 Organic farmers or conventional farmers: Where's the money?Hiroki Uematsu and Ashok Mishra () Ecological Economics, 2012, vol. 78, issue C, 55-62 Abstract: There is growing evidence that organic farming is a rapidly expanding economic sector in the U.S. However, an unanswered question is whether organic farmers are better off than conventional farmers when it comes to farm household income. Using large farm-level data and a matching estimator, this study explores the relationship between organic certification and farm household income with its various components. Contrary to expectations, certified organic farmers do not earn significantly higher household income than conventional farmers. Though certified organic crop producers earn higher revenue, they incur higher production expenses as well. In particular, certified organic producers spend significantly more on labor, insurance, and marketing charges than conventional farmers. The results suggest that the lack of economic incentives can be an important barrier to conversion to organic farming. Keywords: Organic farming; Propensity score matching; Average treatment effect; Nearest neighbor matching; Farm household income; Farm revenue (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:78:y:2012:i:c:p:55-62 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.03.013 Access Statistics for this article Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier |
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