April 27/00 / AP/Reuters
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was cited as telling a Kansas City conference on rural America that the "great wave of invention and innovation" represented by the technology boom will benefit not only people living in cities but in small towns and on farms, adding, "Like all the previous episodes of technical advance, the revolution in information technology already has improved living conditions in numerous ways and it will likely bring future benefits to rural communities that we now can only scarcely imagine."
Greenspan was cited as predicting that farmers would also benefit through high-tech devices, some of them linked to satellites, that will help make decisions on when to plant crops, how to irrigate and fertilize them and how to keep weeds under control.
Greenspan said many of these changes will increase farm productivity, which would mean further declines in the number of farms as the size of the remaining farms continues to increase.
But helping to offset this loss of employment opportunities on the farm, Greenspan predicted there would be an expansion of agriculture service industries to provide support services for farmers.
The U.S. central banker was also cited as saying it was crucial for the farm sector to embrace technological change if it wanted to thrive, adding, "Efforts to increase the openness of foreign markets for agricultural products will need to be maintained and intensified, so that the full benefits of farm productivity gain can show through into increased market opportunity and farm income.":
