AGRICULTURE: The Pushbutton Cornucopia

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Whether the U.S. can much longer afford the huge surpluses being piled up by this efficiency is doubted by most farm experts. Even if the support scandal continues, there is something for U.S. taxpayers to be cheerful about. Rising efficiency keeps down the cost of food. The mountainous grain surplus currently is causing a build-up in cattle-breeding—pointing to an eventual price break.

For the world, the enormous success of Farmer North and thousands like him may be even more significant. The new methods have proved just as successful abroad as in the U.S. For example, in England, Farmer Anthony Fisher tried his hand at dairying. After his herd died of foot-and-mouth disease he was about ready to quit. Hearing about the U.S. system of raising broilers, he wrote to Ralston Purina Co. to get free brochures on how to do it. He started out with 200 birds. Now his output has grown to 1,000,000 a year. The broiler king of England, he has one packing plant, plans another to process his chickens and those of his imitators. The broiler is fast becoming as cheap and popular in England as in the U.S. Thus the new methods of mechanization and automation developed by the U.S. farmer can show the world how to solve the food shortages brought on by the explosion in population. In the next decade, the most important U.S. export may well be the lessons that Farmer North and others learned down on the farm.