub-specialties. Since the number of time slots available at the annual meeting was always lim­ ited, the only way for a participant_ to make his work known was to present it as a selected paper. The number of selected papers sessions soared with the side effect that fewer and fewer members were available to attend any one session. It seemed that many papers were given, but few were heard. 6 "Report of the President," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (65: 1203) December 1983. 7 The years of membership gains were 1984 (38 new members), 1986 (477 new members), 1989 (64 new mem­ bers), 1997 (77 new members), and 1999 (76 new members). An average ofl66+ members were lost in each of the remaining 19 years. CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members 175 schied (Michigan) and President-elect Sandra Batie (Virginia Tech) worked together to as­ semble a committee, the "Adaptive Planning Committee," charged with surveying all aspects of the Association and making suggestions regarding how it might respond to changes likely to occur in the coming years. In some respects, it was a committee born of desperation. Manderschied commented on the appointment in his 1989 "Report of the President,"

The changing nature of the profession and the gradual redefinition of roles for professional associations has led to the creation of an Adaptive Planning Committee. President-elect Batie and I appointed the com­ mittee and asked for their report and recommendations [to be available] at the 1990 meeting in Vancouver.... Their recommendations will help chart the future of the association as we decide the scope of our activities as well as how we organize and fund those pursuits. 8

The committee provided an interim report published as a four-page insert in the July/ August 1990 issue of the AAEA Newsletter. Four paragraphs into the report, the committee echoed the view of the Executive Board by saying, "There is no membership crisis." The re­ port went on to provide a synopsis of the activities and influences that were important to the Association at that time. The growing diversity of interests within the Association received strong emphasis, as did the fact that most members were employees of either universities or the federal government, leaving other agricultural economists without a profession-related home in the AA.EA. This led to renewed discussions on an older theme: Many individuals graduated from college with degrees in agricultural economics, then found employment in a wide range of jobs in the private sector. Why did these members of the ag-economic dias­ pora not join the AA.EA? A perceived lack of flexibility, and narrow range of interests in the existing organization, may have been the key obstacles, according to the report. The interim report continued by acknowledging that several sub-groups of members and potential mem­ bers had already began to form their own specialized professional societies. Sub-groups tak­ ing this step included extension economists, university teachers (of agricultural economics), rural development economists, agribusiness specialists, and natural resource economists.

The Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) Economists with interests in the environment and natural resources organized their own association, "The Association of Environmental and Resource Economists" (AERE) in 1979. In 1981, the new organization took over publication of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, formerly a proprietary journal owned and published by The Academic Press. AERE was not a large organization, and was quick to note that many of its members were also members of AAEA. To reduce the costs of staging its own annual meetipg, AERE asked ro meet jointly with AAEA. The two groups met jointly in 1983 with AERE partici­ pating in a session relating to forest assessment practices. They continue to hold joint sessions. AERE now , participates as a non-voting member of AAEXs Executive Board. The relationship is cordial, with questions arising from time-to-time about publication of AERE papers in the AJAE. In general, AAEA has not pub­ lished AERE papers unless approval for publication comes during the meeting's planning stage. The joint meeting between the two associations was not necessarily a model for cooperation, but it did represent one path available ro a special interest group within the larger body of agricultural economists._

8 Lester Manderschied, "Report of the President," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (71: 1376) Decem­ ber 1989. Committee members included Otto Doering (Purdue), Adell Brown (Southern University), John Lee (USDA), George Hoffman (Pillsbury Company), Paul Barkley (Washington State), Leroy Hushak (Ohio), Emer­ son Babb (Florida), Anne Peck (Stanford), and Jim Hite (Clemson). 176 CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members

The main message of the interim report was a simple warning: The AAEA could main­ tain its 1990 organizational structure and activities, and run the risk of diminishing mem­ bership and possible failure. Alternatively, it could make some fundamental changes in orga­ nization and performance to accommodate the changing interests of members and potential members. The recommended changes included: • Form interest groups for clusters of members with similar interests. • Give these interest groups the opportunity to become self-governing. • Allow members to choose how many and which interest groups best suit their individual interests.9

The Adaptive Planning Committee was suggesting that the Association become a holding company or an umbrella organization for a number of smaller, highly specialized groups, acknowledging the additional burden this would impose on the Business Office. The common thread among the specialized groups would be the use of economic theory and methods to solve, or at least to help understand, a wide range of specific economic prob­ lems and issues. The committee described this by saying "In essence, the Association should become a federation of farm, food, rural, policy, resource, international, and agribusiness economists." 10 The Adaptive Planning Committee's interim report caught the attention of the MEA's leadership. Discussions of the report, especially the parts relating to creating interest groups, continued to appear in technical papers and in minutes ofAssociation meet­ ings until at least 1997. 11

Sections The Adaptive Planning Committee promoted the formation of "sections" within the AAEA structure. In AAEA language, a section is a sub-group of members who hold similar interests in a subject that is part of, but not all of, what constitutes agricultural economics. Just as the old American Association of Agricultural Economists was a subset (section) of the early American Economic Association, the proposed sections were to be subsets of the AAEA. The time line for their acceptance seemed slow, but it was persistent. President Vernon Eidman (Minnesota) made a convincing case for such subsets to the Association's Executive Board in July 1996, when he " .. .led a discussion on developing the concept of a federation of groups under AAEA auspices. Each group would represent sub-interests within the profession and could be called roundtables, sections, and/or special interest groups." 12

9 In a "Viewpoint" published in the July/August 1991 issue of the MEA Newsletter, Wesley Seitz (Illinois) sug­ gested that the Adaptive Planning Committee did not go far enough. He felt that instead of recommending interest groups, the committee should have suggested that the Association formally unite or merge with other associations and societies to form a large and strong federation. The idea of confederation came up for discussion again in 2008- 2009. 10 The Professional Activities Committee discussed developing MEA as a federation as early as 1977. In that year, the committee recommended that the editor of the journal commission an article to examine the question "AAEA: A Federation or a Guild?" "Report of the Professional Activities Committee," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (59:1131) December 1977. 11 Members and leaders began ro refer to the umbrella idea as "the big tent" organization. Keeping the traditional form and line-up of activities was "the little tent." The little tent/big tent nomenclature very quickly found its way into the commonly used vocabularies of members and leaders. 12 "Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (78:1468) December 1996. CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members 177

The possibility of subsets carried over into discussions among mem­ bers - some in favor; others opposed. Past presidents Emery Castle (Or­ egon) and Bruce Beattie (Arizona) collaborated on an argument that ap­ peared as a "Viewpoint" in the March/April 1998 issue of the AAEA Newsletter. They took the position that sections could become a divisive force within the Association, an argument embraced by other prominent members. Their major argument centered on the process proposed by " the Executive Board in its need to revise the Association's bylaws to ac- Vernon Eidman commodate sub-groups or sections. Castle and Beattie felt that the Board was bypassing the membership at several critical points in the decision process. Writing in the July/August 1998 issue of the newsletter, another past president, James Bonnen (Michigan), took the opposing view. He felt that the creation of sections was an important step in making the Association interesting and useful for the many new specialties and special interests that oc­ cupied the contemporary generations of agricultural economists. Other arguments - for and against - appeared on the Association's web page for a time but were lost when the web page was changed or updated. Moving ahead with sections required changing the Association's bylaws. When the Association met at Salt Lake City in the summer of 1998, the Executive Board provided members with copies of the changes that would be needed if the organization agreed to the formation of sections. During the annual business meeting, Walter Armbruster (Farm Foundation) led a discussion of the proposed constitutional changes, and called for their approval. Immediately after securing the vote of approval from the general membership, Richard Shumway (Washington State) moved to approve the proposed Extension Section as a "probationary section." The motion passed and the Association had its first section. Other sections followed.

Bylaw Authority for Sections The MEA's bylaws required revision in order to accommodate the creation of "Sections." The needed changes came in twelve paragraphs that defined a section, spelled our the terms under which a section could exist, and specified the reciprocal obligations that a section would have with the parent organization. The following paragraph describes only the steps needed to prepare a group to become a section: Any fifty (50) Association members in good standing may organize a section of the Association by request­ ing authorization in a signed petition addressed to the Executive Board. The petition shall include the proposed name, the specific area of agricultural economics· of interest, and the scope and purpose of the proposed section. The petition shall be sent ro the executive secretary for review. If found to be in proper form, the executive secretary shall forward it to the Executive Board for approval or disapproval of proba­ tionary status. ' Source: The entire wording of the suggested change in the Bylaws appears in "Executive Board Minutes," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (80:1241-1242) December 1998. The excerpt shown here is on page 1241.

By the summer of 2008, the following 16 sections existed within AAEA. The numbers in brackets show the section's membership as of December 2009: • Agribusiness Economics & Management (AEM) [175] • Applied Risk Analysis (ARA) [101] • Committee on the Opportunities and Status of Blacks in Agricultural Economics (COSBAE) [50] • Committee on Women in Agricultural Economics (CWAE) [113] 178 CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members

• Community Economics Network (CENET) [292] • China Section [Recently formed] . Econometrics Section [92] . Extension Section (EXT) [198] • Food and Agricultural Marketing Policy (FAMPS) [127] . Food Safety and Nutrition Section (FSN) [109] . Graduate Student Section (GSS) [71] • Institutional & Behavioral Economics Section (IBES) [241] • International Section [ 151] . National Association of Agricultural Economics Administrators (NAAEA) [56] . Senior Section [53] . Teaching, Learning, and Communication Section (TLC) [83] • Undergraduate Student Section (SS-AAEA) [membership fluctuates]

Most of the Sections have their own web pages. Links can be found at http:/ /www.aaea. org/membership/sections.php. (See also the shaded paragraphs on page 187 "Bylaw Author­ ity for Sections" for more information.) Some of the Association's sections hold meetings during the Association's summer meet­ ing. Some meet a day early or stay a day late in order to hold special seminars. Some have receptions, banquets, or social activities. The main opportunity for a section, however, is the chance to plan a part of the annual program - a time slot where the section's specialty can become the major topic of discussion or where the section can hold a business meeting to elect officers and plan future activities.

The Governing Documents: Revising, Updating, and Streamlining The trend toward specialization, the decline in member numbers, the Adaptive Plan­ ning Committee reports, and the creation of sections were all emblematic of an organization trying to adjust to a rapidly changing world. Agricultural economics and agricultural econo­ mists had changed demonstrably over the years, but except for changes in its publications and the addition of member sections, the association of agricultural economists looked very much the way it had looked in the 1950s. No defining moment or event told the Association's officers when or how to modernize the organization. However, major revisions likely began (somewhat quietly) in 1994, when Walter Armbruster (Farm Foundation) submitted a proposal to the Kellogg Foundation asking for $80,000 to fund a study, "Food, Agriculture, and Resource Economics in the 21st Century," aimed at determining the possible futures and leadership roles that faced agricultural economists working in AAEA, C-FARE, NAAEA, or the Farm Foundation. Michael Phillips, a Director of the Kellogg Foundation, managed the study. The effort led to two-years of visioning meetings, questionnaires, surveys, and focus groups used to identify changes that would strengthen the relevance and influence of the agricultural economists' organization. These activities led in turn to a "Visioning Conference" held in San Antonio in August 1998, then to a series of new committees, and eventually to a "Strategic Plan for 1997-98." The Strategic Plan for 1997-1998 was a formidable document. Thirteen pages in length, it had 12 major sections that introduced no fewer than 42 explicit recommendations. These 42, plus an additional 24 subsidiary suggestions, touched on essentially all aspects of the As- CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members 179

sociation's activities. 13 They led to a section describing implications for the Business Office and a section on policy proposals. The Plan ended with six pages of Principles, Core Values, and an almost liturgical list titled the "Philosophical Underpinnings of MEA." In many ways, the Strategic Plan is generic: Its general suggestions (manage the mem­ bership base, improve governance, maintain economic viability, etc.) are reasoned truths applicable to any organization. Even so, the process of refining the plan, putting it in place, and following many of its recommendations was a positive action for the Association. It made members take note of their stake in the organization and it provided impetus for the next steps in a complete review of the Association. 14 The recommendations and the implied consequences of the Strategic Plan convinced the Executive Board that consultants from outside the organization could assist in assess­ ing the Association's future. During an April 18, 1997 conference call, the Executive Board voted to pursue the following actions: • Contract with the "Consensus Management Group of Fairfax Station" to conduct a "management audit" of the Association's Business Office. • Hire a media specialist for a four-month period to provide news releases and press releases about the Association's activities, especially the annual meeting. • Sign a contract with DataMax Solutions of Bethesda, Maryland, to help establish a member database, develop recruitment strategies, and develop a member retention plan for the organization. • Hire "The Communicators" from Jefferson, Maryland, to review all MEA com­ munication vehicles and provide advice regarding their improvement. 15

These outside consultants and consulting groups, working with an internal "Strategic Planning Audit Committee," made or supported the following recommendations presented to the membership at the 1999 Business Meeting in Nashville. 16 • Develop a "Vision Statement."17 • Facilitate transparency and communications by posting minutes of all Executive Board and Foundation Board meetings on the Association's web page. • Get "ahead of the curve" by having a theme for each summer meeting, and by hav­ ing something related to or derived from this theme in each time slot. 18 • Improve the effectiveness of Choices magazine among non-member readers.

13 The actual number of recommendations defy careful counting- they do not appear as numbers l, 2, 3, ... etc. Buse, Executive Secretary at the time the Strategic Plan was submitted, referred to the plan's 58 "suggestions" in the minutes of the Executive Board meeting held in July, 1997. 14 The "Strategic Plan - 1997-1998" is not readily available online. It is held in the electronic files of the AAEA offices in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 15 If all recommendations in the Plan were followed, the Association would have hired consultants for eleven of the 42 recommendations. "Minutes of Executive Board Meeting," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (78:1467-1468) December 1996. 16 President Ralph Christy (Cornell) appointed the Strategic Planning Audit Committee in July 1998. Its mem­ bers were Mark Drabenstott (Kansas City Federal Reserve), Jerry Hammond (USDA), DeeVon Bailey (Utah), Jim Ahern (CalPoly), Janet Perry (USDA), and Wallace Tyner (Purdue). 17 Armbruster responded almost instantly with a suggested statement, "AAEA will be a source of lifelong learning for agricultural economists and the premier source of accessing their professional contributions to public policy and private sector decision making." Statement online at http://www.aaea.org/fund/docs/aaea-mins99-07.cfm 18 The term "get ahead of the curve" had become cliche by the time the Strategic Plan was in place. Its meaning is vague but it implies an anticipatory stance with respect to trends and changes that may affect the work or sugges­ tions offered by or to working agricultural economists. 180 CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members

Re-examine and modernize the awards program. Examine all aspect~ of the Association's governance.

In addition, the Strategic Plan made specific references to a theme that the Executive Boards had skirted for several years: reorganizing the Business Office and hiring a full-time professional executive officer.

Governance: Revisiting the Business Office The Executive Board had an unusually heavy workload during the late 1990s. The As­ sociation moved its business office into privately owned space in Ames in 1994, and severed the remaining ties to Iowa State University. Reuben Buse retired from the Executive Secre­ tary position, and the Board, acting on recommendations in the Strategic Plan, made the commitment to hire a full-time Executive Director. However, the lease on the off-campus space was due to expire on April 1, 1998. Lona Christoffers, manager of the AAEA Business Office, asked for guidance in the search for new space. The question of owning or building space was still on the table, and likely to become a part of any negotiations-for rented space. Vernon Eidman (Minnesota) and Ralph Christy (Cornell) reported that the search for funding to purchase or build space had not gone well. Learning this, Jerry Skees (Kentucky) brought forward a motion asking Christof­ fers to search for space available for lease for up to five years. Space on South Duff Avenue in Ames - not far from MEA's first off-campus address on Buckeye Avenue - was located and secured. Everyday activities of the Association continued without interruption through the changes. It was a busy time for the organization. Harry Ayer (Arizona) completed his tenure as editor of Choices and began to work on a similar magazine "Euro-Choices" being developed by the European Society of Agricultural Economics. Executive Board member Robert Taylor (Auburn University) suggested an essay contest to parallel the highly successful contest held in 1946, 19 and Richard Shumway (Washington State University) introduced a motion to put abstracts of all selected papers, organized symposia, and free sessions as well as minutes of business meetings online on the Association's web page. 20 In addition to making the online materials widely and easily accessible, this would make room for approximately 75 addi­ tional pages of technical material in each volume of the journal. The questions, suggestions and decisions from and about the Association's special in­ terest sections did not stop. In late 1999, President John Antle (Montana State University) reported that some sections were questioning their relationship with other sections and with the Executive Board. Some wanted to send a voting member to meetings of the Board. The Executive Board responded by indicating that all members of the Association were welcome to attend any Board meetings, but they would be present as "guests" - no voting privilege was offered. 21

19 The idea for the contest came from the AAEA Foundation Board. Taylor was the Executive Board's liaison to the Foundation Board, so he brought the proposal to the Executive Board. There was some ambiguity regarding which board should move ahead with the proposal. 20 The expectation was that the full text of papers would be available from AgEcon Search, the Association's digital library maintained by the Waite and McGraw Libraries at the University of Minnesota. 21 Interestingly, the Strategic Plan suggested that the Executive Board expand in size to allow the sections to have an increased voice in the Association's decision-making process. Pursuing this suggestion would require changes in the organization's bylaws. CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members 181

The desire to hire a trained and experienced Executive Director cut across all other issues. From time-to-time, one or another AAEA member would suggest to the govern­ ing board that the time had come to hire a professional manager; C.D. Kearl (Cornell), for example, expressed this desire as early as 1964. From that time forward, the Executive Committees spent so much time discussing the possibility that in 1971, Executive Board member James Hildreth (Farm Foundation) moved that hiring an Executive Secretary not be discussed for" ... a few more years, or until the financial position of the AAEA can dearly justify the action." The motion passed, putting the issue to rest for the time being. 22 After that, the Association created its own Business Office and moved forward with volunteer and part-time help until the 1981-1994, period when Sydney James, Ray Beneke, and Reuben Buse took their turns as Secretary-Treasurer or, in Buse's case, as Executive Secretary of the organization. Even with Hildreth's motion in place, the search for full-time leadership continued.23 Finally, on October 9, 1997, AAEA President Walter Armbruster (Farm Foundation) initi­ ated a conference call to the voting members of the Executive Board, to discuss the search for an Executive Director. Armbruster turned the call over to Ralph Christy (Cornell), chair­ man of the search committee, who indicated that the September/October 1997 issue of the AAEA Newsletter included a job announcement for the position.24 Christy then asked the Board to hire Linda Shinn of the Consensus Management Group to assist in the search. The hope was to interview prospective candidates during the winter meetings in Chicago, so Christy asked Shinn to develop a preliminary list of potential applicants by November 15 - just weeks away. Armbruster realized that this was too litcle lead time, so the Executive Board tentatively scheduled an interview meeting for February'20-21, 1998. Interviews and negotiations with applicants for the Executive Director position contin­ ued through the late winter and early spring of 1998. In the end, Donna French Dunn ac­ cepted the position, 25 and her first direct interaction with the Association came at a meeting of the Foundation Board in late April. She later attended the summer meeting in Salt Lake City in July 1998, before moving to Ames as the first full-time Executive Director of the AAEA. At the time, the Association had 3,511 members and an annual operating budget of approximately $1.2 million.

