Farming Dependent Counties and the Financial Well-Being of Farm Operator Households

Mary Ahearn, Susan Bentley and Thomas Carlin

No 309471, Agricultural Information Bulletins from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service

Abstract: The financial well-being of farmers varies with the local economy's dependence on farming. Farming dependent counties (where farming contributes at least 20 percent of the county's total earnings) offer limited nonfarm employment opportunities. These operators earn high farm incomes but face large debts. Declining land values have lowered their equity positions. Government payments provide a larger share of their incomes than for farms in other areas because these farmers specialize in producing crops included in farm commodity programs. Farms in counties not so dependent on agriculture are smaller, produce more and diversified crops, rely less on farming for income, and have better equity positions. Average farmland values there are higher because farming competes with other business, residential and recreational land uses. This report examines the financial well-being of farm operator households in counties that rely on farming for earnings.

Keywords: Community/Rural/Urban Development; Consumer/Household Economics; Financial Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16
Date: 1988-07
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/309471/files/aib544.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uersab:309471

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.309471

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Agricultural Information Bulletins from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().