Economic Returns to Farming for U.S. Farm Households

Daniel L Prager, Sarah Tulman and Ron Durst

No 276224, Economic Research Report from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service

Abstract: A farm’s financial performance is commonly measured by net farm income, net cash farm income, and the farm household’s income or loss from the farm business. Slightly more than half of all U.S. farm households face a loss from their farm business in any given year. But other factors may also affect households’ economic returns from farming. For example, many households contribute unpaid labor to their farm, which is not included in the commonly used net income measures. This study examines returns to farming using the net income measures and an alternative measure that adjusts for the “opportunity” costs of capital and unpaid household labor—the costs of using these resources in farming rather than in some other pursuit. In addition, the study estimates two often-overlooked economic returns to farming: tax-loss benefits from farming and farmland appreciation.

Keywords: Farm; Management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-08
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/276224/files/ERR254.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:uersrr:276224

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.276224

Access Statistics for this paper

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