Strategic Plan - 2000 The reassessment activities recommended in the 1997-98 Strategic Plan continued into the following years. In October 2000, President Bruce Gardner (Maryland) appointed the "Priorities and Governance Committee" and stated its charge thus:

22 Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting, American journal ofAgriculture Economics (53:941) December 1971. Emphasis added. 23 What was originally the Secretary-Treasurer became the Executive Secretary during Buse's tenure in the job. As his term was ending, the Board (in consultation with a search firm) decided that the more modern title "Executive Director" would be more suitable for a new professional manager coming into the job. The change in name caused two problems. First, the Association's Constitution called for an Executive Secretary. A vote of the membership in the summer of 1998 made the change. More importantly, some early advertisements for the position had advertised for an Executive Secretary; not an Executive Director. This problem required some special attention. 24 Christy also noted to the group that the job description asked individuals to apply for the job of Executive Sec­ retary rather than Executive Director. 25 Dunn held a MA degree in agricultural economics from the University of Vermont and a BS degree in plant science from the University of Maryland. Before accepting the job with AAE.A, she was Director of Membership and Communications for the U.S. Grains Council. The National Milk Producers Association had also employed her for a time. 182 CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members

The Priorities and Governance Committee is to advise the AAEA Executive Board on how to implement the "big tent" vision ofAAEA, keeping in consid­ eration the services that AAEA should provide to the fall range ofthe member­ ship. The Committee, in considering the "big tent," should include the issues ofenhancing the diversity ofAAEA and the sense that all members are fal/,y appreciated by AAEA and can influence AAEA policies and programs. This agenda should lead eventual/,y to recommendations in governance in such areas as representation on committees, the Board, and AAEA programs. The Committee wouldpay attention to the Strategic Plan as it has been developed, but would not be bound by it and may recommend amendments to it.26

The ten-member committee was to report its findings and recommendations during the 2001 summer meetings.27 Before the committee developed its report, Robert Taylor (Auburn), speaking as chairman of the Board's Finance Committee, informed the Executive Board that the Association had been operating at a loss since 1997 - a period of four years. 28 The Finance Committee recommended the elimination of one Business Office position, a $10 increase in dues, a $25 increase in registration fees at the annual meeting, an increase of $25 per page in page charges in the two journals, a reduction from 4 to 3 in the num­ ber of issues published by Choices, suspending support of ag-related associations (CAST, COSSA, etc.), and several staff-related reductions. The Board immediately adopted most of the economizing activities The Priorities and Governance Committee reported to the Board at the 2001 summer meetings in Chicago. The report, primed in the minutes of the Chicago meeting, ran to 80 pages. 29 In many ways, its content paralleled the 1997-98 Strategic Plan. It provided advice on responsiveness and efficiency, as well as making certain that the activities of the Associa­ tion fit the needs of the members. The report examined those parts of the Association that were performing well, and pointed out some areas that were not performing up to expecta­ tions. The consideration of "underserved groups" of agricultural economists was a major theme. The committee named five such groups: (1) economists working in small non-land grant colleges and universities, (2) economists working outside of the United States, (3) economists employed in business and industry, (4) economists employed in non-ERS feder­ al agencies, and (5) individuals who had earned BS (BA) or MS (MA) degrees in economics, agricultural economics, or related fields. The Committee seemed insistent that the Associa­ tion find some way to bring these groups into the big tent.

26 Available in context online at http://www.aaea.org/fund/docs/Aug200l.pd£ The paragraph as quoted appears on page 12 of the PDF file. It is set off by italics in the original. 27 The committee members were Ron Knutson (Texas A&M), Cathy Kling (Iowa State), Julie Caswell (Massa­ chusetts), Dan Bernardo (Kansas State), MatthewT. Holt (North Carolina), Dawn Thilmany (Colorado), Nancy Anders Norton (Albany State), Mark D. Lange (National Cotton Council), Ralph D. Christy (Cornell), and Walt Armbruster (Farm Foundation). 28 Minutes of the January 7, 2001 AAEA Executive Board Meeting online at http://www.aaea.org/fund/docs/ aaeamins0l-01.cfm. 29 The committee report is online at http://www.aaea.org/fund/docs/Aug200l.pd£ CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members 183

The committee took other actions as well. It expanded the functions of the long-stand­ ing Professional Activities Committee to include the development of new products, and it argued for the appointment of a "Meeting Committee" - partially to take some of the plan­ ning burden off the Executive Board, and partially to extend the planning process to allow representation from the sections.30

Coping With Reality Six years passed between the time Armbruster applied for the Kellogg grant and the time the Priorities and Governance Committee made its extensive report. The intervening years brought many suggestions and recommendations to committees, to editors, to officers, to the Foundation, to the Business Office, and to the Executive Board. The leadership, though its members changed each year, struggled to find ways to revitalize and maintain member interests. As it had done before, it turned inward to existing activities in an effort to improve or adjust the Association's products and services. Publications remained important, but also very expensive, products. The Association entered the 21st Century with four periodical publications: The technically sophisticated American journal ofAgricultural Economics, the applied economics journal Review ofAgri­ cultural Economics, the popularly oriented Choices magazine, and the member-oriented The Exchange (formerly The AAEA Newsletter). All were expensive, but the technology available through the electronic age made it possible to deliver any or all of them online. The decision eventually taken was to put them online, as a free good for members. Hard copies would be available for a modest charge, assessed as part of a member's dues. In addition, many public and university libraries made the printed materials available online to students and other "authorized" patrons. Choices: The Magazine ofFood, Farm, and Resource Issues. The magazine required special attention. It came into being in 1986, carrying the great hope that it would be widely read and generate its own wide, non-member subscription base. The secondary hope was that through it, many non-economists would come to understand how agricultural economists provided input to the nation's policy agenda. The magazine began under the editorship of Lyle Schertz (USDA). Schertz had a vision of a 40,000-person mailing list that included es­ sentially all persons whose private or public life touched agriculture. In 1993, the editorship shifted to Harry Ayer (Arizona), who expanded the subscription list and generated support from several USDA agencies. Ayer also published a very popular review issue called The Best ofChoices and a special issue to anticipate the turn of the 21 st Century. In spite of Ayer's suc­ cesses, however, the magazine did not cover its costs during his tenure. After seven successful years as editor, Ayer turned the magazine over to Paul Bark­ ley (Washington State). During three years under Barkley's editorship, production costs increased, the magazine was "outsourced" to a publishing firm, where it faced technical difficulties and financial difficulties so severe that only three issues appeared in two of the three years, 2000-2002. The Finance Committee came to grips with the problem by making Choices into an online magazine and moving the editorship to Peter Barry (Illinois) and then to a team of editors at Texas A&M.

30 The intention was nor to give every section a sear on the Meeting Planning Committee. Instead, some mecha­ nism was to be found to provide for the sections to join together and elect (select) a given number of representatives to the committee. 184 CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members

The magazine continues as an electronic journal, even though many yearn for the re­ turn of a hard copy, 48-page magazine reaching their mailbox four times each year. For bet­ ter or worse, the Association's leadership considers the cost simply too high The Exchange (formerly the AAEA Newsletter). The Exchange began as an inexpensive medium used to convey "soft material" to members. It offered space for "viewpoints," short letters, or comments for readers to use in a way similar to the way newspaper readers use letters to the editor. For a time, readers used this space to express opinions regarding the performance and progress of the Association and of the discipline, but few of these have appeared in recent years. 31

The Foundation Great changes came to the AAEA Foundation and the relationship between the Foun­ dation and the Executive Board. By 2004, the Foundation, put in place in 1985 as a fund­ raising arm of the Association, had accumulated assets with a market value of about $1.2 million. The money, allocated to special activities and projects under strict spending rules, funded an immense diversity of activities for the Association and its members. The Founda­ tion had its own Board of Directors, and a Projects Committee made up of members of the Foundation Board made spending decisions. The Foundation Board made some decisions of its own, but it most often allocated money in response to proposals from individual members, sections, or the Executive Board. The Foundation Board typically met two times per year to discuss the continuing accumulation of funds and to make decisions regarding which proposals to support. The financial problems of the parent organization were particularly hard on the Foun­ dation. The loss in members eroded the pool of potential contributors; the falling financial markets of the early years of the 21 st Century reduced the value of the accumulated assets; and the number of people willing to be honorees of "appreciation clubs" declined. 32 In short, like the Association itself, the Foundation had less to work with as the mem­ bership shrank.33 In addition, questions arose about whether the Association needed two executive boards meeting several times each year. Following Linda Shinn's Management Audit suggestion, the Executive Board began to examine the possibility of merging the two governing boards. Alan Randall (Ohio), former president of the AAEA Foundation, chaired an ad hoc Committee on AAEA Foundation Governance. The instruction was to report alternative plans on Foundation governance by the time of the summer meeting in 2005. The commit­ tee report provided a limited number of alternatives. They were: 1. Use professional fundraisers and managers. Hire a professional firm to solicit and allocate the money needed to support the Foundation's activities.

31 All of the journals and published products of the Association have at one time or another encouraged readers ro use space to express opinions about subjects related to agriculture economics. The early years of the "Notes" section of the AJAE saw heavy use, but similar opportunities in the other publications resulted in only modest use. 32 The ''Appreciation Club" explained in Chapter 13, is a small, single-purpose club organized to collect money for the Foundation by asking members to make donations in the honoree's name. Certain levels of donations are required to start such a club and a higher level of accumulated donations is required to "endow" a club. By 2008, thirty-seven such clubs were in place. 33 Membership in almost all professional associations was declining in the 1990s and early 2000s. Membership in the AEA for example fell from 20,606 to 18,067 between 1985 and 2005. Funding for graduate students, fewer new faculty positions, and newer ways to interact all had negative effects on th.e need and usefulness of professional societies and face-to-face networking. CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members 185

2. Redesign the governance structure of the Foundation using one of these options: a. Retain a separate independently operating Foundation with its own governing board. Reduce the number of governing board members. b. Absorb the Foundation Board into the MEA Executive Board, transferring all responsibilities and obligations of the Foundation Board, including commit­ ments to donors and fundraisers, to the Executive Board.34

Mittelhammer (Washington State) introduced a motion to accept plan 2b for discus­ sion. After some parliamentary maneuvers, the item went to a task force for a final decision. Subsequently, in the spring of 2006, the issue went to the membership for approval. The members used a write-in vote to pass the option, and the governing responsibilities of the Foundation Board passed to the Executive Board. A newly formed "Foundation Endow­ ment Committee" made decisions on the allocation and distribution of Foundation monies. Members learned the results of the vote in the 2006 Foundation Annual Report where the opening paragraph of Foundation President Oral Capp's (Texas A & M) report said: MEA has taken a significant step in streamlining and improving our utilization of the valued resources used to support our MEA Founda- ► tion activities. In March 2006, the Foundation Governing Board was dissolved by majority vote of the MEA membership. Beginning in the 2006-2007 fiscal year, the Foundation will be governed by the MEA Executive Board. Administration of Foundation activities will be the re­ sponsibility of the MEA Foundation Endowment Committee, a stand­ ing committee of the Association, which will make recommendations to the Executive Board regarding solicitation and use of funds. MEA remains loyal to the purposes and designations of all charitable contri­ butions to the MEA Foundation. The goals of the Foundation remain unchanged. Our commitment to assure that all financial resources of the Foundation support these goals is unwavering. I trust that the member­ ship will continue to support the mission of the MEA Foundation. 35

In summary, the period between the late 1990s and the early years of the 21 st Century was one of introspection and change. During this time, the Association made room for sec­ tions within a big tent, acquired a new "applied" journal, unbundled its publications, and put them all online. It merged its two governing boards into one, and recognized the fact that professional management was almost a necessity for a professional organization of its size and complexity. Still, the membership dropped.

34 Online at http://www.aaea.org/fund/docs/Executive Board Minutes0705.pd£ 35 Online at http://www.aaea.org/found/ docs/Annua!Report2005-06. pd£ 186 CHAPTER FIFTEEN • Expanding Boundaries, Fewer Members

The Summer Meeting As was the case during the Association's very early years, money became a problem. The costs associated with the organization's products (primarily its publications) continued to rise, and the constant reduction in membership brought reductions in revenue.36 Few cost­ saving opportunities remained. The Executive Board had to look at what it thought was its last remaining opportunity for cost saving: the annual meeting. The annual meeting had always been a highly valued offering. Members used it as a meeting place for networking, giving papers, listening to analyses and ideas, checking the job market, and socializing. In almost every year since the 1947 meeting at Green Lake, Wis­ consin, the summer meeting occupied four days. With few exceptions, the meeting began with a reception on the first evening. 37 Days two and three were full days for professional and technical discussions, and the meeting ended at noon on day four after a morning of technical sessions. Evenings of days two and three were reserved for banquets, receptions, and other "business-and-pleasure" events. As the years passed, section meetings, special-topic workshops, organized symposia, free sessions, and other special meetings required more and more breakout rooms for technical sessions. By the early 1980s, speakers began to request more sophisticated audio and visual equipment for their presentations. The added meeting rooms and the needed electronic equipment became significant elements of the total cost of the meeting. In addition, the final morning always found members leaving for the airport to catch early morning or mid-day flights for the trip home. The last morning thus brought less professional discourse, with no commensurate reduction in expenses. The Executive Board began to think of it as expend­ able - the meetings could end after the second full day (day three, as previously described). 38 This 2½-day option was tried on an experimental basis at the 2007 meeting in Portland, Oregon. Although some potential speakers failed to gain a spot on the shortened program, the decision proved to be cost effective, so plans called for a 2½-day session in Orlando in 2008 and in Milwaukee in 2009. It appears that future meetings will fit into the 2½-day time period.

36 By the 1980s and 1990s, dues increased without the serious complaints associated with such actions in the early years. In 2000, dues for regular membership reached $90 per year - low by comparison with other academic/ professional societies, but the Board of Directors always approached an increase in dues with certain trepidation. Economists after all, liked ro economize. 37 Although the evening reception on the first day was the first official activity, many committees and informal groups planned and held meetings during the morning and afternoon of the first day. 38 The problem was more severe than this. The extreme pressure for academics ro publish meant that a high per­ centage of the registrants attended the meeting solely ro present a paper, not to listen to someone else's paper. After presenting their paper they felt free ro go home, and many chose to do so. By the third day, few "listeners" were available to fill the seats in the meeting rooms. CHAPTER SIXTEEN Nearing the Century Mark

The 100th anniversary of AAEA's founding and the 21 st Century hove into view at about the same time for the Association's members. In the closing years of the 20th Century and the first few years of the 21st, change after change reshaped the organization in response to the intellectual and scholarly diversity among the members, as well as the tight budgets brought on in part by the decrease in member numbers. Developing an independent business office, hiring trained personnel to run it, shortening by one day the format of the annual meeting, and merging the organization's two governing boards were just some of the highlights. Few members, though, knew what changes still lay ahead: Hiring a commercial man­ agement firm to take over activities formerly handled by the Association's Business Office, changing the Association's name, and reviving a strong interest in "outreach" to audiences outside the profession. As with other changes and modifications, there had been signs and portents of these in earlier months and years. Now they came in rapid succession.

Hiring Out the Business and Management Functions For years, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) and its pre­ decessor associations relied on elected volunteers for maintenance and management of its programs. Hiring an executive director and paying the costs associated with a business office proved an expensive and sometimes inefficient activity. Even after selling a part of its excess capacity to other organizations and societies, the business office could not sustain itself In 2002, Ron Mittelhammer (Washington State), then a member of the Executive Board, brought forward a motion asking that the Association form a subsidiary business, ''Associa­ tion Support, Inc.," to sell business management services to other organizations and societ­ ies. While ACCI, WAEA, AERE, and SAEA continued to use the AAEA business office on a contractual basis, no other association or society purchased services from Association Support, Inc. The problems surrounding the Business Office came to a head in late 2006. President Steve Buccola (Oregon) used his front-page space in the November/December 2006 issue of The Exchange to inform members of actions taken by the Executive Board. He wrote: The Executive Board has looked closely at ways of improving the effi­ ciency and flexibility of the Association's business operations. Alternatives include merging our office with other professional societies, outsourc­ ing selected services or outsourcing all of them. After careful study, the Executive Board has voted to close our Ames office and to contract all administrative functions to a leading association management company, Executive Director Inc. (EDI) of Milwaukee .... Before selecting EDI, we circulated a detailed Request for Proposals and carefully examined the six bids received. A Search Committee consisting of Otto Doering, Per Pinstrup-Andersen, Jill McCluskey, Yvonne Bennett and me then further

187 188 CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark

investigated - and conducted site visits to - the top two of these six orga­ nizations. The Search Committee and AAEA Board voted unanimously for EDI.1

The contract negotranons with EDI were suc­ cessful and AAEA's business office began to transfer activities to its Milwaukee office in December 2006. The move was complete by September 2007, after the annual meeting in Portland, Oregon. David Baumann, chiefoperating officer of EDI, assumed the tide of Ex­ ecutive Director of AAEA and EDI employee, Kristin Agard, became Assistant Director. She advanced to be­ come Executive Director in late summer, 2008.2

2008 - Another Name Change No name describes accurately the membership of the AAEA, or the diversity of the work that they do. This was true when the organization began as the American Farm Management Association (1910), it was still true when it became the American Farm Eco- Executive Director, Inc. (EDI) Photograph courtesy nomics Association (1919), and it remained true when ofMEA. it became the American Agricultural Economics Association (1968).3 The problem was the same each time: A short and specific name cannot describe the diverse activities of the orga­ nization's members. One member may devote a career to determining the optimal rotation of crops on a 320-acre Corn Belt farm. Another member may know nothing about these crops, but spend a productive career finding effective ways to consolidate rural schools. A third may know nothing about either crops or rural schools, but find the research tools used by economists useful in solving the production or transportation problems of a large private firm. When the Association was the American Agricultural Economics Association, it described all its members as "agricultural economists." The name did not convey a specific description of who they were or what they did. The only word that made an honest connec­ tion among them was "economics," and that refers to a discipline, not to an organization or

1 Steve Buccola, "Major Changes Ahead for AAEA," The Exchange (28: 1) November/December 2006. At the time of the search, Yvonne Bennett was Executive Director of the Association. 2 The announcement that Agard had become Executive Director appeared in The Exchange, (30:2) September/ October 2008. 3 As early as 1971, only three years after the 1968 change to American Agricultural Economics Association, Hil­ dreth (Farm Foundation) asked for anorher name change, to include rhe word "applied." The suggestion died in committee. "Report of the Professional Activities Committee," American Journal ofAgricultural Economics (53:934- 3 5) December 1971. CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark 189 occupation.4 AB the millennium approached, many members asked the ABsociation's leaders to search for a more descriptive name. Some were adamant enough to threaten to organize a new society if the existing name did not change. 5 Anticipating the seriousness of the problem, President Buccola (Oregon) asked Vernon Eidman (Minnesota) to lead a task force " ... to identify a new name for our fusociation and to submit it to the membership for an up-or-down vote."6 The Task Force began by compil­ ing a list of about 20 possible names, then narrowing the list until only 10 remained. The Task Force then worked with three criteria for a suggested name: it must be accurate, short, and inclusive. The Task Force sent two questionnaires to members. One went to the Association's leadership team (committee members, past officers, editors, etc.), while the other went to the general membership. When combined, the 52.6 percent response from the leadership group and the 38.8 percent response from the general members revealed that: • 64.0 percent of the respondents opposed using the word ''American'' in the name. • 79.9 percent approved using the word "agriculture." • 50.6 percent approved using the word "resource." • 45.3 percent approved using the word "applied." • 38.6 percent approved using the word "food."

The Task Force used this information to form three possible names for a general ballot: • The fusociation of Agriculture and Resource Economics • The Association of Food, Agriculture, and Resource Economics • The Association of Applied Economics

The Executive Board discussed the list and, after a motion by Jill McCluskey (Washing- ton State), re~ised the list of three names to: • The Agriculture and Resource Economics ABsociation • The ABsociation of Food, Agriculture, and Resource Economics • The Agricultural and Applied Economics fusociation

The entire membership then had the opportunity to vote their preferences. Results of the vote appeared on the AAEA website in mid-December 2007. The Name Change Task Force reported that the 36.7 percent response yielded the following results: • The Agricultural and Applied Economics Association received 54.7 percent of the votes. • The Agricultural and Resource Economics fusociation received 20.2 percent of the votes. • The fusociation of Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economists received 25.0 percent of the votes.

