Family farms vary widely in size and other characteristics, ranging from very small retirement and residential farms to establishments with sales in the millions of dollars. The farm typology developed by the Economic Research Service (ERS) categorizes farms into groups based primarily on...

American farms vary widely in size and other characteristics, but farming is still an industry of family businesses. Ninety-eight percent of farms are family farms, and they account for 82 percent of farm production. Small family farms make up most of the U.S. farm count and hold the majority of...

Much of the research in the past on farm structure and economic well-being focused almost exclusively on farms based on their size, their contribution to total agricultural production, or national net farm income. These aggregate measures do not by themselves adequately explain how well the farm...

This research aims to benchmark agricultural supply cooperatives regarding their fertilizer application services. Cooperative fertilizer application departments are essentially an extension of member farm operations. Because farm supply cooperatives return profits to their user members, the...

The Internet is becoming an increasingly important management tool in production agriculture. Using data from the 2004 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) and a double-hurdle estimation approach, we explore the adoption of computers with Internet access by and Internet purchasing...

This bulletin presents various economic time series relating to national, regional, and State farm income statistics. Data series for State-level cash receipts and production expenses by major components from 1949 to 1984 are included as well as other State-level farm income components and...

Data from the 2006 Agricultural Resource Management Survey and multivariate regression procedures are used to examine the role of human capital in impacting the incomes of farm households. The paper uses an “adjusted†concept of income where government payments are subtracted from...

A farm’s physical investment is affected by its fundamental q and by its financial situation, with the later comprising both the firm’s liquidity and its possibility of facing capital market imperfections. This study determines the effects of government payments, depreciation, and inflation...

Marketing and production contracts covered 39 percent of the value of U.S. agricultural production in 2008, up from 36 percent in 2001, and a substantial increase over 28 percent in 1991 and 11 percent in 1969. However, aggregate contract use has stabilized in recent years and no longer suggests...

An estimated 1.8 million farm operations represented in the 1990 Farm Costs and Returns Survey operated about 1 billion acres of land in 1990. Average farm size was 588 acres, but almost 44 percent of farms operated 100 acres or less. Farms VJith sales of less than $10,000 accounted for almost...