Authors: Joe Outlaw and Bart L. Fischer
Anyone who ever worked out on a treadmill at a gym—or purchased their own for home use—knows just how unpleasant walking or running on a treadmill can be. For most of us, it is the rare combination of boring and monotonous, staring at yourself in a mirror while walking or running in place.
While the agricultural technology treadmill is neither boring nor monotonous for farmers, it’s currently just as unpleasant. In his 1958 book Farm Prices: Myth and Reality, renowned agricultural economist Willard Cochrane first introduced the concept of the “technology treadmill” (or agricultural treadmill). According to Cochrane, early adopters of agricultural technology do so to lower production costs and increase profits, only to see widespread adoption of the technology causing an increase in supply that drives down market prices. All remaining farmers are forced to adopt the new technology just to survive, trapping them on a “treadmill” where they must continuously adopt the latest technology in hopes of becoming profitable again. The alternative is getting off the treadmill…and going out of business.
One doesn’t have to look very hard to see this playing out in real life. U.S. farmers have continuously adopted new seed, labor-saving, fuel-saving, time-saving, and many other types of technologies in the name of lower costs and higher profits. In the case of seed technology alone, tremendous innovation has increased yields which, in some years, have offset lower prices and provided an opportunity to break-even or better. At the same time, farmers continue to get off the treadmill and the number of farms in this country continues to decline. The main question is this: can this go on forever?
Given the current cost-price squeeze in agriculture—and when weighing the cost of technology against the value of agricultural commodities—the benefits of adopting technology seemingly are not there anymore. However, technology providers are shielded from this reality as the Federal government provides ad hoc assistance to keep producers from falling off the treadmill. As Congress works to reauthorize the farm bill, we keep coming back to one solution (albeit not a silver bullet): continue the shift back to standing farm policy that provides risk management without guaranteeing outcomes. As farmers face this risk, input suppliers must face it as well and must come to terms with the cost of their products and producer’s ability to pay for them.
Outlaw, Joe, and Bart L. Fischer. “The Ag Technology Treadmill is About as Fun as the One at the Gym.” Southern Ag Today 6(20.4). May 14, 2026. Permalink