4 John Siegfried (Vanderbilt), Secretary of the American Economic Association, discusses this problem by saying economics is like a tree. There is a central stump or column of theory that all economists rely on but after a certain height or degree of specialization is reached, individuals and small groups branch off into such diverse specialties that very little of the central "stump" remains to hold them rogether. Should the small group name the stump or name the narrowly oriented branches? 5 The creation of sections helped some members come ro grips with the problem. The sections provided differen­ tiation within the large body of "agricultural" economists. 6 Steve Buccola, "AAFA Executive Board Takes Action in Long Beach," The Exchange (28:2) September/October 2006. 190 CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark

A note in the May/June 2008 issue of The Exchange announced that "The Agricultural and Applied Economics Association" would become the organization's official name on Au­ gust l, 2008, immediately after the annual meeting at Orlando, Florida.7 The new name seemed to satisfy most of the members. There is no indication that any member or members terminated their membership based on dissatisfaction over the new name. The new name covered those who were content being agricultural economists, as well as those who sought identification using the more generic descriptor "applied economist." The acronym for the Association remained the same (MEA), and the Task Force chose to retain the name of the major journal: The American journal ofAgricultural Economics. The Review of Agricultural Economics The changes continued. The Association took control of the Review ofAgricultural Eco­ nomics in 1997.8 The relatively small regional journal became the Association's outlet for applied or problem solving articles whose authors experienced increasing difficulty gaining acceptance of their work for publication in the AJAE. The first issue of RAE published under the auspices of MEA included eight articles Review o~l Agricultural Ec~i described as ''Applied Analyses," two "Com­ < ====::=::~~ mentaries," and five "Case Studies." In this ,:_ ;.,._ ~ first issue and in those that followed, articles were presented in a straightforward form so that the reader always knew the nature of the problem and the steps the author(s) used to solve it. The case study section frequently included articles that began with some varia­ tion of the phrase, "I found this case study useful in my class ... " There was no serious objection to the journal's name - Review ofAgricultural Economics- but when the American Agricultural Economics Association became the Agricultural and Applied Economics Asso­ ciation, it seemed appropriate to adjust the name of the Review ofAgricultural Economics to help reflect the broadened character and expanded purpose of the Association. A Task Force provided a new name: Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy (AEPP). President Richard Just (Maryland) explained the change in his letter to the members in the January/February 2009 issue of The Exchange: Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy will publish articles that achieve two objectives: [one is] to synthesize, integrate and analyze areas of cur­ rent applied economic research within the mission of the MEA in order to inform the decision-making and policy-making community; and [the other is] to stimulate linkages between sub-fields of agricultural and ap­ plied economics in a way that illuminates and focuses future research

7 The entire name-change process was becoming familiar. The possibility of such a change had been mentioned several times since the last change in 1968. President James Houck appointed a "Name Change Investigation Com­ mittee" in 1993. It collected data and tested a sample ballot before abandoning the effort. President Jean Kinsey repeated the effort in 2001 when she appointed a "Image/Name Change Task Force." The activities of Kinsey's Task Force were similar to those of Houck's, and the effort met a similar end. 8 Prior to this time, the RAE had been sponsored by the North Central Administrative Committee, a committee comprised of the department heads of the departments of agricultural economics at 13 North Central Land Grant Colleges (see Chapter 9). CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark 191

and increases knowledge among researchers about the impact of public policy. The journal's aim is to reframe the breadth of available techni­ cal economic literature to inform future economic research and broader audiences by presenting high quality agricultural and applied economic research in a way that is generally accessible. 9

In addition to the usual lineup of submitted papers, the re-launched journal would henceforth carry two commissioned papers in each issue. In the past, papers presented under MEA sponsorship at the winter ASSA meetings appeared in the old RAE. These papers will now move to the December (proceedings) issue of the AJAE in order to make more pages available for technical materials in the new AEPP, and to solve the practical problem of keep­ ing all proceedings papers in one place. The name change and the modest changes in focus will be in place for 2010.

A Broader Consideration of Outreach In its earliest years, the Association had difficulty finding an effective way to integrate extension and outreach into its purposes and plans of work. 10 The authors of the 1919 Constitution used a portion of Article N to describe three standing committees: one for investigation (research), one for "methods of lecture and laboratory work'' (teaching), and one "to report on extension work." While the wording gives life and content to research and teaching, the extension committee has no named function other than to report.11 The Association's leadership knew that one obligation of the Land Grant System, es­ pecially after passage of the Smith-Lever Act in 1914, called for the results of research and teaching activities at the agricultural colleges to be accessible to a broad range of potential users. Even so, the Land Grant System began almost immediately on a slow but persistent drift toward academics, science, and scholarship. For most of the AAEA's one-hundred years, outreach fought a battle for recognition within the Association.

9 Richard Just, ''A Re-launch of the Review of Agricultural Economics," The Exchange (31:1) January/February 2009. 10 "Extension" and "outreach" are almost synonymous in the literature concerning the history of agriculture in the United States. "Extension'' is the older term that generally refers to university personnel working with individuals or small groups in rural settings. Extension invariably evoked images of the county agent. The tie was so close that in 1948, Norman Rockwell, the American artist famous for capturing common moments in the lives of common people, painted "County Agent" to portray an extension agent helping a young girl and her family learn more abour the girl's calf- most likely her 4-H project. The picture appeared on pages 30-31 of the July 24, 1948 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. The original now hangs in the Nebraska Center for Continuing Education in Lincoln, Nebraska. The newer term, outreach, is not surrounded by the myth of the county agent. It implies a much broader vision for passing information from the university system (or any system involved with information) to the public. When AAEA speaks of or to outreach, it has this broader definition in mind. 11 The significant part of Article IV reads: "There shall be three standing committees appointed annually by the Executive Committee. One of these committees shall consider the lines of investigation best adapted to the needs of the work of farm (management) economics at the present rime and shall suggest to various investigators plans of correlation and cooperation in the work. It shall be the duty of this committee to collect, as far as possible from investigators, the lines of work to be carried out each year. The second committee shall attempt to investigate the methods of lecture and laboratory work in farm (management) economics and to make suggestions to the members of the Association and to colleges intending to organize courses in farm (management) economics. It shall be the duty of the third committee to report on extension work in farm (management) economics. "Taken from The 1919 Constitution as recorded in Volume 1 No. 1 of the Journal ofFarm Economics. It can also be found as part of Ap­ pendix II in this volume. 192 CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark

In most years, the Association had a three to five member extension committee. Like other committees, the Extension Committee had some busy years and some idle years. The committee's grandest performance came in 1984 when it organized and carried out a two­ day symposium, "Strategic Community Development Planning: Extension Service Experi­ ments," held in conjunction with the annual meeting at Ithaca, New York. Officers of the organization, especially editors and meeting planners, continually urged extension personnel to submit manuscripts for possible publication or to suggest themes for sessions at annual meetings. These were not generally forthcoming, and the extension personnel who were members continued to lament the fact that they were not prominent - perhaps not even represented - in the main streams of the Association. 12 In January 1996, Ronald Knudson (Texas A&M), appeared before the Executive Board on behalf of extension economists and the Southern Extension Committee. 13 His objective was to increase the Board's sensi­ tivity to the widely held notion that extension economists did not have access to the full set of opportunities offered by the Association. A popu­ lar and articulate advocate, Knutson made his case in six points: 1. The governance of AAEA is controlled by research professionals primarily for their own benefit. Ronald Knudson Photograph courtesy of 2. There is an imbalance that discriminates against extension AAEA. economists in nominations, awards, and in the selection of Fellows. 3. Little interaction occurs between members of the association's Executive Board and the extension structure. 14 Extension economists feel very little involvement with or fromAAEA. 4. There is a perception that there is no opportunity for extension/applied articles in AJAE. The association needs a separate journal for such articles. 5. The association should create a fast-track method of publishing the results of the work of extension economists and consider including such things as extension luncheons, additional awards, outlook sessions, and sessions related to agricultural policy at annual meetings. 6. Representation on the AAEA Extension Committee should reflect the scale and importance of extension economists in the national economy. 15

12 This point is difficult to document. Extension economists were authors or co-authors of many articles, they chaired sessions at the meetings, and they held positions on other, non-extension committees. It remains true, however, that the researchers dominated the invited paper sessions, the executive boards, and the selected papers sessions. This point is made more confusing by the fact that agricultural economists in the Land Grant schools often held "split appointments," with part of their salaries paid by the teaching or research arm of the college, while another part was paid through the Extension service. 13 The Southern Extension Committee was an informal committee made up of Extension personnel from the Land Grant schools in the South - usually one representative per school. The committee met annually to coordinate activities and to exchange intelligence about what was happening in each of their states. Similar committees existed for research. 14 Knutson did not define or describe "Extension structure." 15 Taken from "Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting," American Agricultural Economics Association (78: 1452- 53) December 1996. This was item #5 in a 25 item agenda. CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark 193

Knutson had grown weary of the perceived second-class-member status for extension economists in the AAEA, and he made a very convincing case for rectifying the problem. The members of the Executive Board heard his appeal, but responded by taking his recom­ mendations "under advisement." 16•17 There is no concrete evidence to indicate that the Executive Board took rapid action in response to the points that Knutson articulated. Minutes of the next few Board meet­ ings show no actions directly favoring extension economists, and the programs of annual meetings in the following years show no special sessions relating to the problem. Forming the Extension Section in 1997 helped, by providing extension workers with a forum for discussing their work and for attracting attention from others. Even more important was the Executive Board's decision to appoint an ad hoc committee and then a Task Force to inquire into the problems and prospects for outreach workers as they related to the ongoing activities of the AAEA.

K-12 - A Different Kind of Outreach Leo Polopolus, AAEA president in 1983, developed the conviction that the citizens , of the United States were essentially illiterate in economics. He thought that most adults had some notion of subjects like chemistry and history, but scarcely a notion at all about economics. He sought to change this. During his presidency, he appointed the Economic Education Committee with John Ikerd (Missouri) as its chairman. The charge to the committee was " ... to improve economic literacy via a program of agricul­ tural economics materials for elementary and secondary students .... " Beginning in 1985, the committee reported at one or more meetings of the Execu- Leo Polopolus Photo- rive Board. Reports in the early years were rather sterile, perhaps because of the almost graph courtesy ofAAEA. total lack of precedent for a task of this kind. By 1984, the committee had had a chance to look at what other scholarly committees and societies were doing; by 1986 the committee had polled the departments of agricultural economics, only to find that fewer than one-third had any educational programs designed for the general public. President Tomek (Cornell) suggested a program similar to an idea fair where ', . individuals could ask questions regarding economics and the subjects dealt with by agricultural economists. In 1991 the committee asked for and was given an invited paper slot, "Toward Increased AAEA Involve­ ment in Economics Education" at the annual meeting. Polopolus presided over a session that had two major papers and one formal discussion. The papers provided information but no real call to action. In 1993, the committee under Mike Ellerbrock's (Virginia Tech) leadership, made contact with the Na- i tional Council on Economic Education, a group that published a magazine, The Senior Economists, for high i school teachers who were actually reaching economics. AAEA's Economic Education Committee received an invitation to provide materials and "activity plans" for publication in the magazine. For whatever reason, the materials were not published. In 1995, the committee received an invitation to write a series of articles for Choices. Again, the idea was sound, but the articles were either not written or were not published. The Economic Education Committee was apparently an idea whose rime came and went. The available records of the Association carry no mention of the effort after 1996. Even though the Association gave up on the project, Mike Ellerbrock came back to the subject in 1997 to provide a review of a series of videos prepared by commodity groups as a means of presenting "agriculture" to pre- and early scholars. His review (AjAE, 79: May 1997, pages 690-91) is not charitable.

16 A more complete version of Knutson's appearance before the Executive Board appears in "Minutes [of the Gov­ erning Board]," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (78:1452-53) December 1996. Knutson was not the first member to raise questions regarding the place and role of extension in the Association. His was perhaps the best organized and complete. Knutson went on to become a member of the Executive Board (1998-2001), and was made a Fellow of the Association in 2003. 17 Charles Beer (USDA) made a similar appeal to the Executive Committee in 1974. In a lengthy report, he asked for more participation by extension economists in the AAEA's activities. Specifically, he asked for more extension personnel on the program, more extension authors in the Journal, more extension awards, and more committee assignments. "Report of the Extension Committee," American journal ofAgricultural Economics (56: 1231-32) De­ cember 1974. 194 CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark

In July 2007, President Steve Buccola (Oregon) appointed another ad hoc Committee on Outreach, with Steve Holbrook (Farm Foundation) serving as chair. 18 The committee reported to the Executive Board in July 2007. Holbrook emphasized that the report was preliminary, but he also assured the Board that the committee felt strongly that outreach should be a "core element" of MEA.19 He suggested that being a core element required a multi-product outreach strategy, an outreach management team, and a commitment of financial resources. The Task Force also " ... encouraged the Executive Board to retain the Choices 'brand' even though the (physical, at any rate) magazine was gone. The brand continued to be a useful identifying characteristic of the organization. "20 The earlier Choices had been an effort to make the work of agricultural economists available to a wide general audience. The slick­ paper magazine received high marks from its audience within the profession, but it failed in its anticipated role in reaching out to a broader non-member readership. The last hard-copy issue of the magazine was printed and released in early 2004. The Association spent time searching for a new editorial team to revive the magazine as an on­ line-only outreach publication. In July, a team of five Texas A&M agricultural economists (Bruce McCarl, Oral Capps, Rudolofo Nayga, Joe Outlaw, and John Penson) agreed to take on the task. The revived magazine was up and online by the third quarter of2004.21 In their first issue, the new editorial team promised a magazine that would group articles under four headings: • Agriculture 'and Trade • Resources and the Environment • Consumers and Markets • Agribusiness and Finance

The editors announced plans to put materials relating to at least two of the four topic areas in each issue. Submitted articles on a range of subjects, as well as a section called "The Washington Scene," acted as supplements in each issue. The online outreach vehicle grew in popularity - and in cost. Given the uncertainty surrounding the future of the magazine, the Texas team of editors completed their three-year promise, but did not continue with the project beyond their last scheduled issue, released in the second quarter of 2007.22 No issue appeared in the balance of 2007. The continued aggravations and uncertainties surrounding the magazine caused the Executive Board to terminate all funding after the Texas A&M editorial team completed their terms.23

18 Others on rhe committee included Jason Lusk (Oklahoma), Henry Bahn (USDA), Steve Turner (Mississippi), Damona Doye (Oklahoma), Stan Johnson (Nevada), Christine Wilson (Kansas), and Julie Caswell (Massachu­ setts). 19 Minutes of rhe Executive Board Meeting, July 27-28, 2007. Item #XI. On line at http://www.aaea.org/fund/ docs/MinutesJuly07_2007.pdf. 20 Executive Board Minutes July 27-28, 2007. Item XI 21 The plan was to put rhe revived magazine online. The early issues were put online as PDF files so members who wanted a "hard copy'' could print their own. This practice continues. 22 Even though the Texas editors stepped aside, it bears telling that rhe magazine continued to grow during their term. The number of"hits" to the magazine's website approached 100,000 during rheir final year with the publica­ tion. 23 Even though moving online, the magazine remained a huge expense with costs estimated at $20 per member per issue. CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark 195

In mid-2008, Walter Armbruster (Farm Foundation) and Clement Ward (Oklahoma) took over the online Choices. They strengthened the outreach mission of the magazine by introducing news sheets called "Policy Issues," the intent of which was to expand readers' understanding of the critical issues facing agriculture in today's volatile economy. They also launched a department called "Shared Outreach Materials," for teachers and outreach mem­ bers searching for additional material to use in their presentations. Perhaps the most impressive indication of the resurgent outreach efforts came from the AAEA newsletter (The Exchange). Between the autumn of 1998 and through the 1999 is­ sues, each issue of the newsletter carried a brief story- usually no more than two paragraphs - on an outreach-related theme. Almost all of these commentaries focused on C-FARE's efforts to make known the results of work done by agricultural economists. These short commentaries disappeared from the newsletter in 2003, and did not reappear until late 2008 when Armbruster wrote several newsletter articles to describe the value of the new and revised Choices Magazine and the work of the Extension Section. Similarly, President Otto Doering (Purdue) used his front-page article in the January/ February 2009 issue of The Exchange to explain the new emphasis on outreach that was com­ ing through the Extension Section, through the new and re-formatted Choices, and through the newly formed Outreach Committee. Eroding Membership By the time the organization's first century ended, the Agricultural and Applied Eco­ nomics Association bore only faint resemblance to the 1910 American Farm Management Association. There are only estimates of the number of members from the organization's early days, based on attendance at the 1910 USDA Summer Graduate School held at Ames, Iowa. Two hundred ten student-scholars attended the sessions at Ames, but these came from all disciplines. The number interested in farm management, and in an association for those with that interest was surely no more than forty. Accurate counting starts about 1919, when receipts from dues indicated that about 560 individuals belonged to the Association. The officers had an informal goal of reaching 750 members by the time of the annual meeting in October of that year. However, it took until the mid-1930s to reach that goal. In 2009, membership numbers stood at about 2,300, but between 1910 and the 100th year, member­ ship soared to as many as 4,934, and stayed above 4,000 for all but five years between 1966 and 1993.

Journals The journal was another matter. In 1919, the first year of publication, the October issue was the largest issue with 61 pages. In 1920, the first three issues had about 60 pages each but the final issue of the year dropped to 27 pages because, as the editor reported, the As­ sociation did not have enough money to publish more.24 One goal of the early editors was to publish all of the papers given at the annual meeting sometime during the following year, a

24 Informal evidence in the un-catalogued correspondence held in files at the National Agricultural Library sug­ gests that the editor did not publish more because he had no papers or comments that he thought were worthy of being published. 196 CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark goal they usually met. 25 The journal did not reach the 100-page milestone until 1924, when the January issue was expanded by the inclusion of minutes from business meetings held by the Executive Committee and other business-related material. In 2008, the journal included 1,375 pages, with nearly 1,350 devoted to technical mat­ ters. In addition, the Association's second journal, the Review ofAgricultural Economics, car­ ried another 750 pages of technical material. The online materials in Choices, The Exchange, Policy Issues, and Shared Outreach Materials supplemented these print and online journals. Taken together, these publications carried significantly more material per member than had been available a century - or even a decade - earlier.

Annual Meetings The annual meetings have been a steady and eagerly anticipated feature on the Associa­ tion's annual calendar. Prior to the Second World War, the annual sessions were usually held in conjunction with the meetings of the American Economic Association. This was a reason­ able arrangement at the time. Travel was not an important part of an agricultural economist's job; information, even technical information, spread through newspapers, the mails, and through radio broadcasts. The annual meetings, then as now, had a high social content and were valuable simply for this purpose. (Today, members call this "networking.") Many economics-related societies and groups met in conjunction with the AEA, and the larger ones - including the AFMA and the AFEA- frequently took part in planning joint sessions while avoiding the task of planning the details of a complex and many-faceted meeting. World War II changed all that. The war interrupted the rhythm and sequencing of the meeting, and caused several cancellations even after all the planning was complete. After the war, the AFEA - about to become the AAEA - set a new course. It would plan and conduct its own meeting during the summer, and would use the large annual AEA gathering for a smaller set of AAEA sessions. The summer meetings were mostly on college campuses, or at conference facilities in rustic settings. This placed a significant burden on a cluster of agricul­ tural economists, usually the faculty of a nearby academic department. Eventually, the time cost of holding the campus or "rustic" meetings became too great, and the officers of the Association decided to move the meetings to commercial conference facilities. This required considerable adjustment. Many member-families viewed the campus and campground set­ tings as places for a family vacation - hardly the image the original leaders had when they met after the USDA Summer Graduate School in 1910. The meetings themselves changed demonstrably in content as well. In the early years the small membership gathered to hear one speaker at a time address one subject at a time. In 1920, the first year for which accurate records are available, the newly formed American Farm Economics Association met along with five other agricultural-related societies at the Auditorium Hotel in Chicago.26 The meeting lasted through November 11, 12, and 13. In that time, 10 speakers including discussants spoke to the farm management group.

