Download ARE 433 Midterm 1 Study Guide - Prof. Bk Goodwin and more Study notes Agricultural engineering in PDF only on Docsity! Study Guide for ARE 433 Midterm No. 1 September 28, 2004 The intent of this brief outline is to offer some guidelines to use in studying for the first midterm exam. The exam will consist of about 15 multiple choice, 10 true/false, and two short answer type questions. Of course, my views about the difficult of questions may differ from yours, but my attempt will be to make the questions slightly less difficult than was the case for the homeworks. You should read Chapters 1-6 in the text (Pasour and Rucker). You should also read the following papers from the reading package (note that the table of contents in this package is not correct–they used the wrong version when putting it together): Goodwin “Instability and Risk in U.S. Agriculture;” Bovard “Seven Myths of Farm Policy;” Read “I Pencil.” Note that the Tweeten paper is a good one but the latter portion of it was omitted–so you are not responsible for that material, though you may want to read it. Finally, you will be responsible for all material covered in the class. Note that much of what we discussed does not appear in the text or readings. A rough outline of what we have covered: (1) The problems of agriculture (2) Various views about agriculture (e.g., Jeffersonian ideal, agricultural creed, etc.) (3) Reasons why the government is involved in agriculture. (4) An overview of recent issues in agriculture (world food problem, farm and resource problems, etc.) (5) Philosophies about agricultural problem solving through policy (e.g., the free market, the humanitarian, agricultural fundamentalists, etc.). (6) The agricultural policy process–how is a farm bill assembled and what is the process from committee to law? (7) Administrative structure of USDA and various missions of the different agencies. (8) Basic economic principles about the market, collective choice, and public choice. (9) The political process–voting, campaign funding, the legislative and execu- tive branches. The role of the bureaucrat. (10) Lobby groups and their particular concerns. Note here—there is no need to attempt to memorize any of the particular organizations. You should just have a general view of the process and the different objectives that various groups may have in their lobby efforts. Some general exam comments— • Don’t attempt to memorize esoteric facts and figures. I have no interest in you knowing what the NRCS or AACI stands for–rather I am concerned that you are aware of how different agencies and organizations function. You don’t need to know exactly how much the agriculture share of GDP has fallen over time–just that it has experienced a large fall. 1
