Economic and financial section > Agricultural crisis > Volume 1

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That high marketing, processing and distributing costs are also a factor in the
unsatisfactory condition of agriculture in the United States of America seems apparent
from the wider spread that has developed between the farm price and retail price of
foods. Farm prices of foods in 1929 averaged 51 Per cent higher than before the war,
yet retail prices were 74 per cent higher. If farmers received as large a share of the
retail price as they did before the war, the general level of farm prices would approach
the level of the prices of other items in the cost of living, the index of which stood at 171
in 1929.
Whether any substantial improvement in the position of our agriculture should
be looked for as a result of concentration of attention on this problem, however, is a
question that cannot be answered with assurance on the basis of experience to date,
but hopes should not be placed too high. Increased costs of marketing, processing
and distributing are due largely to higher wages to labour used in these processes, to
high transportation costs, and to high rents for business establishments. High wages
are so firmly established as concomitant to American business policy that material change
on that score does not seem in prospect. The increasingly complex character of modern
life and economic activity in the United States of America is adding to, rather than
diminishing, the demands on our processing and distributing systems. Better and
better quality, greater regularity and dependability of supply, speed of delivery, and
greater convenience in form for handling and use, are requirements, the meeting of which
can be solved only by increased emphasis on the converting and distributing processes.
Much attention is being devoted to the problem of distribution, and there is evidence
that efficiency is increasing in this field. Retail distribution of foods has never been
as efficient as since the development of the great chain store systems so widespread in
the United States of America.