25 This statement is difficult to verify. Comparing journal contents against the preliminary programs of the annual meeting is only partially successful. Some papers change titles between the planning stage and the final delivery at the meeting. Others are likely pulled from publication because of editor or author dissatisfaction with the final paper. 26 The groups related ro agriculture were the Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, the American Farm Economic Association, the National Country Life Association, the Association of State Depart­ ments of Agriculture, the Federated Farm Bureaus, and the American Society ofAgronomy. All except the National Country Life Association stayed at the Auditorium Hotel. CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark 197

In 2008, the AAEA met jointly with the American Council on Consumer Information at the Caribe Royale Hotel in Orlando, Florida. Over 1,300 members were present and during the 2½-day session, they had the opportunities presented by five workshops, seven principal papers (major papers invited for presentation), nearly 100 selected papers, and 150 posters. In addition, many of the sections and association committees held meetings to discuss existing initiatives and to make plans for the coming years. The meetings at the century mark had the same general purpose as the meetings in the 1920s and 1930s, but the scope, the pace, and the intensity was much greater. The Association had become much more complex. 198 CHAPTER SIXTEEN • Nearing the Century Mark CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Many Acronyms, One Association: AA.EA at One Hundred

One-hundred years and still functioning as an important institution in fields related to ag­ riculture and economics! That is a milestone worth celebrating by any standard, but it also raises a number of questions. How did the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association get where it is? What is it doing now? And how long will it continue in its present form and role? Previous chapters have provided some answers to the first question; the Association has provided a century-long setting for its members to meet, communicate, and publish at least parts of their work. During the AAEA's first century, its members served in high positions in government and made notable contributions to research and analysis. They taught the application of economic analysis at great universities and small colleges, and they directed large and respected outreach programs that at one time or another could have been used by a considerable proportion of the population. The Association has shown that it has the flexibility and resilience to adapt to changing circumstances. Farm management, the discipline that began the Association and guided it through its early years, was a relatively new area of study in 1910. It had not yet become a central feature in either university systems or government agencies. Even so, at a 1910 meet­ ing in Ames, Iowa, several qualified experts in farm management organized the American Farm Management Association (AFMA). At the same time, a broader subject matter, agricultural economics, was coalescing through the activities of a small and specialized group of economists with interests in agricul­ ture. The group existed within the American Economic Association (AEA), and functioned as a highly informal organization called the American Association of Agricultural Econo­ mists (AAAE). At first, the AFMA and AAAE recognized each other, but maintained what they considered an appropriate distance. The farm management group viewed themselves as "private economists," because their work centered on private farms and private problems that most often had private solutions. 1 Members of the agricultural economics group viewed themselves as "public economists," because the problems they researched required them to study in the public - often in the political - arena. After watching each other from a distance for nearly a decade, the two groups admitted their overlapping interests and began to court each other. By 1918, all the pieces were in place for their merger in 1919. The merger resulted in a 560-member association that took the name American Farm Economic Association (AFEA) .2 The AFEA began immediately to publish the journal ofFarm Economics. It also developed a system of committees to pursue its stated and implied purposes, and scheduled annual meetings, frequently held jointly with the AEA. A review of the titles of the articles published in the early JFE indicates the

1 The terms "private problems," and "private decisions" are used in a special way. Many farms may suffer the same private problem. The action to take regarding the problem is also private in the sense that each farm owner or manager makes the individual decision about using or not using the prescribed action or solution. 2 Placing the membership at 560 is the result of some reasoned guesswork. Definitive records of early membership are not available. It seems likely that the merged group included many more farm management economists than agricultural economists. The name likely resulted from the realization that the term "farm economist" was a more general and more recognizable term. 199 200 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN • Many Acronyms, One Association: AAEA at One Hundred

increasing diversity of the members' interests. Even in this early era, the general drift was toward more and different topics, more and different clienteles, and more and different ways to apply economic theory and method to the solution of real world problems faced by the broadly defined agricultural industry. In the early years, members used sketchy data and inference to answer problems relating to farms and farming. Farm or enterprise budgeting came next, along with efforts to help make data and data analysis more accurate. As time passed, agricultural economists came to understand and use sophisticated statistical tools, to make research results widely available, and to work with policy makers, primarily at the state and federal levels. By the end of the 20th century (and near the end of its own century of existence), many members were using the tools of econometrics to manipulate data and to learn new things about issues that faced them. By the Association's 50th year, neither the original name, American Farm Management Association, nor the name adopted by the merged association, American Farm Economics Association, proved adequate as a descriptor of the members or of what they did. In 1968 and after much discussion, the Association, now with more than 4,000 members, adopted a new name: The American Agricultural Economics Association (MEA). The now familiar name-change process was repeated for many of the same reasons - increased diversity of interests and skills among the members - in 2008 when a fourth name, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (MEA) was adopted. Still remaining open was the seemingly perennial question: Can the Association's name ever catch up to the interests and activities of its members?

Back to the Beginning The path from 1910 to 2010 has not been easy. The organizational meeting in Ames took place among a group of academics. To many this meant, or at least implied, that the new organization was chiefly for academics; agricultural economists from industry and gov­ ernment need not apply for membership, and in large measure they did not. From the beginning, the great majority of authors of the journal's articles, as well as the organizers and speakers for the annual meetings, came from college and university faculties. The Associa­ tion and its journal began a slow but persistent drift toward academics, and toward scientific inquiry. For the first half-century of its life, the AFEA enjoyed almost constant growth in its membership. In the 1920s, agriculture was continuing to expand on reclaimed land, newly irrigated land, and marginal land that became productive because of scientific advances such as the use of chemical fertilizers and pest control. Prices of agricultural commodities were low, and poverty was widespread in rural America. These problems led the colleges and uni­ versities that employed agricultural economists to expand their faculties, and the problems invited more universities to establish departments that required the services of agricultural economists. When the U.S. farm economy fell into a lingering economic depression in the 1920s, the United States government took positive and direct action through newly es­ tablished commissions, administrative units, and agencies specifically charged with finding ways to relieve the economic distress of the nation's rural areas. One immediate outcome was a need for hundreds of additional workers trained in agricultural economics. More university-level students enrolled in agricultural economics programs. Membership in the AFEA increased, the journals published more articles, and some members served in highly influential and sensitive government positions. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN • Many Acronyms, One Association: AAEA at One Hundred 201

The increase in need for agricultural economists persisted through the Great Depres­ sion and Dust Bowl years. le slackened slightly during the early 1940s (the World War II years), then regained momentum as federal agricultural policy began to become a permanent part of the nation's political and economic landscape. The increase in numbers of members was boosted again after the war when the armed forces reduced manpower, releasing indi­ viduals to pursue careers in civilian life. Some chose to study agricultural economics, and membership in the Association soared to record highs in the 1960s, 1970s, and the early­ to-mid 1980s. During this five-decade period (1920-1970), specialists in agricultural economics made great progress in problem solving. More data became available, and progress in mathemat­ ics, statistics, and data processing helped agricultural economists find new ways co approach what had once been intractable problems. The increased activity offered additional oppor­ tunity for many more agricultural economises, and therefore for new members of the AFEA. The United States government, many land grant universities, individual states, and many specialized industrial and commercial firms hired agricultural economists, and these agricul­ tural economists gravitated toward membership in the AFEA. In order to serve its growing membership, the AFEA itself grew through an expanded committee structure, a more comprehensive annual meeting, and special-purpose work­ shops and seminars. The various presidents of the Association appointed committees to work with federal agencies, committees to attempt to develop professional relationships with counterparts in other nations, and committees to fine-tune the way the Association func­ tioned. Special task forces looked at a steady stream of economic issues that posed problems for American agriculture. Ocher task forces and committees examined the organization's publications, and still others looked at the awards and prize programs sponsored by the As­ sociation. By the 1960s, the Association seemed to follow a subtle transition of interest from farms to interests that encompassed the agricultural industry as a whole: the resources used by agriculture, the food chain, and sophisticated investigations of agricultural and farm policy. Individual members made similar changes in their own interests and activities. The focus of the organization evolved, expanding its scope in a way that made some members uncomfort­ able with their designation as agricultural economists. They thought their work was more than that, and a large part of the membership wanted a more descriptive name. After several years of study and discussion, the American Farm Economics Association changed its name in 1968 to the American Agricultural Economics Association. Simultane­ ously, the Journal ofFarm Economics became the American journal ofAgricultural Economics. The new name was more inclusive, and was thought to describe better the activities of the teachers and researchers who belonged to the Association at chat time. If"regular membership" is an indicator of organizational health, the AFEA/AAEA had its best years in the two decades from the late 1960s to the late 1980s.3 These years brought massive change to U.S. agriculture. Production and processing began to industrialize, and the structure of the industry began to shift from family farms to huge vertically integrated farms. Federal farm programs continued to focus on commodities and land ownership. Many farm and commodity policies became more complicated, as they were adjusted to fit with an emerging (and ever-tightening) net of environmental policy. The number of

3 Others who consider total membership (which includes such things as library subscriptions, students, and tem­ porary members) rather than regular membership might read the numbers in a slightly different way. 202 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN • Many Acronyms, One Association: AAEA at One Hundred economic-related problems that affected the farms continued to grow. It seemed to many observers that the numbers of economists who studied the problems and advised farmers and governments should have grown with them. However, this was not to be the case. Universities, colleges, and the USDA cut back on allocations to agricultural research. With fewer people becoming professional agricultural economists, fewer were available or interested in becoming members of the profession's larg­ est society. After reaching a peak regular membership of 3,325 in 1966, membership began to fall precipitously. The fall continues to the present time as the following numbers of regular members show: • 1966 3,325 regular members • 1976 2,731 regular members • 1986 2,813 regular members • 1996 2,129 regular members • 2006 1,472 regular members • 2009 1,743 regular members

Lessons in Population Dynamics Reliable numbers of members of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association begin in 1919 and continue in an almost unbroken path ro the present time. A graph of member numbers, shown as they are in Appendix I, follow a pattern much like the population growth patterns displayed in a primer on population dynamics (a sub-discipline of biology). Member numbers start near zero, hover at low levels for a short time, grow rapidly, hover again, then fall precipitously to numbers well below the peak levels. The low numbers at the start of the graph are consistent with development of a critical mass of reproductive-age adults in a population. The rapid growth comes from an environment that is not hostile to the growing population, and stability comes when the numbers entering the population offset the numbers that are exiting. The fall-off in numbers comes when a reasonably stable population consumes or otherwise ruins (or at least overshoots the carrying capaciry of) the environment in which it lives. The drop-off can also occur as a result of some foreign element or force taking over or destroying the required environment. The analogy is apt with respect to the membership of the AAEA and its earlier counterparts. The "popula­ tion" was very low at the initial meeting in Ames. The early population struggled while it spread the word chat farm management was an important element in training college srudencs interested in agriculture and field workers charged with taking research results back to the farmers working on the land. More complexity in the discipline caused a merger with agricultural economists and the economic problems facing agriculture convinced even more scholars, academics, and interested individuals to join the population of members. Eventually, public funding dropped, the clientele diminished in size, and, even though name changes and other inducements were tried, the number of members continued to fall. The critical mass required for the population (membership) to continue at a sustainable level is unknown, but some observers chink that it may be near at hand.

In rough terms, it took about fifty years for the Association to reach its peak regular membership. The second half of its first century of existence saw a decline in member num­ bers. From the late 1960s to the late 1980s, membership held reasonably steady at around 3,000 regular members, but a pronounced drop-off in membership occurred after that time and into the 1990s. Possible Explanations Observers have speculated about the reduction in numbers, but there has not been consensus regarding the many possible reasons for the change. The following factors enjoy some agreement: • A seismic structural change divided agriculture into two basic groups of produc­ ers: huge corporate (or "industrial") producers and small family (or "marginal") CHAPTER SEVENTEEN • Many Acronyms, One Association: AAEA at One Hundred 203

producers. Corporations, being amply provided with their own economists and other agricultural scientists, may consult directly with operators of the large indus­ trial farms. If so, these economists likely do not need the kinds of services that the AAEA provides, and may have switched membership to a different set of profes­ sional societies. • The budget crises faced by federal and state governments have significantly re­ duced the dollars available to support higher education. Given that agriculture is a declining proportion of the national economy, it is relatively easy for public universities to reduce support for departments of agricultural economics. Reduced support eventually translates into fewer positions, and then to a smaller pool of professionals interested in an association like the AAEA. Similar arguments, re­ garding the large but downsizing pool of research economists employed by the Economic Research Service and other government agencies, apply here as well. Universities are by far the largest pool of regular members of the AAEA. In recent times - perhaps for the entire century of existence for the AAEA - an individual scholar working in a university marks professional progress by the volume of mate­ rial that he or she produces and makes public via the peer review process. There is extreme pressure on every faculty member to publish, and the most meritorious place to meet this requirement is through the journals published by the faculty members' professional association. For agricultural economists, the "A" journal is the AJAE. However, the AJAE is limited in the number of pages it can print, so the Association only publishes a portion of the submitted manuscripts. This limitation filters down to members, so member-authors and potential authors seek other out­ lets and other memberships (societies) in order to meet the implied requirement to publish. The result is a loss of interest and membership in the AAEA and the AJAE. A high degree of specialization has occurred in the sciences. It is no longer satis­ factory to be an agricultural economist. One may be a grain economist or even a wheat economist. One may be a dairy economist, a poultry economist, a land economist, an extension economist, or an irrigation economist. 4 While these are all names that describe legitimate professional interests, their common usage invites the creation of a society or a professional home for scholars and scientists using these names. These new homes lead to new organizations and new publications, all of which dilute the interest that an individual may have in becoming an agricul­ tural economist. The Association's shift in emphasis from applied, real-life problem solving to ab­ stract disciplinary interests, along with the development of sophisticated and com­ plex research methods, may have contributed to the erosion of membership in some groups such as extension economists, industry economists, and government economists involved in public policy development and implementation. Some contend that the Association became little more than a vehicle for academic ac­ creditation, rather than a source of useful information for public and private deci­ sion makers. The result of all this has been a loss in membership, and may have contributed to the erosion of public support for agricultural economics as a whole.

4 This tendency toward specialization affiicts all of economics. Some specializations that have their own names and perhaps their own journals include land economists, labor economists, sports economists, transportation econ­ omists, and international development economists. 204 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN • Many Acronyms, One Association: AAEA at One Hundred

• "Clubbing" is not as popular as it once was. Membership in many well-known clubs has dropped as people have become busier, and as various forms of electronic communication substitute to some degree for personal interaction. If face-to-face interaction is not necessary, why join the Association?

These themes and perhaps a dozen more have been behind the rapid reduction of mem­ bership in the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. The question "What will happen next?" still has only a vague but negative-sounding answer. The AAEN.s demographic trend will likely continue and as it does, the century-old AAEA may gradually wither. What can help save the organization? The responses have already begun. A theme begun almost the day the organization was formed centers on the diverse interests and the wide range of activities pursued by members. In the beginning, member activities centered on agriculture, but as time passed, the definition of agriculture seems to have changed: if not the definition, then certainly the scope. Agricultural economists became involved with natural resources, international development, food safety, environmental issues, bio-diversity, climate change, ethanol, genetics, and innumerable other topics. As diversity has increased, an increasing number of members have begun to suggest that they had no real connection with agriculture. So, using a phrase frequently used by 1976 AAEA president James Bonnen (Michigan), "What was the glue that held the organization together?" Why did economists busy in such a wide range of activities continue to stay to­ gether? The lasting answer centers on the fact chat almost all agricultural economists do or use empirical work. They employ sophisticated research·cechniques to analyze data sets that include scores or hundreds of observations, and may cover years or decades. In doing so, they coax the most complete stories possible from the available data. This is the nature of "applied research," and this is what agricultural economists do and depend on. As early as the 1960s, some AAEA leaders suggested that the name of the Association should include the word "applied." It took two discrete steps, and 35 years, for these indi­ viduals to get their wish. The first step was the creation of sections, or clusters of economists with interests in the same or similar kinds of problems. Although not universally embraced, the sections formed quickly and gave members a kind of"club within a club" where individ­ uals could pursue their specific interests and develop networks with like-minded colleagues. The second step was predicated on the first, and involved doing what many members had wanted to do much earlier. After considerable study, the leadership changed the name of the organization to the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. The re-launched AAEA offered an organizational home to chose who wanted to retain an emphasis on agri­ culture. Importantly, the new name depicted what most members did: use real world data to solve real world problems. It also helped dilute the imagined stigma that the name "ag­ riculture" carried into the 21st Century. Finally, it opened opportunities for all economists who did applied work - interest in agriculture was no longer an implied requirement for membership. The Executive Board Speaks In a discussion paper written for a 2006 Strategic Discussion Meeting of the Executive Board, AAEA President Steve Buccola quoted past-President Laurian Unnevehr (Illinois) as asking: CHAPTER SEVENTEEN • Many Acronyms, One Association: AAEA at One Hundred 205

"Do we want a considerably smaller association of applied economists, only some of whom would call themselves agricultural? Put differently: Do we want our future base as primarily in land grant institutions and government who work on issues that have evolved from our historical base? Or, do we view our base as expanding to other applied fields?" Buccola goes on to crafr a perceptive discussion of his own, in which he describes a sequence of steps that define possible ways to deal with the rapid decrease in membership. 5 Buccola's logic leads to three alternative paths: Path A: Continue on Our Present Course (Remain a U.S.-farm-centered or­ ganization, continuing to seek members with farm-connected non-farm interests but also continue to make clear (through our name, logo, and behavior) that the U.S. farm is our principal background and theme.)

Path B: Become a Wider Association (Explicitly generalize our mandate to a broader set of applied economics fields, releasing U.S. farms from our declared center-point. The broadening might be limited to, say, the eco­ nomics of natural resources and their associated industries.)

Path C: Move Toward Merger (Begin a process toward federation or con­ federation with associations inside and outside agriculture.)

From there, Buccola moves to a brief but convincing suggestion that no matter what path the present organization chooses, a merger is likely to occur. The questions are: When? And with whom?

Merger If many, perhaps most, professional societies are losing members, why don't they merge? Fixed costs could be spread over an enlarged dues-paying membership, excess capacity in business offices could be reduced, and the elimination of much duplication could make an entire merged society much more efficient. The AFMA enhanced its membership, its program, and its effectiveness by merging with the AAAE in 1919. Why not look again at this possi b iii ty? Several serious discussions of this possibility have occurred. At least three possible merg­ ers (or federations, to be precise) have reached the discussion stage. The Rural Sociology Society asked for consideration of a merger with the AFEA and AAEA in the years after World War II. The American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers engaged in a long-running conversation about merging with AAEA in the 1970s, and more recently the American Council on Consumer Interests has discussed a "confederation" arrangement with theAAEA. None of these conversations or discussions has resulted in a merger. The question re­ mains: Why? An abundance of answers are offered, but the most serious answers tend to­ ward the idea that merging professional associations at this level will cause a serious loss of identity to the weaker of the two organizations. Who will publish the journal(s)? Who will sit on the executive board of the merged organization? How will joint costs be shared if the merger is not complete? Who will have access to foundation funds? The list is daunting, and

5 The paper, Steve Buccola, "Why is the AAEA Declining?" is on line at http://www.aaea.org/whyisthe AAEAdeclining.pd£ It includes five tightly written pages of narrative and four pages of graphs to make its points. Apparently, Unnevehr's comments were a part of the discussion but were not preserved in an accessible document. 206 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN • Many Acronyms, One Association: AAEA at One Hundred by itself is enough to make reasonable people retreat from even the discussion of merger be­ tween professional organizations. The time may arrive when consolidation becomes a more serious possibility, but at this time, the prospect seems remote.

