Farmers' Perception of the Farm Problem

Abstract

ARMERS' perception of the basic causes of the farm problem and its possible solutions affects their attitudes toward potential farm programs and the operational success of programs. These attitudes influence farm policy directly through the way farmers vote in referendums and indirectly through Congressional action on farm legislation. This paper outlines an attempt to measure wheat farmers' perception of the farm situation as part of a 1964 survey of 500 Oklahoma and Kansas farmers' attitudes and preferences. We first present the scores of farmers on 11 statements measuring their understanding of the farm problem, then compare these scores with those of university students and staff, and finally relate socio-economic characteristics and voting behavior of farmers to their perception scores. Table 1 presents the percentage distribution of farmer responses to 11 statements concerning the farm situation. These statements are listed according to the percentage of acceptable responses. The rating of a response as acceptable (meaning a keen perception of the farm problem) is based on the authors' judgment, which is of course fallible. Farmers showed the highest level of understanding of statement 1 (There is apt to be a shortage of food because so many people are moving off the farm). Seventy-three percent of the farmers disagreed with this statement. Farmers, in general, were aware of the difficulty in organizing U.S. farmers to control production (statement 2). Just over one-half of the 500 farmers agreed that the U.S. should consider the effect on other wheat-exporting countries when developing a wheat-export policy (statement 3). Thirty percent of the farmers indicated they felt that the government should support farm prices but it shouldn't try to tell farmers what to do (statement 4). This response may reflect strong dissatisfaction (apparent in other parts of the survey) with past acreage controls or failure to understand the enormous problems which would arise with price supports but no controls.