This is a new version of a series of color slides on social capital as presented at a conference on rural development presented in Tampa, Florida in 2004, and sponsored by the Southern Rural Development Center.

Farmland values have increased rapidly over the last decade in response to high incomes for crop farmers and inordinately low interest rates. Farmers have responded to these conditions by bidding up the price of good cropland. In addition, the long period of increasing land values, since the...

This paper examines the impacts of potential higher prices and short supplies for energy inputs used in the production of agricultura1 commodities. We focus specifically on the issue of the extent to which the cost or availability of energy inputs might lead to a situation in which the United...