One More Time Through The great-grandparent of us all - that is, the AFMA- had a huge advantage: Everyone, member or not, knew what it stood for and what its members did. It could recruit new members, and those who decided to join had only to show that they were interested in the way a farm operator combined the factors of production to obtain adequate rewards from crops and animals. We know today that there were few guiding economic principles behind their early work. Most of the principles that were present were modifications or applications of the factor-factor, factor-product, and product-product trilogy perfected in the 1920s and 1930s, and later made universal among agricultural economists of the mid 20th Century by Earl Heady's masterwork, Economics ofAgricultural Production and Resource Use. 6 Changing the name of the Association in 1919 did more than legitimize a broader range of work. It increased the size of the tent. Professionals who studied farm-to-city migra­ tion were as welcome as those who conducted outreach programs on the price of milk. It all belonged to and was a part of farming. The change in 1968 extended the Association's scope even further. It took members off the farm, and encouraged work with the resources used in farming and with the chains of transactions that were required to move factors of production to the farm and to move the products to market. During this period, agriculture began to look much like other indus­ tries. Farming became highly specialized and more scientific. The members and potential members of the American Agricultural Economics Association began to specialize and adopt more intense versions of science. This was something of a problem, because doing so put them in touch with others who might or might not have been interested in the AAEA. The tent was larger, but the doors opened outward as well as inward. One suspects that some members found the outside world attractive and changed their allegiance. In the middle of the first decade of this new millennium, the decline in membership called attention to the need for some kind of change. Adopting a new name had been an at­ tractive possibility in the past, and thus was tried once more. This time the tent was divided into many sub-tents (sections), and the doors were thrown open to scientists - researchers, teachers, outreach experts, and administrators - who themselves did or who worked with the results of applied economics. Without question, an increasing number of economists were becoming interested in applied work. Theoretical work had run ahead of the econo­ mists who wanted to use or even to test the theories, so it appeared that a society of applied economists would be worthwhile - and thus stand a good chance of preserving the AAEA well into its second century. The plan carried a built-in weakness, however, that had not been present in the earlier organization. "Farm" and "agriculture" could be identified as something in the real world of production, transactions, and consumption. "Applied" had no similar connection. An economist looking at the AAEA as a professional home had to make the decision based on work done, not on the basis of a relationship to an industry or activity. This may become a problem in recruiting and maintaining members in the future.

6 Earl Heady, Economics ofAgricultural Production and Resource Use, New York: Prentice-Hall, 1952. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN • Many Acronyms, One Association: AAEA at One Hundred 207

These problems underline the fact chat all voluntary associations such as the AAEA are demand driven: that is, members must have a need for the group and they must be willing to pay the dues, serve on the committees, and attend the meetings. Scientific work and scien­ tific expression are highly specialized and very difficult activities that are virtually impossible to conduct in isolation. The scientists who helped form che early associations knew this, and were searching for the opportunity for discussion and interaction chat the Association would bring. The American Farm Management Association came into being in order to provide opportunities for such interaction. The Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, in order to remain vital in the years beyond 2010, must strive to meet the same objectives. All che Association's incarnations: AFMA and the current AAEA, as well the two that came between, AFEA and che original AAEA, may have written lofty mission statements and peer­ less formal lists of objectives, but their real purpose was and is to provide an opportunity and a venue for like-minded scientists to communicate. All of the Association's products - journals, annual meetings, seminars, workshops, and the like - attest to this. In order to preserve A.AEXs vitality, the present members will, of course, have to meet che newcomers more than halfway. This will require brilliant and innovative leadership and untiring effort by the governing boards and committees, but a worthwhile payoff is wichin reach. The fear of dissolution may fade away, and a realistic prospect for consolidation may not arrive for several years. Whether or not consolidation comes, the result can be an associa­ tion of economists who use cheir skills to apply che theories and mechods of the discipline to practical problems. It seems unlikely that the next few decades will provide the intellec­ tual environment or che political environment chat drew the farm management economists together in the years following 1910; however, it does not seem beyond the reach of reason to expect that newly trained agricultural and applied economists will use their work to find sufficient glue to make it worthwhile for chem to stick togecher, have annual meetings, pub­ lish cheir findings in respectable journals, and have an impact on che way life is lived in the various nations of the world. APPENDIX I Membership Numbers

The Agricultural and Applied Economics Association has kept systematic membership data since 1930. 1 Some numbers and counts that come from that time are available, but they are often only partial counts and their reliability is subject to question. Even the available data are difficult to rationalize and use. Member numbers are arranged into sixteen categories with only one category, that for "regular members," running through the entire time period, 1930 to the present. 2 The counts in the other categories start and stop at irregular intervals making difficult the systematic analysis of the organization's membership. The 16 categories of membership could be presented in numerous ways, but only four graphs are used here. They show the widely known, but little understood, increase in membership from 650 in 1930 to 4984 in 1986. After reaching that peak, membership numbers in almost all catego­ ries began a precipitous decline which has continued into the 21 st Century. Figure 1 shows total membership over the 80 years 1930-2009.

Figure 1: Total membership 1930-2009

5500 .------, 5000 +---"'--o------•---:-c--c:--~,------,-,,--,,_--,_,,.,.~-:,,'\;,,,.-+-',i--,-~-,.'---:-----1

i 3000

2000 7------"---C-----•---c-;;~~"--c-~.,,.------•->,_,_~~--,,,-.-,~.-,ac~~•ffl~+.;_,,,:-ii~

1500

1930 1943 1956 1969 1982 1995 2008 Year

Figure 2 shows only the memberships of persons who are likely to be somewhat active in the agricultural or applied economics professions. It includes the following categories: • Regular members (both domestic and foreign) • Senior members (domestic and foreign) • Family memberships (domestic and foreign) and

1 Member numbers are kept by the MEA Business Office. The numbers on record begin in 1919 - the year the Association was formed- but the early numbers are particularly suspect. The count begins at 561 members in 1919, rises somewhat steadily to 974 members in 1929. For no understandable reason, the count drops from 974 in 1929 to 650 in 1930 when the categories were formed. 2 The "regular member" series has no values for 1937 and 1938. In the charts shown here, the two-year gap is filled by interpolation. · 209 210 APPENDIX I • Membership Numbers

Lifetime memberships (domestic and foreign).

Regular members are undefined but can be assumed to be the individuals who feel that their profession or professional interests lie within the purposes of the Association. Most regular members use the Association for a variety of purposes and have at least a slight inter­ est in the Association's publications. Senior memberships are available to individuals who are at least 65 years of age and are retired from regular employment but retain active interests in the profession. Family memberships, a category with few members, are available for those families in which more than one adult have a professional interest in the Association. For purposes of counting, the family memberships are considered as one member.

Figure 2: Total Active Professional Members 1930-2009

4500 ~------,

3000 -1----­

! 2500 +------1 2000

1500 +-----·

1930 1943 19,56 1969 1982 1995 2008 Year

Lifetime Memberships, available only at certain times during the life of the Association, provide lifetime membership for a fee substantially above the annual dues but offer sub­ stantial savings for those who anticipate many more years of membership in the profession. These four categories of professional members increased from 650 in 1930 to slightly more than 4000 in 1983. Professional membership hovered around 4000 for five years before beginning to decline in 1988. Professional membership increased in only one of the years berween 1988 and 2006. All complex, multi-purpose organizations have members that simply cannot be classi­ fied into easily-understood categories. They are collected into the "other" category shown in Figure 3. The count begins in 1958 and, after some swings, the numbers drop off to near zero in recent years. APPENDIX I • Membership Numbers 211

Figure 3: Other Members

250 ~------~

200

i!! 150 -" E" :;;;" 100

50

0 ·, 1958 1968 1978 1988 1998 2008 Year 212 APPENDIX I • Membership Numbers APPENDIX II The Constitutions

1910 and 1919 The early American Farm Management Association wrote and ratified a Constitution dur­ ing its organizational meeting in 1910. When the AFMA merged with the American As­ sociation of Agriculture Economists in 1919, the resulting American Farm Economics As­ sociation made only modest revisions to the original constitution. The result is shown here as it is shown on page 40a of Volume 1; Number 1 Gune 1919) of the journal of Farm Economics. Deletions from the 1910 AFMA constitution are in parentheses; new wording is shown in italics.

The Constitution of the American Farm Economic Association Article I. Name. The name of the Association shall be The American Farm (Man­ agement) Economic Association.

Article II. Object. The object of this Association shall be to promote the investi­ gation and teaching of farm management and other economic questions pertaining to agriculture. Article III. Membership. The membership shall consist of active members and associate members. The active members shall be persons engaged in the teaching and investigation of farm (management) economic problems. The associate members shall be persons interested in the study of farm (management) economics. The associate members shall have all the privi­ leges of the Association except voting. Article IY. Organization. The officers shall be a President, Vice-president, and a Secretary-Treasurer, who shall be elected for one year and who shall serve until their successors shall qualify.

The Executive Committee shall consist of the officers, and shall have the power of appointing committees, selecting times and places of meetings and of bringing to the attention of the members any matter which in their judgment should be considered by the Association.

There shall be two standing committees appointed annually by the Executive Committee. One of these committees shall consider the lines of investigation best adapted to the needs of the work of farm (manage­ ment) economics at the present time and shall suggest to various investi- 213 214 APPENDIX II • The Constitutions

gators plans of correlation and cooperation in the work. It shall be the duty of this committee to collect, as far as possible from investigators, the lines of work to be carried out each year. The second committee shall attempt to investigate the methods of lecture and laboratory work in farm (management) economics and to make suggestions to the mem­ bers of the Association and to colleges intending to organize courses in farm (management) economics. It shall be the duty of the third commit­ tee to report on extension work in farm (management) economics.

Article V. Dues. The dues of (both) active (and associate) members shall be (one dollar) two dollars per year and ofassociate members one dollar per year. Article VI. Meetings. There shall be held an annual meeting of the Association, the arrangements and program to be made by the Executive Committee. Notice of such meetings shall be mailed to each member at least four weeks in advance. Article VII. Amendments. This constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the members present at any annual meeting of the Association.

It was moved and seconded that the executive committee for 1919 con­ sider further changes in the constitution and report at the next meeting.

1972 Revision The complete reorganization of the Association's administrative structure in the late 1960s required a new constitution. The revised document was much longer and more com­ prehensive than the version it replaced. The revised version appears in full on pages 419-422 of the November 1972 issue of the American journal ofAgricultural Economics. The Bylaws from that era follow on pages 423-430. The document is online at http://chla.library.cor­ nell.edu/.

2008 Revision The name change in 2008 required another significant revision of the Constitution. The resulting document and the current Operating Policies are online at the AAEA website, http://www.aaea.org/abour/. The increased complexity of the organization required a sig­ nificant increase in the length of these governing documents. APPEND IX III Presidents ofthe Association

Presidents of the Association are elected annually by a vote of the members in good standing. The individual winning a majority of the votes serves as President-elect for one year then becomes president at the end of the annual summer business meeting - usually late July or early August. Although there have been exceptions to the rule, an individual serves for only one year.

1910-12 William J. Spillman, USDA Office of Farm Management 1913 George F. Warren, Cornell University 1914 Daniel H. Otis, University of Wisconsin 1915 Andrew Boss, University of Minnesota 1916 Harcourt A. Morgan, University ofTennessee 1917 Henry W. Jeffers, New Jersey Dairyman and Inventor 1918 George A. Billings, USDA Office of Farm Management 1919 John R. Fain, University of Georgia 1920 Henry C. Taylor, USDA Office of Farm Management 1921 Walter F. Handschin, University of Illinois-Urbana 1922 Benjamin H. Hibbard, University of Wisconsin 1923 Thomas P. Cooper, University of Kentucky 1924 Edwin G. Nourse, Institute of Economics 1925 Milburn L. Wilson, USDA Bureau of Agricultural Economics 1926 Thomas N. Carver, Harvard University 1927 John I. Falconer, The Ohio State University 1928 Lewis C. Gray, USDA Bureau of Agricultural Economics 1929 H.E. Erdman, University of California 1930 Harold C.M. Case, University of Illinois 1931 Oscar C. Stine, USDA Bureau of Agricultural Economics 1932 John D. Black, Harvard University 1933 Howard R. Tolley, University of California 1934 William I. Myers, Cornell University 1935 Waldo E. Grimes, Kansas State University 1936 Joseph S. Davis, Stanford University 1937 Oscar B. Jesness, University of Minnesota 1938 Ernest C. Young, Purdue University 1939 Irving G. Davis, Connecticut State College (died in office) Foster F. Elliot, USDA Bureau of Agricultural Economics 1940 Hugh B. Price, University of Kentucky 1941 Murray R. Benedict, University of California, Berkeley 1942 George S. Wehrwein, University of Wisconsin 1943 Sherman E. Johnson, USDA Bureau of Agricultural Economics 1944 Eric Englund, USDA Secretary's Office

215 216 APPEND IX III • Presidents ofthe Association

1945 Lawrence J. Norton, University of Illinois 1946 Frederic V. Waugh, USDA Bureau of Agricultural Economics 1947 Asher Hobson, University of Wisconsin 1948 William G. Murray, Iowa State University 1949 Oris V. Wells, USDA Bureau of Agricultural Economics 1950 Warren C. Waite, University of Minnesota 1951 Forrest F. Hill, Cornell University 1952 George H. Aull, Clemson University 1953 Harry R. Wellman, University of California, Berkeley 1954 Thomas K. Cowden, Michigan State College 195 5 Joseph Ackerman, Farm Foundation 1956 Karl Brandt, Stanford University 1957 H. Brooks James, North Carolina State University 1958 Harry C. Trelogan, USDA Agricultural Marketing Service 1959 Raymond G. Bressler. Jr., University of California, Berkeley 1960 Willard W: Cochrane, University of Minnesota 1961 William H. Nicholls, Vanderbilt University 1962 Bushrod W: Allin, USDA Economic Research Service 1963 George E. Brandow, Pennsylvania State University 1964 Lowell S. Hardin, Purdue University 1965 D. Gale Johnson, University of Chicago 1966 Kenneth L. Bachman, USDA Economic Research Service 1967 Lawrence W: Witt, Michigan State University 1968 C.E. Bishop, University of North Carolina 1969 Harold F. Breimyer, University of Missouri 1970 Dale E. Hathaway, Michigan State University 1971 Jimmye S. Hillman, University of Arizona 1982 Vernon W: Ruttan, University of Minnesota 1973 Emery N. Castle, Oregon State University 1974 Kenneth R. Tefertiller, University of Florida 1975 James Nielson, Washington State University 1976 James T. Bonnen, Michigan State University 1977 Kenneth R. Farrell, USDA Economic Research Service 1978 R.J. Hildreth, Farm Foundation 1979 Bernard F. Stanton, Cornell University 1980 Richard A. King, North Carolina State University 1981 Luther G. Tweeten, Oklahoma State University 1982 G. Edward Schuh, University of Minnesota 1983 Leo C. Polopolus, University of Florida 1984 Neil E. Harl, Iowa State University 1985 C.B. Baker, University of Illinois 1986 William G. Tomek, Cornell University 1987 Joseph Havlicek, Jr., The Ohio State University 1988 Daniel I. Padberg, Texas A&M University 1989 Lester V. Manderscheid, Michigan State University 1990 Sandra S. Batie, Virginia Tech APPEND IX III • Presidents ofthe Association 217

1991 Warren E. Johnston, University of California, Davis 1992 Bruce R. Beattie, University of Arizona 1993 James P. Houck, University of Minnesota 1994 Peter J. Barry, University of Illinois 1995 Lawrence W. Libby, University of Florida 1996 Vernon Eidman, University of Minnesota 1997 Ralph D. Christy, Cornell University 1998 Walter J. Armbruster, Farm Foundation 1999 C. Richard Shumway, Washington State University 2000 John M. Antle, Montana State University 2001 Bruce L. Gardner, University of Maryland 2002 Jean Kinsey, University of Minnesota 2003 Susan Offutt, USDA Economic Research Service 2004 Jon Brandt, North Carolina State University 2005 Laurian Unnevehr, University of Illinois-Urbana 2006 Per Pinstrup-Andersen, Cornell University 2007 Steven T. Buccola, Oregon State University 2008 Otto C. Doering, Purdue University 2009 Richard E. Just, University of Maryland 2010 Ron Mittelharnmer, Washington State University APPENDIX IV Fellows ofthe Association

"Fellows of the Association'' are individuals who have made consistent and significant intel­ lectual or administrative contributions to the Association. The Fellows Program began in 1957 when a committee made up of distinguished members named ten outstanding mem­ bers to the first "class" of Fellows. This is the highest honor bestowed by the organization. Each year since 1957, a complex selection process has added up to six active members to the group of Fellows. Individuals named as Fellows are listed here by the year they received the honor. Details about their professional lives and contributions appear in the first few pages of the Proceedings issue of the journal for the year in which they received the honor.

1957 1963 John Donald Black Raymond G. Bressler, Jr. Thomas Nixon Carver Earl 0. Heady Joseph Stancliffe Davis Garnet Wolsey Forster 1964 Asher Hobson Joseph Ackerman Edwin Griswold Nourse Karl Brandt Theodore W Schultz Foster Floyd Elliott Henry Charles Taylor 1965 Frederick V Waugh Bushrod Warren Allin Milburn Lincoln Wilson George Hubert Aull 1958 Willard Wesley Cochrane Mordecai J.B. Ezekiel 1966 Oscar B. Jesness J. Carroll Bottum William Irving Myers George E. Brandow 1959 Forest Frank Hill Harold Clayton M. Case 1967 Oscar Clemen Stine D. Gale Johnson 1960 William Hord Nicholls Leonard Knight Elmhirst Harry C. Trelogan Sherman E. Johnson 1968 1961 John F. Booth Oris Vernon Wells Maurice M. Kelso Ernest Charles Young Elmer Joseph Working 1962 Murray Reed Benedict Hugh Bruce Price

219 220 APPENDIX N • Fellows ofthe Association

1969 1979 Nathan M. Koffsky Varden Fuller James G. Maddox Ruy Miller Paiva Walter W Wilcox Kenneth L. Robinson 1970 1980 Charles Edwin Bishop Harold O. Carter Marion Clawson Kenneth R. Farrell Glenn Leroy Johnson John W Mellor 1971 1981 D. Howard Doane Ben C. French Don Paarlberg Philip M. Raup Rainer Schickele Samar R. Sen James D. Shaffer 1972 Karl A. Fox 1982 Oscar R. Burt 1973 R.J. Hildreth Harold F. Breimyer Jimmye S. Hillman Kenneth H. Parsons George M. Kuznets Lauren K. Soth 1983 1974 Gordon A. King Dale E. Hathaway Wayne D. Rasmussen Vernon W Ruttan Bernard F. Stanton John F. Timmons Luther G. Tweeten 1975 1984 S.V. Ciriacy-Wantrup Wallace Barr Geoffrey S. Shepherd Sylvia Lane Holbrook Working William G. Murray 1976 G. Edward Schuh Emery N. Castle 1985 Arthur T. Mosher Harold G. Halcrow Willard F. Mueller Bruce F. Johnson 1977 Andrew Schmitz Harry R. Wellman Lowell S. Hardin Austin C. Hoffman 1986 Sidney S. Hoos John L. Dillon Earl R. Swanson Neil E. Harl 1978 William Martin Allen B. Paul Chester B. Baker James T. Bonnen Richard A. King Lawrence W Witt APPEND IX IV • Fellows ofthe Association 221

1987 1995 Emerson M. Babb Warren E. Johnston C. Phillip Baumel George G. Judge George E. Ladd Leo C. Polopolus Daniel G. Sisler Lyle P. Schertz 1988 1996 Paul L. Farris Jock R. Anderson Stanley R. Johnson Raymond R. Beneke Alex F. McCalla Rulon D. Pope Clifton R. Wharton, Jr. 1997 1989 Paul W Barkley Bruce L. Gardner Peter J. Barry Joseph Havlicek, Jr. Bruce R. Beattie Richard E. Just James P. Houck William G. Tomek 1998 1990 Irma Adelman Walter P. Falcon Hans Binswanger John E. Lee, Jr. Glen C. Pulver Gordon C. Rausser David Zilberman 1991 1999 Alain de Janvry Robert G. Chambers Zvi Griliches UmaLele Yujiro Hayami Daniel A. Sumner Lowell Hill Norman Whittlesey 1992 2000 Daniel W Bromley Julian M. Alston B. Delworth Gardner Walter J. Armbruster Peter Helmberger Nancy E. Bockstael Herbert Stoevener Colin A. Carter Jean D. Kinsey 1993 Per Pinstrup-Andersen Yair Mundlak Marc L. Nerlove 2001 Alan Randall Richard M. Adams Robert L. Thompson Richard C. Bishop Kenneth E. McConnell 1994 C. Richard Shumway Sandra Batie James E. Wilen Jean-Paul Chavas Michael K. Wohlgenant Robert Evenson Wallace Huffman 222 APPEND IX IV • Fellows ofthe Association

