ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS 
AND 
AGRICULTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT PLANS 
D. GALE (JOHNSON 
University of Chicago - Chicago - U.S.A. 
In this paper I use the term agricultural development plan 
as though it were synonymous with agricultural policy. I be- 
lieve that this is in keeping with the usage that prevails in the 
world today. If one defines a plan as a statement of achiev- 
able objectives, an indication of the means or resources that 
will be available to achieve the objectives, and the institutional 
arrangements that will be used to relate the means or resour- 
ces to the objectives, one can find few examples of agricultural 
plans. Though the details have never been published, I am 
reasonably confident that a plan approximately fulfilling the 
conditions of the above definition existed for the virgin and 
idle land program of the Soviet Union. In the same sense, it 
can be said that plans have been evolved for the development 
of new lands through irrigation or drainage in the United States 
and in many other parts of the world. 
But at national levels there have probably been no deve- 
lopment plans for agriculture that would satisfy the above de- 
inition * There is, of course, no denving that governments 
() I do not believe that the agricultural components of the Soviet 
Union's economic plans, either the five-year plans or the current seven 
vear plan, meet the criteria of a plan specified in the text. In general. the 
Johnson - pag.