Davis, California
December 22, 2008
University of California Davis agricultural economist Steven
Blank provides a research-based glimpse into the future of
American agriculture with the publication this year of his book
"The Economics of American
Agriculture: Evolution and Global Development."
This is Blank's second book focused on the future of American
agriculture. It follows a decade after the 1998 publication of
"The End of Agriculture in the American Portfolio," in which he
projected that rising costs and price competition from imported
commodities would eventually force U.S. firms to abandon
production agriculture and move their investments into
industries with higher returns.
Blank is a UC Cooperative Extension agricultural economist,
whose research focuses on financial management, risk analysis,
futures and options markets, and management methods. His new
488-page book, published by M.E. Sharpe, further examines what
is happening to American agriculture and why.
He uses portfolio theory -- the concept of how rational
investors will diversify their investments to maximize the value
of their holdings -- to analyze both macro- and microeconomic
data. That analysis reveals trends in agriculture, and explains
why those trends reflect market evolution and global economic
development.
The book features empirical research that demonstrates the link
between farm-level investment decisions and regional and
national economic trends. It shows how the industrialization and
globalization of agriculture is part of a continuing development
driven by technological innovation.
Based on this data analysis, Blank predicts that the future will
bring a much different role for the nation's agricultural sector
and will require that the nation make extremely important policy
decisions related to that change.
Blank, who grew up around California agriculture, completed a
bachelor's degree in business at California State University,
Stanislaus, and went on to the University of Massachusetts,
where he earned a master of business administration degree
before earning a doctorate in agricultural economics at the
University of Hawaii. He is past-president of the Western
Agricultural Economics Association and received that
association's highest honor, the Distinguished Scholar Award, in
2007. |
|
