摘要：As the farm financial crisis of the 1980s has faded EXPECTED NET BENEFITS RULE: AN
from our collective short-term memory, agricultural ECONOMIC TOUCHSTONE?
economists have turned their attention to what may As Shabman has noted, the environmental hazards
emerge in retrospect as the agricultural crisis of the of production agriculture extend beyond simple culdecade:
the environmental hazards of farming. tural practices determining the use and fate of agri-
Given this financially healthier farm economy, en- cultural chemicals to include restructuring and
vironmental issues long associated with farming are controlling nature from its essential genetic level to
surfacing as areas of key concern in the debates altering entire ecosystems. This is correctly exshaping
the 1990 Food Security Act. As a result, pressed as a metaphor for all technological change
Shabman's thoughtful paper on the management and associated perceived hazards. Regulation of
challenges presented by the environmental hazards technological hazards, including those associated
of farming is not only timely, but also potentially with agriculture, is based largely on anticipated efinfluential
as an input in the ongoing policy process.
