SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS JULY, 1977 DISCUSSION: NEEDED RESEARCH WITH RESPECT TO ENERGY USE IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

Drs. Havlicek and Capps have made a beginning decisions to abandon irrigation in the Trans-Pecos in determining regional sensitivity of agricultural area of Texas. production to rising prices of energy. Although rising The authors correctly recognize that although prices and shortages of energy will have some effect agricultural production requires only about three on all of agriculture, we must know which enterprises percent of the nation's energy consumption, produc-and which areas of the nation will be most affected. tion of agricultural commodities is likely to be very Prospects are that major shifts will occur in cropping sensitive to quantity restrictions or large price in-patterns, regional distribution of agricultural produc- creases for energy. tion, irrigated acreages, farm incomes and land values; Comparisons of energy consumption in southern but these impacts will obviously not be equally agriculture among enterprises and relative to the distributed. nation is instructive and a step in the right direction The ability of technological innovations to pro- to a prescription of energy policy for agriculture. It is vide a profitable alternative to current fuel sources is unfortunate that attempts to estimate demand func-likely to be subject to large variations among enter- tions for different fuels in selected enterprises were prises and regions. Broiler production currently so not successful. In view of the inability to estimat