This is a new version of a series of color slides on social capital as presented at a conference on rural development presented in Tampa, Florida in 2004, and sponsored by the Southern Rural Development Center.

Farmland values have increased rapidly over the last decade in response to high incomes for crop farmers and inordinately low interest rates. Farmers have responded to these conditions by bidding up the price of good cropland. In addition, the long period of increasing land values, since the...

U.S. decoupled direct payments, paid to farm operators based on historic yields and base acreage under the 2002 Farm Bill, may alter a farmer’s access to credit or his ability to meet debt servicing obligations. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Resource...