As supplier of most of the food we eat and of raw materials for many industrial processes, agriculture is clearly an important area of the economy. But the industrial performance of agriculture is even more important than this. For in nations where the productivity of farmers is low, most of the working population is needed to raise food and few people are available for production of investment goods or for other activities required for economic growth. Indeed, one of the factors related most closely to the per capital income of a nation is the fraction of its population engaged in farming. In the poorest nations of the world more than half of the population lives on farms. This compares sharply with less than 10 per cent in Western Europe and less than 4 per cent in the United States.
作為我們所吃的大多數(shù)食物和很多工業(yè)過(guò)程原材料的供應(yīng)商，農(nóng)業(yè)顯然是經(jīng)濟(jì)的一個(gè)重要領(lǐng)域。但農(nóng)業(yè)的工業(yè)表現(xiàn)甚至比這更重要。因?yàn)樵谵r(nóng)民生產(chǎn)力較低的國(guó)家，大多數(shù)勞動(dòng)人口都需要用來(lái)生產(chǎn)糧食，很少有人能夠生產(chǎn)投資品或從事經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)所需的其他活動(dòng)。事實(shí)上，與一個(gè)國(guó)家的人均收入最密切相關(guān)的因素之一是其從事農(nóng)業(yè)的人口比例。在世界上最貧窮的國(guó)家，超過(guò)一半的人口生活在農(nóng)場(chǎng)。相比之下，西歐不到10%，美國(guó)不到4%。

In short, the course of economic development in general depends in a fundamental way on the performance of farmers. This performance in turn, depends on how agriculture is organized and on the economic environment, or market structure, within which it function. In the following pages the performance of American agriculture is examined. It is appropriate to begin with a conversation of its market structure.
簡(jiǎn)言之，經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展的進(jìn)程在很大程度上取決于農(nóng)民的表現(xiàn)。這種表現(xiàn)反過(guò)來(lái)取決于農(nóng)業(yè)的組織方式以及農(nóng)業(yè)運(yùn)作的經(jīng)濟(jì)環(huán)境或市場(chǎng)結(jié)構(gòu)。在接下來(lái)的幾頁(yè)中，我們將考察美國(guó)農(nóng)業(yè)的表現(xiàn)，從它的市場(chǎng)結(jié)構(gòu)論述開(kāi)始。