Feed Manufacturers' and Dealers' Gains and Losses from Feed Contract Programs in the Midwest

Nicholas M. Thuroczy

No 320091, Miscellaneous Publications from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service

Abstract: Feed manufacturers and dealers have offered livestock and poultry feeders a variety of feed-financing and contract programs. These programs differ greatly in the degree of control and participation by the manufacturer or dealer and in the quantity of feed per program. There are informal programs that involve only the extension of credit for the purchase of feed from the sponsor and formal programs that provide for supervision of production and some risk-sharing. Many of these programs in the Midwest have been unprofitable to the sponsors. A recent study of 48 feeder-financing and contract programs showed that 42 percent were unprofitable. The informal programs were more frequently profitable than the formal programs. Feed manufacturers and dealers have spurred the development of contract farming in the United States in recent years. Their unprofitable experience with financing and contract programs in the Midwest may slow the growth of integration in livestock feeding in that area. The following article presents the results of the study of 48 feeder programs and considers the characteristics of the profitable and unprofitable programs.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Agricultural Finance; Livestock Production/Industries; Marketing; Production Economics; Risk and Uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14
Date: 1963-02
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/320091/files/ERS-107.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:uersmp:320091

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.320091

Access Statistics for this paper

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