2002 2008 John M. Antle Peter Berck Michael Boehlje Larry Karp Steven T. Buccola Kathleen Segerson J.B. Penn Benjamin Senauer V. Kerry Smith Katherine Reichelderfer Smith Brian D. Wright 2009 2003 Michael Carter Keith J. Collins John M. Connor Vernon R. Eidman Matthew T. Holt Ronald D. Knutson Richard Howitt GianCarlo Moschini Jason F. Shogren Jeffrey M. Perloff Laurian Unnevehr John C. Quiggin 2004 Kym Anderson Derek Byerlee Gerald Carlson Thomas W Hertel Timothy E. Josling Richard J. Sexton 2005 Gershon Feder Ray A. Goldberg Peter Hazell Robert Innes Bruce A. McCarl Susan Offutt 2006 Barry K. Goodwin Catherine Louise Kling Philip Pardey Catherine J. Morrison Paul Prabhu L. Pingali Spiro E. Stefanou 2007 Dermot James Hayes JeffreyT. Lafrance Mark W Rosegrant Scott D. Rozelle Bruce A. Weber APPENDIXV Annual Meeting Locations

1910 Ames, Iowa 1951 Guelph CANADA 1911 Columbus, Ohio 1952 Urbana, Illinois 1913 Washington, DC 1953 Corvallis, Oregon 1914 Washington, DC 1954 Detroit, Michigan 1915 ·Berkeley, California 1955 East Lansing, Michigan 1916 Washington, DC 1956 Asilomar, California 1917 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1957 Lake Junaluska, North Carolina 1919 Baltimore, Maryland 1958 Wmnipeg CANADA 1919 Chicago, Illinois 1959 Ithaca, New York 1920 Washington, DC 1960 Ames,Iowa 1921 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1961 Fort Collins, Colorado 1922 Chicago, Illinois 1962 Storrs, Connecticut 1923 Washington, DC 1963 St. Paul, Minnesota 1924 Chicago, Illinois 1964 West Lafayette, Indiana 1925 New York City, New York 1965 Stillwater, Oklahoma 1926 St. Louis, Missouri 1966 College Park, Maryland 1927 Washington, DC 1967 Guelph CANADA 1928 Chicago, Illinois 1968 Bozeman, Montana 1929 Washington , DC 1969 Lexington, Kentucky 1930 Cleveland, Ohio 1970 Columbia, Missouri 1931 Washington, DC 1971 Carbondale, Illinois 1932 Cincinnati, Ohio 1972 Edmonton, Alberta CANADA 1933 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1973 College Station, Texas 1934 Chicago, Illinois 1974 Columbus, Ohio 1935 New York City, New York 1975 Columbus, Ohio 1936 Chicago, Illinois 1976 State College, Pennsylvania 1937 Atlantic City, New Jersey 1977 San Diego, California 1938 Detroit, Michigan 1978 Blacksburg, Virginia 1939 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1979 Pullman, Washington 1940 New Orleans, Louisiana 1980 Urbana-Champagne, Illinois 1941 New York City, New York 1981 Clemson, South Carolina 1942 Cleveland, Ohio 1982 Logan, Utah 1943 St. Louis, Missouri 1983 West Lafayette, Indiana 1944 Washington, DC 1984 Ithaca, New York 1945 Chicago, Illinois 1985 Ames, Iowa 1946 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1986 Reno, Nevada 1947 Green Lake, Wisconsin 1987 East Lansing, Michigan 1948 Green Lake, Wisconsin 1988 Knoxville, Tennessee 1949 Laramie, Wyoming 1989 Baton Rouge, Louisiana 1950 Montreat, North Carolina 223 224 APPENDIX V • Annual Meeting Locations

1990 Vancouver, British Columbia CANADA 1991 Manhattan, Kansas 1992 Baltimore, Maryland 1993 Orlando, Florida 1994 San Diego, California 1995 Indianapolis, Indiana 1996 San Antonio, Texas 1997 Toronto CANADA 1998 Salt Lake City, Utah 1999 Nashville, Tennessee 2000 Tampa, Florida 2001 Chicago, Illinois 2002 Long Beach, California 2003 Montreal CANADA 2004 Denver, Colorado 2005 Providence, Rhode Island 2006 Long Beach, California 2007 Portland, Oregon 2008 Orlando, Florida 2009 Milwaukee, Wisconsin 2010 Denver, Colorado 2011 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 2012 Seattle, Washington 2013 Washington, DC INDEX

A TheAAEANewsletter, 143-145, 151, 151n26, 183, 184, 195 academic freedom, 63n27 Ackerman, Joseph, 71, 95, 98, 102, 102nl2, 119nl 1, 141n24, 163, 216, 219 Adams, Richard M., 114-115, 221 Adaptive Planning Committee, 174-176 Additional Publications Committee, 145-146 "The Adjustment of the Farm Business to Declining Price Levels" (Taylor), 27, 27n6 Adjustments in Southern Agriculture With Special References to Cotton, Committee on, 71 administrative structure (of AFEA), 41-42, 42n19 Advisory Committee on Social and Economic Research in Agriculture (SSRC), 161 African Americans, 143nl, 152-153, 155-156 Agard, Kristin, 188 AgEcon Search, 169-170, 169n29, 169n30, 170n31 Agribusiness Economics and Management Section (AEM), 177 Agricola, 124 Agricultural Act of 1970, 163-164 Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 (AAA), 43-46, 43n21 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Constitution of, 191, 191nl 1 membership numbers and categories, 209-211 name change to, 188-190 One Hundred Year Anniversary, 199-207 origins, 1-14 Agricultural Credit Committee, 43 Agricultural Economics, Committee on (SSRC), 107 Agricultural Economics Reference Organization (AERO), 170 ''.Agricultural Economists as World Leaders in Applied Econometrics, 1917-1933" (Fox), 114 Agricultural History Society, 30, 30nl9, 110 joint meetings, 51, 53, 53n9, 56, 61 Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, 36 Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA), 110, 147 Agricultural Research Service (USDA), 160 Agricultural Social Science Council, 103 Agricultural Statistics, Committee on (ASA-AAEA), 166-167 ''.Agricultural Workers and Social Insurance" (Corson), 74n9 Agriculture in Economics Development, 125 "Agriculture in the Years Ahead" Qames), 101 Ahern, Jim, 179n16

225 226 INDEX

Aines, Ronald, 138, 140 Allen, Joyce E., "Black Agricultural Economists in the Labor Market: Theoretical and Empirical Issues," Davis with, 155 Allen, William, 36, 43 Allied Social Science groups, 79 Allin, Bushrod W, 94-95, 119, 128, 216, 219 Alston, Julian M., 221 Alternative Publication Committee, 144 American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA), 1, 79, 131-141 alliances of, 159-172 budgetary issues, 124, 131, 147, 148-149, 148n21, 182-185 building facilities for, 151-152, 180 business office for, 148-152, 180-183, 187-188 Constitution of, 120-122 of 1910 and 1919, 213-214 1972 revision, 214 2008 revision, 214 Fellows (1957-2009), 219-222 Foundation, 156-157, 184-185 governance of, 178-183, 179nl6 membership in (see membership) name change from, 188-190 name change to, 120 organizational matters, 148-152, 180-183, 187-188 Presidents (1910-2010), 215-217 special affiliations, 167-171 American Agriculture and Agricultural Economics, 1955-1975: A Report ofthe Committee on Agricultural Economics (SSRC), 107 ''American Agriculture in the New War and Defense Situation" (Black), 53 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 40, 40nl 4 American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, 17 · American Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE), 20-24, 35, 147nl9 American Association of Agricultural Legislation (AAAL), 21 American Association of Farm Managers, 40, 40nl6 American Association of University Professors (AAUP), 63n27 American Bankers Association, 140n21 American Bar Association, 3 The American Bibliography ofAgricultural Economics, 124-125, 129, 169 American Council on Consumer Interests, 197 American Council on Education, 162, 162n7 American Council on Rural Education, 72 American Dairy Association, 108 American Dairy Science Association (ADSA), 150-151 American Economic Association (AEA), 4, 40, 65nl, 73, 73n8, 145, 149, 153, 159-160, 159nl, 160n3, 162, 166-167, 176 agricul rural matters addressed by, 6-10 INDEX 227

differences between AFMA and, 15-16 joint meetings, 44, 51, 53, 53n9, 56, 82 objectives, 4, 4n9 origins, 3-4 American Farm Economics Association (AFEA) administrative structure 0£ 41-42, 42nl9 alliances 0£ 159-172 budgetary issues, 47, 53-54, 60, 84-85, 88, 89-92, 89n6, 89n7, 92nl3, 117-118, 117n4 committees 0£ 23-24, 82, 82n29 (See also specific subject, e.g. Instruction, Committee on) Constitution 0£ 77-78, 77n21, 83-84, 88, 92-93, 94, 119 Executive Committee, 31-34, 40 farm debt and, 43 Farm Foundation and, 37 funding 0£ 25-29, 32-34 Golden Anniversary Celebration, 109-113 during the Great Depression, 35-49 joint meetings, 44, 51, 5lnl, 53, 53n9, 56, 61, 82, 87-88 local chapters 0£ 42 management of during the 1930s, 47-49 name change to MEA, 120 post-World War II, 71-85 Seventy-fifth Anniversary, 113-115 southern agriculture and, 54 wartime cancellation of meetings, 58-59, 59n22, 60, 61 during World War II, 51-64 American Farm Management Association (AFMA), 11, 14 differences between AEA and, 15-16 membership in, 25 merger ofwithAAAE, 20-24, 35 American Forestry Association, 140n21 American Historical Society, 3, 3n6 American]ournalofAgriculturalEconomics (AJAE), 79-80, 131-133, 132n2, 132n4, 133n6, 143, 145n9, 173-174, 180,183, 195-196 name change to, 120 Seventy-fifth Anniversary, 114-115 American Marketing Association, joint meetings, 56 American Social Science Association (ASSA), 53n9, 159nl American Society for Horticultural Science, 150 American Society of Agronomy, 18, 20 American Society of Animal Nutrition, 18 American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, 44, 49, 54, 60 farm debt and, 43 joint meetings, 5 lnl American Society of Plant Pathologists, 150 228 INDEX

American Sociological Society, joint meetings, 56 American Statistical Association (ASA), 54, 163 joint meetings, 44, 51, 53n9, 56, 82 ''Analysis of the Rural Problem" (Butterfield), 16 Anders Norton, Nancy, l 82n27 Anderson, Clinton P., 67 Anderson, Don S., 45 Anderson, Jock R., 221 · Anderson, Kym, 222 Anniversary Committee, 113 annual meeting locations (1910-2013), 223-224 Antle, John M., 180,217,222 App, Frank, 25 Appleby, P.H., 104, 104nl4 Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy (AEPP), 190-191 Applied Risk Analysis Section (ARA), 177 appreciation clubs, 157, 157n39, 184, 184n32 archive, 76-77, 80-81, 82n29, 102, 122, 125 Armbruster, Walter J., 14ln24, 151, 177, 178, 179nl7, 181, 182n27, 183,195,217,221 Arnold, Carl]., 104nl7 Arthur, H.B., 82n29 As You Sow (Goldschmidt), 160 Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, 3, 12, 109 Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE), 175 Association of Southern Agricultural Scientists, 54 Association of Southern Agricultural Workers, 54 Association Support, Inc., 187 Auditor Committee, 82n29 Aull, George H., 216, 219 Austman, H. H., ''Agricultural Economists Responding to an Expanding Clientele," 139n20 Ayer, Harry, 180, 183 B Babb, Emerson M., 221 Bachman, Kenneth L., 119, 120, 216 "Reorientations in Agricultural Economic Research," Brinegar and Southworth with, 162n9 Badger, Daniel, 170 Bahn, Henry, 194nl8 Bailey, DeeVon, 179nl6 Bailey, Liberty Hyde, 11-12, 13, 18nl l, 109 AEA discussion session organized by, 7-8 biographical sketch, 7 Baker, Chester B., 147nl6, 216, 220 Barkley, Paul W., 156, 183, 221 Barlowe, Raleigh, 79, 102nll, 102nl2, 104nl7 Barr, George W., 67 INDEX 229

Barr, Wallace, 149n22, 220 Barry, Peter J., 183,217,221 Batie, Sandra, 165,175,216,221 Baumann, David, 188 Baumel, C. Phillip, 221 Beattie, Bruce R., 165, 171,177,217,221 Beer, Charles, 139, 193nl 7 Bemis, E.W., "The Discontent of Farmers," 6 Benedict, Murray R., 43, 48, 56-57, 65nl, 163, 215, 219 Beneke, Raymond R., 114, 151,181,221 Bennett, Merrill K., 67 Bennett, Yvonne, 187 Benson, Ezra Taft, 160 Berck, Peter, 222 Bernardo, Dan, 182n27 "The Bibliographic Organization and Use of the Literature of Agricultural Economics" (Littleton), 123 bids for business office management, 149 Billings, George A., 26, 215 Binswanger, Hans, 221 Bishop, C.E., 120, 120nl5, 121, 122nl9, 125, 138, 144n6, 216, 220 Bishop, Richard C., 221 Black, A.G., 43 Black, John D., 32-33, 45, 98, 104, 106n23, 163, 215, 219 ''.American Agriculture in the New War and Defense Situation," 53 "Black Agricultural Economists: Discussion" (Ihnen), 155 "Black Agricultural Economists in the Labor Market: Theoretical and Empirical Issues" (Davis and Allen), 155 Blackmore, F.W., 8nl9 Boals, Gordon P., 67 Bockstael, Nancy E., 221 Boehje, Michael, 222 Boger, Larry, 106 Bond, M.C., 88n5, 100 Bonnen,JamesT., 139,144,163,166,177,204,216,220 Booth, John F., 219 Boss, Andrew, 18nll, 215 Bottum, J. Carroll, 102nl2, 219 Boulding, Kenneth E., 38nl l, 61 Brandow, George E., 113, 164nl7, 216,219 "The Current State of Agricultural Economics: The Policy Controversy," 112 Brandt, Jon, 217 Brandt, Karl, 67, 71, 72n4, 102n12, 216,219 "The Orientation of Agricultural Economics," 101 Brannen, C.O., 58 230 INDEX

Braun, E. W, "Marketing Agreements under the Agricultural Adjustment Administration," Tapp with, 44 Breimyer, Harold F., 121, 125, 216, 220 Bressler, Raymond G., Jr., 23, 79, 107n24, 1 l ln5, 216, 219 Brewster, John, "Farm Technological Advance and Total Population Growth," 73 Brinegar, George K., 108 "Reorientations in Agricultural Economic Research," with Bachman and Southworth, 162n9 Bromley, Daniel W, 221 Brown, A.J., 88n5 Brown, Aubrey, 100 Brunner, Edmund deS., 72 Bryan, William Jennings, 10 Bryce, James, AEA discussion session input by, 9 Buccola, Steven T., 114, 187, 189, 194, 204-205, 217,222 Buchanan, M.T., 82n29 budgetary issues AAEA, 124, 131, 147, 148-149, 148n21, 182-185 AFEA,47,53-54,60,84-85, 88, 89-92,89n6, 89n7,92n13, 117-118, 117n4 Choices magazine, 147 building facilities for AAEA, 151-152, 180 Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE), 29, 29n15, 30, 32, 41, 103-104, 104nl4, 160 Burt, Oscar R., 220 Buse, Rueben, 151, 152, 180, 181 Business Economics, 145 business office for AAEA, 148-152, 180-183, 187-188 ''A Businessman's View of Agriculture" (Douglas), 31 Butterfield, Kenyon L., 8nl9, 14, 18nll ''Analysis of the Rural Problem," 16 Butz, Dale E., 121, 122, 138, 140 Butz, Earl, 94-95, 101, 102nl0 Byerlee, Derek, 222 C Canadian Agricultural Economics Society (CAES), 75, 78 Cance, Alexander E., 20 Capps, Oral, 185, 194 Carlson, Gerald, 222 Carstensen, Vernon, 113 ''An Historian Looks at the First Fifty Years of the Agricultural Economics Profession," 112, 112n9 Carter, Colin A., 221 Carter, Harold 0., 220 Carter, Michael, 222 Carter, R.M., 82n29 Carver, Thomas Nixon, 98, 215, 219 Case, H. C. M., 34, 36, 39, 61,215,219 INDEX 231

Castle, Emery N., 126-127, 126n29, 133, 136-137, 164nl 7, 177, 216, 220 Caswell, Julie, 182n27, 194nl8 Census Advisory Board, 73, 73n8 Census Bureau, 93, 111, 159, 162-163, 162nl 1, 163nl2, 167 Census of Agriculture, 47, 48, 49, 163, 167 Challenge Magazine, 145, 145nl0 Chambers, Robert G., 221 "Characteristics of Black Agricultural Economists" (Robbins and Evans), 155 Chavas, Jean-Paul, 163, 221 China Section, 178 Choices magazine, 145-147, 147nl8, 161, 179, 180, 182, 183-184, 194-195 Christensen, Robert P., 139 "Food Production Strategy and the Protein-Feed Balance," (with Mighell), 93nl7 Christie, G. I., "The Farm Labor Outlook for 1919," 26, 26n4 Christoffers, Lona, 180 Christy, Ralph D., 151, 156, 179nl6, 180, 181, 182n27, 217 Ciriacy-Wantrup, S.V., 220 Clauson, Annette L., "The Conduct of the Survey on the Opportunities for and Status of Women in Agricultural Economics," Lundeen with, 154 Clawson, Marion, 220 Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), 169n29 Coalition on Funding Agricultural Research Missions (CoFARM), 169n29 Coats, Norman M., 166 Cochrane, Willard W, 67, 102nl2, 107n24, 108, 111, 112, 134, 216, 219 Cohen, Wilbur, "Social Security for Farm People," Falk with, 74 Coke, J. Earl, 104 Collins, Keith]., 222 committees. See also specific subject, e.g. Instruction, Committee on ofMEA, 131 ofAEA,4-5,4nll,5nll ofAFEA, 82, 82n29 of AFMA, 23-24 Committee on the Opportunities and Status of Blacks in Agricultural Economics, 153, 155-156, 177 Committee on Women in Agricultural Economics, 153-155, 155n32, 177 , 43 post-WWI, 26-27 Community Economics Network Section (CENET), 178 ''A Comparison of the Rank and Salary of Male and Female Agricultural Economists" (Lee), 154 "The Conduct of the Survey on the Opportunities for and Status of Women in Agricultural Economics" (Lundeen and Clauson), 154 Conner, John M., 222 Conner, Larry, 164 Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), 164, 165-166, 166n22 232 INDEX

