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<br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />'n~~~~3 <br />VJ..j;.-J-4. <br /> <br />Through the 1950's, domestic population and income growth provided at <br />least 90 percent of the roughly 1.5 percent annual compound growth in the <br />demand for U.S. farm output. But with U.S. population growth now at 0.7 <br />percent per year and still slowing and the income effect also diminishing, <br />these conventional sources of demand for farm output would currently not be <br />expected to generate more than 1.0 percent growth in demand. In addition, <br />even this 1 percent is expected to decline in future years. If the U.S. <br />were a closed economy, domestic population would stabilize at 290 million <br />people by the year 2020. This could, in turn, signal a nearly steady state <br />food and agricultural sector with any change resulting from an income <br />effect or changes in tastes and preferences. (Given the currently high <br />income levels in the U.S. and no expectation that this would decline. no <br />appreciable increases in U.S. food consumption are projected due to growing <br />per capita disposable incomes.) But, the U.S. is becoming increasingly <br />part of an interdependent, and rapidly growing world economy. In 1960, <br />U.S. agricultural exports were valued at 4.5 billion dollars or 11.6 per- <br />cent of farm output. Today U.S. annual exports are in excess of 30 billion <br />dollars of farm products annually representing over 25 percent of aggregate <br />farm output and about one-third of our crop production. For the 1977 to <br />1979 period, exports on the average, accounted for 62, 39, 52, 63, 30 and <br />33 percent of our wheat. soybeans, cotton, rice, corn and grain sorghum <br />production respectivel y. <br /> <br />Many countries are becoming more dependent on imports to meet rising <br /> <br />II-25 <br />