There is little that stirs more debate today in the countryside than the spread of large confined animal facilities. At a recent Congressional hearing, Dan Glickman, Secretary of Agriculture, said that the U.S. Department of Agriculture gleans several stories on such debates from the nation's...

This paper analyzes in three contexts the effects of changing economic conditions and varying economic perspectives on the way land is considered in economic doctrine. The first considers agricultural land use where agriculture is connected to the rest of the economy exclusively through input...