Constitution AAEA, 120-122, 191, 19lnl 1 AFEA, 77-78, 77n21,83-84,88,92-93,94, 119-122 Constitution(s) AAEA,213-214 AFEA, 213-214 Contributed Papers Sessions, 133-135, 134nl0 "Controlling Agricultural Output" (Wallace), 38 Cooper, Thomas P., 28, 31, 215 "Cooperating in the Marketing of Agricultural Produce" (Coulter), 9 Cooperative Extension Service, 137-141 cooperative movement, 6 Cornell University, 11-12, 13, 109-112 corresponding members, 106, 131 Corson, John J., "Agricultural Workers and Social Insurance," 74n9 Cost Investigations, Committee on, 23-24 Coulter, John Lee, 20 "Cooperating in the Marketing of Agricultural Produce," 9 Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), 164-165 Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics (COPAFS), 164, 166-167 Council on Food, Agriculture, and Resource Economics (C-FARE), 164, 167-169, 171, 178,195 Course of Study, Committee on, 17-19, 17n9 Cowden, Thomas K., 79, 82n29, 216 Cox, Clifton, l 19nl 1 Cox, H.R., 21 Crowder, Richard, l 49n22 "The Current State of Agricultural Economics: Methods and Potentials in Agricultural Economics Research" (Fox), 111-112, l 12n8 "The Current State of Agricultural Economics: The Policy Controversy" (Brandow), 112 D Documentation Center, 123-125, 129, 144, 144n6, 169 Davis, Carlton G., "Black Agricultural Economists in the Labor Market: Theoretical and Empirical Issues," with Allen, 155 Davis, Chester C., 66, 68 "The Program of Agricultural Adjustment," 44 Davis, Irving G., 162, 215 Davis, Joseph S., 34, 38, 45, 82n29, 98, 106n23, 215, 219 de J anvry, Alain, 221 Defense Transportation, Office of, 58-59, 59n22 DeGraff, Herrell, 80n26 degree programs, 11-14, 13n32-34 Deloach, D. Barton, 82, 88n5, 100 "Demand and Supply Factors of Black Agricultural Economists" Qones, Nelson and Parks), 155 Denman, C.B., 67 INDEX 233

DeVault, S.H., 48 DeWeese Taylor, Anne, 77, 77n20, 80, 82n29 Dillon, John L., 220 "The Discontent of Farmers" (Bemis), 6 dissertation award, 88, 88n2, 88n3, 96-97, 125 Distinguished Publication Award, 73 diversity, 143nl, 152-156, 153n28, 155n32 Dixon, H.M., 25, 58 Doane, D. Howard, 220 doctoral dissertation award, 88, 88n2, 88n3, 96-97, 125 Documentation Center, 123-125, 129, 144, 144n6, 169 Doering, Otto C., 187,195,217 Douglas, A. W, ''A Businessman's View of Agriculture," 31 Dow, George F., 82n29 Daye, Damona, 194n 18 Drabenstott, Mark, 179nl6 Duggan, Ivy, 105-106, 105nl9 Duggar, J.F., l 7n8 Dunbar, John 0., 121, 138, 139 Dunn, Donna French, 181, 18ln25 The Dust Bowl, 46--47, 46n29 E Ebert, Wes, 151 Econometrics Section, 178 "Economic and Social Effects of the War and the Defense Program on American Agriculture" (Englund and Smith), 53 economic assistance to farmers, 35-36 "Economic Conditions Causing the Two-Day Cattle Market at Chicago and the Effect of the Zoning Law" (Wilcox), 28-29 Economic Education Committee, 193 Economic Research Service (USDA), 124, 159, 160-161, 16ln5, 168,169,203 Economic Statistics, Committee on, 166 economics, 4n9 agricultural, 8-9, 16, 113 Classical (Smithian) vs. Historical School, 2 political, 2n2 Economics ofAgricultural Production and Resource Use (Heady), 206 Economics of Welfare, Rural Development, and Natural Resources in Agricultural Economics, 1940s to 1970s, 125 ''An Economist Looks at the Next Fifty Years of the Profession" (Mueller), 113 economists and AEA formation, 4-5 extension, 139-140, 140n21 industry, 140-141, 140n21 registry of agricul rural, 100 234 INDEX economy. See also U.S. economy political, 2n2 education, 17-19, 17n9, 18-19,48, 72,94--95, 102, 127-128, 135, 137-141, 168 dissertation award, 88, 88n2, 88n3 extension and, 193 selective service and, 55-56, 56nl3 Education Committee, 135 Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources, Committee on, 127 Eggert, R.J., 67, 72n4, 82n29 Eidman, Vernon R., 151, 176----177, 180,189,222 Eisenhower, Milton, 71nl Eisgruber, Ludwig, 149n22, 149n23 Eke, Paul A., 67 Election Tellers Committee, 82n29 Ellerbrock, Mike, 193 Elliot, Foster F., 80n26, 98, 215, 219 Elliott, William S., 37 Elmhirst, Leonard Knight, 219 Ely, Richard T. on AEA foundation, 4, 4n 10 biographical sketch, 5 Ground Under Our Feet: An Autobiography, 3n4 Employment Committee, 100 employment services, 100 Engene, S.A., 82n29 Englund, Eric, 62-63, 63n27, 74, 95, 215 "Economic and Social Effects of the War and the Defense Program on American Agriculture," with Smith, 53 "Fallacies of Plans co Fix Prices of Farm Produces by Government Control of Exportable Surpluses," 38 Erdman, Henry E., 33, 36, 39, 41, 41n18, 45,215 Ernstes, David P., 37n7 essay contest, 65-69, 125, 180 "Euro-Choices," 180 European Society of Agricultural Economises, 180 Evans, Sidney H., 153 "Characteristics of Black Agricultural Economises," Robbins with, 155 Evenson, Robert, 221 "Evidence on Barriers co the Parallel Advancement of Male and Female Agricultural Economises" (Lane), 154 The Exchange newsletter, 143-145, 151, 151n26, 183, 184 Executive Committee (AFEA), 31-34 size of, 40 Executive Director Inc., 187-188 Experiment Station Funds and Work, Committee on, 23-24, 27 Exploratory Survey ofPersonnel in the Rural Social Sciences (Schultz), 162n8 INDEX 235 extension, 137-141, 137nl7, 168, 191-195, 19lnl0 Choices magazine, 145-147 Extension, Committee on, 20-21, 23-24, 27 Extension Affairs Committee, 139 Extension Committee, 139n19, 192 extension economists, 139-140, 140n21 Extension Program Award, 139 Extension Section (EXT), 178, 193 Extension Service, 137-141 Ezekiel, Mordecai]. B., 61,219 "Price Analyses, War, and Depressions," 52 "The Use of Partial Correlation in the Analysis of Farm Management Data," 30

F Fain, John R., 23, 215 Falcon, Walter P., 221 Falconer,John I., 31,148,215 Falk, LS., 73 "Social Security for Farm People," with Cohen, 74 "Fallacies of Plans to Fix Prices of Farm Products by Government Control of Exportable Surpluses" (Englund), 38 Farm Credit Administration, 43 farm debt, 43, 44 "Farm Economists and Economic Planning" (Wallace), 45 Farm Foundation, 36n5, 37, 14ln24, 147, 168, 170, 178 The Farm Journal 68 "The Farm Labor Outlook for 1919" (Christie), 26, 26n4 Farm Management Extension. See Extension, Committee on Farm Security Administration, 46 "Farm Technological Advance and Total Population Growth" (Brewster), 73 "The Farmer and Social Discipline" (Wallace), 44 Farmers Home Administration, 46 "The Farmers' Movement: The Movement in the Northern States" (Walker), 6 Farrell, Kenneth R., 149, 16ln5, 164,216,220 Farrington, Carl C., 67 Farris, Paul L., 221 Feder, Gershon, 222 Federal Extension Service, 147 Federal Farm Board, 36, 36n4 Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916, 36, 36n4 Federal Government. See government programs Fellows Program, 97-98, 126-127, 126n29, 219 Finance Committee, 182 Findeis, Jill, 151 Findlen, Paul J., 82n29 Firch, Robert, 119nl 1 "The First Fifty Years" Qesness), 111 236 INDEX

Food and Agricultural Marketing Policy Section (FAMPS), 178 "Food Production Strategy and the Protein-Feed Balance," (Christensen and Mighell), 93nl7 Food Safety and Nutrition Section (FSN), 178 Foard, J.A., 22 Foreign Agriculture Service (USDA), 147 foreign members. see international members Forester, Garnet Wolsey, 4lnl8 Forker, Olan, 150 Forster, Garnet Wolsey, 98, 219 AAEA Foundation, 156-157, 184-185 Fox, George A., "The Platform of Organized Agriculture," 31 Fox, Karl A., 113, 220 ''Agricultural Economists as World Leaders in Applied Econometrics, 1917-1933," 114 "The Current State of Agricultural Economics: Methods and Potentials in Agricultural Economics Research," 111-112, l 12n8 "The Fragmentation of the BAE" (Witt), 103-104 French, Ben C., 220 Fraker, RK., 67, 82n29 Fuller, Varden, 220 funding ofAFEA,25-29,32-34 of The journal ofFarm Economics, 26-29, 32-34 Futrell, Gene, 165 "Future Challenges for Modeling in Agricultural Economics" Qohnson), 114 G Gabbard, LP., 80n26 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 35n2 Galpin, C.J., 106n23 Gardner, B. Delworth, 221 Gardner, Bruce L., 163, 166,181,217,221 Glenn, J.M., 8nl9 Glover, Wilbur H., 77, 77n20, 80, 81, 82n29, 102 Goldberg, Ray A., 222 Golden Anniversary Celebration (AFEA), 109-113 Goldschmidt, Walter, As You Sow, 160 Goodwin, Barry K., 222 governance ofAAEA, 178-183, 179nl6 ofAFEA,31-34, 92-93, 118-122 Governance, Committee on AAEA Foundation, 184 government programs, 99 federal farm policy, 93 during the Great Depression, 43-46 impact of on agriculture, 8 Graduate Student Section (GSS), 178 INDEX 237

Grange, 10, 10n24 Gray, Lewis C., 106n23, 215 The Great Depression, 35-49, 72 Griliches, Zvi, 221 Grimes, Waldo E., 36, 41nl8, 44, 48, 215 H Halcrow, Harold G., 102nl2, 122,220 Halvorson, Harlow, 82n29 Hammond, Jerry, 179n16 Handschin, Walter F., 215 Hansen, Alvin H., 66 Hardin, Lowell S., 82n29, 102nl2, 106n21, 216, 220 Harl, Neil E., 119nl 1, 120, 12lnl6, 146, 149n22, 150, 152, 165, 216, 220 Hart, M.V., 41, 41n18 Hatch Act, 168 Hathaway, Dale E., 121,216,220 Hauck, Charles W., 82n29 Havlicek, Joseph, Jr., 147nl6, 216, 221 Hawthorne, H.W., 26 · Hayami, Yujiro, 221 Hayes, Dermot James, 222 Hayward, Harry, 15, 18 Bazzell, Peter, 222 Headley, F.B., 87 Heady, Earl 0., 107n24, 219 Economics ofAgricultural Production and Resource Use, 206 Hedges, Irwin R., 82n29 Hedrick, W.O., 20 Helmberger, Peter, 221 Hendel, Julius, 82n29 Henney, H.J., 72n4 Hensley, Barbara, 170 Hertel, Thomas W., 222 Hibbard, Benjamin, 14, 15, 43, 44, 215 Hildreth, R. James, 37n7, 14ln24, 144,181,216,220 "Toward Farm Policy Requirements for the 1970's to Improve the Well-Being of Rural America," Schaller with, 163nl4 Hill, Forrest F., 43, 44, 44n23, 73, 216, 219 Hill, Lowell, 221 Hillman, Jimmye S., 121, 122, 216, 220 "Hired Farm Labor Under Minimum Wage and Maximum Hour Regulation" (Warren), 74n9 ''An Historian Looks at the First Fifty Years of the Agricultural Economics Profession'' (Carstensen), 112, 112n9 Hoard, W.D., 8nl9 238 INDEX

Hobson,Ashe~45n24,47, 53, 57, 67, 76-78, 76n16, 76nl8, 80, 81, 98,102,122,148, 157,169,170,216,219 biographical sketch, 78 "War Adjustment for American Agriculture," 51-52 Hoffman, Austin C., 82n29, 220 Holbrook, Steve, 194 Holt, MatthewT., 182n27, 222 Hoos, Sydney S., 80, 80n25, 82n29, 220 Hoover, Herbert, 36, 37, 67 Hopkin, John, 150 Hopkins, John A. Jr., 28 Houck, James P., 217,221 "Views on Agricultural Economists' Role in Economic Thought," 114 Howitt, Richard, 222 Huffman, Wallace, 155,221 Hunt, Prof. Thomas F., 13, 17n8, 109 Hurt, Verner, 139, 144, 145 Hyde, Arthur, 41 Hyson, Charles D., 67 I Ihnen, Loren A., "Black Agricultural Economists: Discussion," 155 Ikerd, John, 193 Illinois Agricultural Economics, 148n20 Industry Committee, 138 industry economists, 140-141, 140n21 Innes, Robert, 222 Institutional and Behavioral Economics Section (IBES), 178 institutional members, 140 Instruction, Committee on, 17 International Agricultural Economic Conference, 40 International Cooperative Alliance (I CA), 106, 106n22 International Institute of Agriculture, 29, 29nl4 international members inAAEA, 131 inAFEA, 57, 57nl6, 106 International Section, 178 Investigation, Committee on, 15, 18, 23-24 Iowa State College of Agriculture, 13-14, 109-110, 112 Iowa State University, 149-152 Irish model of agriculture, 9-10 irrigation, 87 "Is There a Distinct Agricultural Question?" (Bailey), discussion session, 7-8 INDEX 239

J James, Dr. Edmund J., 3, 3n5 James, H. Brooks, 98, 107n24, 216 ''.Agriculture in the Years Ahead," 101 James, Sydney, 151, 181 Janssen, Mel, 149 Janvry, Alain de, 221 "Japan's Agricultural Crisis" (Ladejinsky), 51 Jasspon, W.H., 66 Jeffers, Henry W., 21, 215 Jesness, Oscar.B., 33, 41nl8, 45, 80n26, 93, 93nl 7, 113, 215, 219 "The First Fifty Years," 111 "The Newly Developing International Situation and American Agriculture," 53 Johnson, Bruce F., 220 Johnson, D. Gale, 67, 72n3, 102nl 1, 107n24, 114, 216, 219 Johnson, Glenn Leroy, 220 Johnson, S. R., "Future Challenges for Modeling in Agricultural Economics," 114 Johnson, Sherman E., 61, 95, 215, 219 Johnson, Stanley R., 194n18, 221 Johnston, Warren E., 165,217,221 Jones, DeWitt, "Demand and Supply Factors of Black Agricultural Economists," with Nelson and Parks, 155 Jones, E.D., 8n19 Josling, Timothy E., 222 Journal Evaluation Committee, 132-133, 143, 144 journal ofAgricultural and Resource Economics UARE), 87 journal ofEconomic Perspectives UEP), 145 journal ofFarm Economics UFE), 23, 25-34, 57-58, 57n16, 78, 117, 117n2, 123, 140 Distinguished Publication Award, 73 essay contest, 65-69 funding of, 26-29, 32-34 Golden Anniversary Celebration, 111-112 during the Great Depression, 37-39 mission statement of, 25-26 name change to AjAE, 120 journal ofLand and Public Utility Economics, 47 Judge, George G., 221 Just, Richard E., 190,217,221 K Karp, Larry, 222 Kearl, C. Del Mar, 119, 121, 128, 181 Keller, Henry J. Jr., 80, 80n25, 82n29 Kellogg Foundation, 178, 183 Kelly, Julie, 170, 170n31 Kelso, Maurice M., 219 King, Gordon A., 220 240 INDEX

King, Richard A., 149, 216, 220 Kinley, David, Sn 19 Kinsey, Jean, 165, 217, 221 Kling, Catherine Louise, 182n27, 222 Knutson, Ronald D., 37n7, 182n27, 192-193, 222 Koffsky, Nathan M., 220 Kuznets, George M., 220

L Lacy, Mary, 77, 77n20, 80, 82n29 Ladd, George E., 221 Ladejinsky, W, "Japan's Agricultural Crisis," 51 Lafrance, JeffreyT., 222 Land Economics, 47 Land Grant colleges, 11-14, lln26, 156, 168 Land Grant System, 191 Land Market, Committee on, 60 Land Tenure Committee, 49 land use, 87, 99 Land Use Committee, 46-47 Lane, Sylvia, 154, 220 biographical sketch, 154 "Evidence on Barriers to the Parallel Advancement of Male and Female Agricultural Economists," 154 Lange, Mark D., 182n27 Larson, Adlowe L., 67 Lauman, G.N., 13, 15 Learn, Elmer, 119, l 19nll Lee, John E., Jr., 221 Lee, Linda K., ,,A Comparison of the Rank and Salary of Male and Female Agricultural Economists," 154 Legge, Alexander, 36n5 biographical sketch, 37 "Policies and Programs of the Federal Farm Board," 36 Lele, Uma, 221 Leontief, Wassily, 167 Letnes, Louise, 170, l 70n3 l Libby, Lawrence W, 151,217 Library Custodian, 76-77, 80-81, 82n29, 102, 122, 144n6 Lipman, Jacob Goodale, 18 literature archive, 76-77, 80-81, 82n29, 122, 125 Documentation Center, 123-125, 129, 144, 144n6, 169 retrieval system for, 122-125, 169-170, 169n29, 169n30, 170n31 Literature Retrieval, Committee on, 122-125 Littleton, I. T., "The Bibliographic Organization and Use of the Literature of Agricultural Economics," 123 Livermore, K.C., 22 INDEX 241

Long, Erven, 107n24 Lowden, Frank, biographical sketch, 37 Lubin, David, 29nl4 Lundeen, Ardelle, 153 "The Conduct of the Survey on the Opportunities for and Status of Women in Agricultural Economics," with Clauson, 154 Lusk, Jayson, 194nl8 M Maddox, James G., 67,220 Management, Structure, Methods, and Procedures, Committee on, 149, 151 Manderscheid, Lester V., 151, 174-175, 216 Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, 36 "Marketing Agreements under the Agricultural Adjustment Administration" (Tapp & Braun), 44 Marketing Committee, 88, 88n5, 100 Marketing Research Committee, 54, 76, 82n29 Martin, Lee, 107n24, 125 Martin, Marshall, 150 Martin, William, 220 McCalla, Alex F., 221 McCarl, Bruce A., 194, 222 McCluskey, Jill, 187, 189 McConnell, Kenneth E., 221 McCullock, M.E., 15 McNary-Haugen Plan, 36n3 Medals and Awards, Committee on, 95 meeting locations (1910-2013), 223-224 Mellor, John W, 220 membership AAEA/AFEA,26,27,27n8,34,41,45n24,47,53,57,57nl6,63, 75, 75nl4,79n24, 157,184, 184n33, 185, 186n36, 195, 199-202 1930-2009 trends, 209-211 during the 1950s, 105-106, 105n19 during the 1960s, 117 during the 1970s, 131, 131nl during the 1980s, 173-175, l 74n7 characteristics, 1 corresponding, 106, 131 diversity in, 143nl, 152-156, 153n28, 155n32 extension, 139 family participation in annual meetings, 136-137 during the Great Depression, 39 institutional, 140 post-World War II, 72-73, 88-92, 89n6, 89n7, 92nl3 student, 131 sustaining, 105, 105nl9, 131, 1'±0 242 INDEX

AFMA, 25 CAES, 75 CAST, 164-165 COSSA, 165-166, 166n22 CWAE, 155n32 WFEA, 75, 75n14 Meritorious Research Awards Committee, 82n29 Mighell, R. L., "Food Production Strategy and the Protein-Feed Balance," (Christensen with), 93nl 7 military service, 55-56, 56n13, 72 minimum wage, 7 4n9 Mittelhammer, Ron, 185,187,217 Mohrhardt, Foster, 123 Moorhouse, L.A., 23, 25, 27-28 Morgan, Harcourt A., 215 Morrill Act, 168 Morrison Paul, Catherine J., 222 Moschini, GianCarlo, 222 Mosher, Arthur T., 220 Mosher, M.L., 82n29 Mueller, Willard F., 220 ''An Economist Looks at the Next Fifty Years of the Profession," 113 Mundlak, Yair, 221 Munger, H.B., 25 Murray, William G., 74n9, 82, 83, 92, 216, 220 Murri, Joe, 95, 102 Myers, Les, 147n16 Myers, William I., 66, 78, 148,163,215,219 "The Program of the Farm Credit Administration," 44 N National Academy of Sciences, 127 National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty, The People Left Behind, 163, 163nl3 National Agricultural Library (USDA), 123, 124, 169 National Association of Agricultural Economics Administrators (NAAEA), 170-171, 178 National Association of Business Economists, 145 National Association of State Marketing Officials, 20, 21, 40, 40n17 National Association of State Universities (NASU), 55 National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 93, 159, 163 National Coalition for Food and Agricultural Research (National CFAR), 169n29 National Conference on Marketing and Farm Credits, 20, 20nl4, 21 National Council on Economic Education, 193 National Farmers' Alliance(s), 10 national policy, influence on, 39--40 National Rural Network (NRN), 169n29 National Science Foundation (NSF), 73, 76, 123 National Social Science Committee, 72, 72n5 INDEX 243

