Most of the literature on the macroeconomics of U.S. agriculture is cast in the context of a closed economy. Moreover, it considers a world in which there is rapid technological change, and focuses on the problems involved in the so-called agricultural transformation the process whereby an important share of the agricultural labor force is transferred out of agriculture and new modern inputs produced in the nonfarm sector are introduced Consequently , it tends to ignore our linkages to an international economy, and focuses instead on the secular income problems that agriculture faces as it is subjected to the processes of economic growth.