Farmers’ Use of Contracts Has Declined Over Last 25 Years

Christine Whitt

Amber Waves:The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America, 2022, vol. 2022

Abstract: A contract governing the production of agricultural commodities is a legal agreement between a farm operator (or producer) and another person or firm (a contractor or integrator) to produce a specific type, quantity, and quality of crops or livestock. The use of contracts, instead of traditional cash sales, is one tool producers use to manage income risks. Other strategies include diversifying production, hedging through futures markets, participating in Federal crop insurance, and investing in on-farm storage. Producers also use contracts to guarantee they are compensated appropriately for higher quality products, to create specific outlets for their products, and to provide assurance for debt financing.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/324714/files/U ... ast%2025%20Years.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:uersaw:324714

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.324714

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Amber Waves:The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().