Nayga, Rodolfo, 194 Nelson, Mack, "Demand and Supply Factors of Black Agricultural Economists," Jones and Parks with, 155 Nerlove, Marc L., 114, 221 The New Deal, 45--46 New Publications, Steering Committee for, 146 "The Newly Developing International Situation and American Agriculture" Qesness), 53 TheAAEANewsletter, 143-145, 151, 15ln26, 183,184,195 Newton, D.J., 156 Nicholls, W.D., 41, 72n3, 122 Nicholls, William H., 67, 216, 219 Nielson, James, 125, 164, 216 ' Nixon, Richard M., 152 North Central journal ofAgricultural Economics, 148, l 48n20 Norton, Lawrence]., 67, 68, 71, 73, 74, 75, 82n29, 95,216 Norton, Nancy Anders, 182n27 Nourse, Edwin G., 30-31, 98, 160n23, 215,219

0 Office of Defense Transportation, 58-59, 59n22 Offutt, Susan, 16ln5, 217, 222 Olson, Nils, 41 One Hundred Year Anniversary (AAEA), 199-207 Organization, Committee on, 15 organizational matters AAEA, 148-152, 180-183, 187-188 AFEA,31-34,92-93 organized labor, 10 "The Orientation of Agricultural Economics" (Brandt), 101 Otis, Daniel H., 15, 215 Outlaw, Joe, 194 outreach. see extension Outreach Committee, 194 Outstanding Extension Publication Award, 139 overproduction, 38, 38n 11. See also supply and demand commodity prices and, 6, 10 during the Great Depression, 43 p Paarlberg, Don, 220 Padberg, Daniel I., 165, 216 Paiva, Ruy Miller, 220 Pardy, Philip, 222 Parity Concepts, Committee on, 71, 72, 72n4 Parity Price and Parity Income Committee, 82n29 Parker, E.C., 8nl9 244 INDEX

Parks, Alfred L., "Demand and Supply Factors of Black Agricultural Economists," Jones and Nelson with, 155 Parks, W Robert, 112 Parlmutter, Jerome, 128 Parsons, Kenneth H., 60n23, 74, 107n24, 220 Pasvolsky, Leo, 51-52 Patrons of Husbandry (Grange), 3, 6 Patten, Pro£ Simon N., 3, 3n5 Paul, Allen B., 220 Peck, F.W, 21, 23, 82n29, 148 Peck, WA., 8n19 Penn, J.B., 222 Penn, R.J., 104 Penson, John, 194 The People Left Behind (U.S. National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty), 163, 163n 13 People's (Populist) Party, 10 Perloff, Jeffrey M., 222 Perrin, Richard, 165 Perry, Janet, 179n 16 Phillips, Michael, 178 Pingali, Prabhu L., 222 Pinstrup-Andersen, Per, 187,217,221 "The Place of Government in a National Land Program" (Tugwell), 44 "The Place of Subsistence Homesteads in Our National Economy" (Wilson), 44 "The Platform of Organized Agriculture" (Fox), 31 Plunkett, Sir Horace, "The Problems of Country Life," 9-10, 10n23 "Policies and Programs of the Federal Farm Board" (Legge), 36 Policy Committee, 83-85, 83n30, 84n32 Polopolus, Leo C., 131-132, 132n2, 145, 146, 151, 156, 173nl, 193,216,221 Pope, J.D., 43 Pope, Rulon D., 221 Poster Sessions, 135 The Post-War Literature Review, 125 postwar price policies, 65-69 poverty, 163-164 agricultural commodity prices and, 5-6, 10 Presidents (1910-2010), 215-217 Price, Bill III, 110 Price, Hugh B., 59, 60, 63, 73, 215, 219 ''A Price Policy for Agriculture, Consistent with Economic Progress, That Will Promote Adequate and More Stable Income from Farming" (essay contest tide), 67 Priorities and Governance Committee, 181-182, 182n27 "The Problems of Country Life" (Plunkett), 9-10, 10n23 Professional Activities Committee, 144n7 "The Program of Agricultural Adjustment" (Davis), 44 "The Program of the Farm Credit Administration" (Myers), 44 INDEX 245

Providence, Rhode Island, 224 publication(s), 131nl, 143-148, 156, 183-184. See also literature archive; specific titles Distinguished Publication Award, 73 Documentation Center, 123-125, 129, 144, 144n6, 169 Outstanding Extension Publication Award, 139 Publication Reprints Committee, 82n29 Publications ofthe American Economic Association, 65nl publicity, for AAEA, 128-129 Pugsley, C.W., 15 Pulver, Glen C., 221 Putnam, Robert D., Bowling Alone, 3n3 Q Quiggin, John C., 222 R Randall, Alan, 184, 221 Rasmussen, M.P., 44 Rasmussen, Wayne D., 220 Raup, Philip M., 220 Rausser, Gordon C., 221 Ray, Oakley M., 106 Readings on Agricultural Policy, 93, 100 Recognition of Outstanding Agricultural Economists, Committee on, 98 Recruiting and Training Personnel in Agricultural Economics, Committee on, 58 Recruitment Committee, 48 Redefining Parity Price and Paricy Income Committee, 82n29 Redman, Barbara, "The Women Who Become Agricultural Economists," 154 Redman,John, 119nll, 148,149,152 registry of agricultural economists, 100 "Reorientations in Agricultural Economic Research'' (Brinegar, Bachman and Southworth), 162n9 research, 106-108, 106n23, 108, 137, 168 Committee on Investigation, 15, 18, 23-24 Documentation Center, 123-125, 129, 144, 144n6, 169 Marketing Research Committee, 54, 76, 82n29 military service and, 55 Social Science Research Council (SSRC), 31-32, 32n21 Research and Marketing Act of 1946, 76 "Research Method and Procedure in Agricultural Economics" (SSRC), 106, 106n23 Resettlement Administration, 46 Resident Instruction Committee, 135 Resolutions Committee, 21-22, 36, 40 on overproduction, 38 retrieval system for literature, 122-125, 169-170, 169n29, 169n30, 170n31 Review ofAgricultural Economics (RAE), 79, 147-148, 147nl9, 148n20, 183, 190-191 Reynolds, Marcus T., 65nl 246 INDEX

Rhodes, V James, 139, 143-145 Richter-Altschaffer, J. H., "War-Time Price Control in the United Kingdom," 52-53 Rickard, Claude, 56 Robbins, Richard D., "Characteristics of Black Agricultural Economists," with Evans, 155 Roberts, Isaac P., 11, lln28, 18nll Robertson, Lynn S., 49, 54 Robinson, Kenneth L., 119nll, 220 Rodkewich, Patricia, 170, 170n31 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 39, 43, 46, 59 Rosegrant, Mark W, 222 round table forums, 6-10 Rowe, Harold B., 98 Rozelle, Scott D., 222 Rudd, Robert, 149 Rural Sociological Society, 54, 61, 72 joint meetings, 51 rural sociology, 13, 13n34, 16 Ruttan, Vernon W, 133n8, 216, 220 s Saratoga, NY, economists' meeting at (1885), 3, 3n6 Schaars, Marvin A., 82n29 Schaller, W Neil, 146 "Toward Farm Policy Requirements for the 1970's to Improve the Well-Being of Rural America," with Hildreth, 163n14 Schertz, Lyle P., 146, 147, 147n16, 147n18, 183, 221 Schickele, Rainer, 67, 220 Schmitz, Andrew, 220 Schuh, G. Edward, 145, 151,164,216,220 Schultz, Theodore W, 34, 57-58, 57nl6, 61, 63n27, 98, 104, 118, 151, 219 Training and Recruiting ofPersonnel in the Rural Social Sciences, 162, 162n8 Scope and Cleavage, Committee on, 15-17, 17n9 Scott, John, 123 Scott, WA., AEA discussion session led by, 7-8 sections within AAEA structure, 176-178 Segerson, Kathleen, 222 Selected Papers, 135 Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, 55-56, 56nl3 Sen, Samar R., 220 Senauer, Benjamin, 222 The Senior Economists, 193 Senior Section, 178 settlement programs, 46-47 Seventy-fifth Anniversary (AFEA), 113-115 Sexton, Richard J., 222 Shaffer, James D., 220 Shepherd, Geoffrey, 67, 220 INDEX 247

Shinn, Linda, 181, 184 Shogren, Jason F., 222 Shumway, C. Richard, 177,180,217,221 Siegfried, John, 189n4 Simerl, Lawrence H., 67, 93nl6 Sisler, Daniel G., 221 Skees, Jerry, 180 Smith, Adam, 2 Smith, Katherine Reichelderfer, 222 Smith, Ray C., "Economic and Social Effects of the War and the Defense Program on American Agriculture," Englund with, 53 Smith, Stephen C., 132-133 Smith, V. Kerry, 222 Smith-Lever Act of 1914, 137, 137nl7, 168,191 Social Science Research Council (SSRC), 31-32, 32n21, 47, 48, 76, 93, 93nl7, 103, 106- 108, 106n23, 111, 123, 159, 161-162, 163 Social Security Act of 1935, 73-74, 74n9, 74nl 1 "Social Security for Farm People" (Falk and Cohen), 74 Society for Advanced Management, 7lnl Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science, 18, 18nl 1, 20 The Society for the Study of National Economy, draft constitution for, 3, 3n4 Soil Conservation Service, 46 Soil Erosion Service, 46 "Some Economic Factors in American Farm Policy" (Nourse), 31 Soth, Lauren K., 220 Southern, John, 119nll, 122 Southern, John H., 121 Southern Agricultural Economics Association (SAEA), 42, 42n20, 54 Southern Association of Agricultural Economists, 42n20 Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists, 42n20 Southern Association of Agricultural Workers, 42, 42n20 Southern Extension Committee, 192, 192nl3 Southern journal ofAgricultural Economics, 54, 163n 14 Southworth, Herman, 107, 107n24, 162nl0 "Reorientations in Agricultural Economic Research," Brinegar and Bachman with, 162n9 Special Awards Committee, 88, 96 Special Grants Committee, 82n29, 95 Spencer, Leland, 76, 82n29 Spillman, WJ., 11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 18nll, 16ln5, 215 state chapters (of AFEA), 40, 42 States Relations, Committee on, 23-24 Statistical and Historical Research Branch (USDA), 110 Statistical Reporting Service, 124, 169 Statistics Committee, of AEA, 5nl2 Steering Committee for New Publications, 146 248 INDEX

Stefanou, Spiro E., 222 Stein, Herbert, 65nl Stewart, Charles, 38 Stewart, Charles L., 101 Stewart, Robert, 87 Stine, Oscar C., 29-30, 45, l l0nl, 215,219 Stoevener, Herbert, 145, 221 Stone, Ken, 151 Stone, W.E., l 7n8 Stovall, John, 149, 149n22, 150, 151 Stovall Committee, 149-151 Strategic Plan for 1997-1998, 178-180, 179nl6, 181-182, 182n27 Student Affairs Committee, 135 students, 178. See also education clubs for, 94-95, 95n22, 127-128 membership for, 131 participation of, 99-100 programs for, 135 Summer Graduate School, 13-14, 13n32-34, 109-110, 195, 196 Sumner, Daniel A., 221 Sundquist, Burt, 149, 149n22, 151 sustaining members, 105, 105nl9, 131, 140 Swanson, Earl R., 220 T Tapp, J. W., "Marketing Agreements under the Agricultural Adjustment Administration," with Braun, 44 Taylor, Anne DeWeese, 77, 77n20, 80, 82n29 Taylor, C.C., 30, 30nl8 Taylor, Henry C., 8nl9, 13, 14, 18, 22-23, 35, 61, 66, 77n20, 98, 104, 104nl4, 106n23, 14ln24, 16ln5, 215, 219 "The Adjustment of the Farm Business to Declining Price Levels," 27, 27n6 biographical sketch, 19 Taylor, Robert, 180, 182 Teaching, Learning, and Communication Section (TLC), 178 Teaching Committee, 18-19, 23-24. see also education; students Teele, R. P., AEA discussion session input by, 8-9, 8nl9 Tefertiller, Kenneth R., 216 Terminology, Committee on, 19, 19nl3, 20, 23-24, 29, 48, 54-55, 58 Thilmany, Dawn, l 82n27 Thompson, J.C., 8nl9 Thompson, Robert L., 221 "Three Phases of Cooperation in the West" (Warner), 6 Timmons, John F., 73, 73n8, 163, 220 Tolley, Howard R., 30nl8, 32-33, 32n22, 41, 104, 104nl4, 106n23, 215 Tomek, William G., 147, 147nl6, 193,216,221 Toussaint, William D., 164nl7 INDEX 249

Toussaint, William 0., 121 "Toward Farm Policy Requirements for the 1970's to Improve the Well-Being of Rural America'' (Schaller and Hildren), 163nl4 Traditional Fields ofAgricultural Economics, 1940s to 1970s, 125 Training and Recruiting ofPersonnel in the Rural Social Sciences (Schultz), 162, l 62n8 transportation, 58-59, 59n22, 60, 61 Trelogan, Harry C., 105, 119, 122, 123, 216, 219 True, A.C., l 7n8 Tugwell, Rexford G., "The Place of Government in a National Land Program," 44 Turner, Steve, 194nl8 Tweeten, Luther G., 153, 163, 216, 220 Tyner, Wallace, 171, l 79nl6 u Undergraduate Student Section (SS-AAEA), 178 Unnevehr, Laurian, 204, 217, 222 Upchurch, M.L., 163 U.S. Department of Agriculture, 8-9, 8nl9, 11, 13, 109-110, 149 Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), 110, 147 Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE), 29, 29nl5, 30, 32, 41, 103-104, 104nl4, 160 Economic Research Service (ERS), 124, 159, 160-161, 16ln5, 168,169,203 Statistical and Historical Research Branch, 110 U.S. Department of Commerce, 29, 29nl5 U.S. economy agriculture in, 5-6 post-Civil War, 2-3 U.S. National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty, The People Left Behind, 163, l 63nl3 "The Use of Partial Correlation in the Analysis of Farm Management Data'' (Ezekiel), 30 V "Validity of the Fundamental Assumptions Underlying Agricultural Adjustment" (Wilson et al.), 45 van Ravenswaay, Eileen, 165 Vaughan, L.M., 82n29 Vernon, Eidman, 217 "Views on Agricultural Economists' Role in Economic Thought" (Houck), 114 Vogt, Paul, 20 w Waite, Warren C., 73, 85, 95-96, 216 Walker, C. S., "The Farmers' Movement: The Movement in the Northern States," 6 Walker, Francis, 4, 73, 73n8, 162 Wallace, Henry, biographical sketch, 39 Wallace, Henry A., 37-38 biographical sketch, 39 "Controlling Agricultural Output," 38 250 INDEX

"Farm Economists and Economic Planning," 45 "The Farmer and· Social Discipline," 44 Wallace, Henry C. biographical sketch, 39 "A National Agricultural Program -A Farm Managemenr Problem," 28 Wallace, L.T., 132, 132n3, 133 Wallaces Farmer, 37-38, 39 "War Adjustment for American Agriculture" (Hobson), 51-52 Ward, Clement, 195 Warner, Amos G., "Three Phases of Cooperation in the West," 6 Warren, E. L., "Hired Farm Labor Under Minimum Wage and Maximum Hour Regulation," 74n9 Warren, George F., 12, 13, 15, 18, 21, 26, 31, 38, 45, 106n23, 109-110, 215 Warren, S.W, l lOnl "War-Time Price Control in the United Kingdom" (Richter-Altschaffer), 52-53 Washington Ag Roundtable, 169n29 Waters, H.J., 17n8 Waugh, Frederick V., 54, 67, 68, 72n4, 73, 74, 75, 76, 82n29, 95, 97, 98, 100, 216, 219 "The Minimum-Cost Dairy Feed (An Application of "Linear Programming")", 93nl 7 Waymack, WW, 66 Weaver, WE., 44 Weber, Bruce A., 222 Webster, E.H., 15 Wehrwein, George S., 38, 44, 59, 60, 215 Wellman, Harry R., 72n4, 79, 80n26, 82n29, 101, 102n10, 216, 220 Wells, Oris V., 82n29, 92, 96, 104, 104nl4, 216, 219 Western Agricultural Economic Association (WAEA), 42, 42n20 joint meetings, 87-88 Western Farm Economics Association (WFEA), 42, 74-75, 78, 82, 83 joint meetings, 87-88 Western journal ofAgricultural Economics, 87 Wharton, Clifton R., Jr., 121, 122, 221 White, Bennett, 82n29, 122 White, H.C., 17n8 White, WC., 82n29 Whittlesey, Norman, 221 Wilcox, R. H., "Economic Conditions Causing the Two-Day Cattle Market at Chicago and the Effect of the Zoning Law," 28-29 Wilcox, Walter W, 220 Wilen, James E., 221 Wilson, Christine, 194n 18 Wilson, Milburn L., 98, 103, 215, 219 "The Place of Subsistence Homesteads in Our National Economy," 44 "Validity of the Fundamental Assumptions Underlying Agricultural Adjustment," et al., 45 Wilson, Woodrow, 36n3 INDEX 251

Witt, Lawrence W, 95n24, 102, 102n12, l lOnl, 162n8, 216, 220 "The Fragmentation of the BAE," 103-104 Wohlgenant, Michael K., 221 "The Women Who Become Agricultural Economists" (Redman), 154 Work Simplification Committee, 82n29 Working, Elmer Joseph, 219 Working, Holbrook, 220 World War I, 26, 26n4, 51 conditions after, 35 World War II, 51-64, 72, 88n3 postwar price policies, 65-69 Wright, Brian D., 222 Wright, Karl T., 72n4, 82n29 y Young, Ernest C., 43, 60, 71, 215, 219 z Zilberman, David, 221 Zimmerman, Carle C., 44 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul W. Barkley was raised on a small farm in California's Central Vall ey. H e received his BS (1957) and MS (1959) fro m Oregon Scace College. Kansas Scace Coll ege granted his PhD in 1963. He held teaching and research positions at Utah State, C olorado Scace, Was hington Scace, and o rnell Uni versiry with interests in rural economics and narural resource economi cs. His writing included a ve ry popular 1972 "primer" on environmental eco­ nomics (Economic Growth and Environmental Decay with David Seckl er) and a popular principles of economics text (fronomics: The Way We Choose) in 1977. Paul joined the Ameri ca n Farm Economi cs As ociaci on in 1960. He chaired the Profess ional Acci vici e Committee fo r man y years and saw it initiate the lea rning work­ shops and the use of posters at annual meetings. He went on to chair the committee ch at planned and put in place the Associati on's Foundation. After servi ce in several other capacities, he served as editor of Choices Magazine during its lase years as a hard -copy publicati on. Paul was made a Fell ow of the Associati on in 1997 and was honored by die creation of an MEA Foundati on Appreciation C lub in his nam e in 2002. H e is an Emericus Professor in the School of Economic ciences at Was hington Scare Unive rsiry and continues an acti ve role in the profession as a C ourtesy Pro fesso r at Oregon Sca re Universiry. He and his wife li ve in Corval lis, Oregon.