The United States, for generations, was known as the “bread basket of the world.” Now the U.S. is long an afterthought; our exports of staple crops (corn, wheat, and soy) have been relatively unchanged in nearly 30 years.

Meanwhile production has exploded all around the globe. According to the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center at the University of Tennessee, from 1980 to 2009 U.S. exports of corn, wheat and soy fell 5 percent (from 129 to 122 million metric tons). At the same time our exports dropped 5 percent, global exports of the same products grew 66 percent.

What does this really mean for the United States? First and foremost it means that one of the keys to our export economy is sorely behind the rest of the world. However, it should be expected that as other nations grow and cultivate expanses of cropland they would be less dependent on our produce.

The U.S. only has a limited amount of land upon which it can grow crops. We essentially maxed out our land usage 40 or 50 years ago. We can increase yields with modern technological advances, but so can everyone else. The U.S. once held an absolute and a comparative advantage in agricultural production that has long since dwindled away.

There is a bigger picture to see in our crop export economy. For generations there was literally no better place in the entire world to grow staple crops like wheat, corn and soy. We had higher yields, better quality, and stronger products. Now, our crops are no different than those you can find almost anywhere else in the world. As yields in China begin to increase, and that country begins exporting more staple crops, the market for U.S. goods will diminish even more.

The U.S. could not really expect to maintain its global dominance of crop exports forever; eventually other nations would begin to catch up. But the slow deterioration of our international crop markets has mirrored the slow deterioration of our markets for other goods as well.

Declines in farm employment are tough for farmers, but they don’t really hurt the national economy – a single combine can do the same job as dozens of men. Declines in farm employment are more or less unavoidable. However, declines in other economic sectors could, and should, have been avoided. Losing a few assembly jobs in Detroit to an automated robot is one thing; losing the entire plant to Toyota City in Japan is another entirely.

We cannot maintain a monopoly on grains and oilseeds, nor would we really want to. But we could have maintained dominance in other industries.

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