In such areas American companies are faced with intense competition throughout the

world, sometimes from foreign firms which are supported by groups of nations and

their governments. Still, America's private industries are doing quite well. American

firms which sell passenger aircraft or computers retain the largest share of the world

market. Similarly, many countries now have their own Silicon valleys, but the first and

biggest computer research and production area is still Silicon Valley, near San

Francisco, where some 4,000 high-tech firms are located. And the best-selling car in

the world is a Ford (the Escort). In the poker game of international business,

foreigners still choose to put their money in the American game first. Foreign

investment in the U.S. in 1984 amounted to some $164 billion, with the United

Kingdom ($38 billion), the Netherlands ($33 billion), Japan ($16 billion), Canada ($15

billion), and West Germany ($12 billion) as leading investors.

While its industrial and technological skills are well known, what many people,

including Americans, don't know is that the United States is also the world's leading

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agricultural nation. America is by far the biggest supplier of grains, growing 20

percent of all the world's wheat, corn (maize), oats and sorghum. Similarly,

American farmers and ranchers are responsible for 14 percent of the world's dairy

products, 17 percent of 40 all its meats, 27 percent of its vegetable fats and oils, and

over 60 percent of its soybeans. This is surprising, because America's share of the

world's land that can be used for farming is less than 8 percent, and because only a

tiny proportion of America's total population (less than 3 percent) is involved in

agriculture. America not only feeds her own people - one of the few countries that

does so - but a great many other people in the world as well. This is true, even

though other countries such as the Soviet Union and China have more land under

agriculture and more people working on it. Exports only account for less than a tenth

of America's gross national product, but of this amount, almost one-fifth comes

from agricultural goods.

A problem facing American farmers is, in fact, that they produce much more

food and agricultural products than ever before. The 1985 corn crop, for example, was

the largest in history, and there are enormous excesses of wheat, rice, soybeans, and

milk as well. Despite the dramatic decrease of the American farm population - from 23

percent of the total population in 1940 to less than 2.5 percent in 1985 - the agricultural

output has increased more rapidly than the demand. This has lowered the price of

agricultural products, and some farmers who bought more land or equipment when

prices were higher are now in difficulty. Some 50,000 of the nation's 2.3 million farmers

were forced to quit farming in 1985. Although this is only about 2 percent of all farm-

ers, it received very much attention in the media, because Americans have always held

a romantic image of the family farm. The small family farm might not be economical