A Return of the Threshing Ring? Motivations, Benefits and Challenges of Machinery and Labor Sharing Arrangements

Georgeanne Artz, Gregory Colson and Roger Ginder

Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Cooperative approaches provide an alternative for small- and medium-sized producers to obtain the efficiencies of large farming operations and remain competitive in an increasingly concentrated agricultural industry. This article examines the motivation and effectiveness of equipment and labor sharing arrangements in the Midwestern US. Case study evidence shows that in addition to cost savings, access to skilled, seasonal labor is an important motivation for farm-level cooperation. Key factors identified for successful cooperative agreements include compatibility of operations and members' willingness to communicate and adapt. Sharing resources is found to improve farm profitability, efficiency and farmers' quality of life.

Keywords: machinery sharing; skilled farm labor; productivity; farm-level cooperations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-05-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-eff and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/papers/paper_13065_09008.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A Return of the Threshing Ring? A Case Study of Machinery and Labor-Sharing in Midwestern Farms (2010)
Working Paper: A return of the threshing ring? Motivations, benefits and challenges of machinery and labor sharing arrangements (2009)
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:isu:genres:13065

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics Iowa State University, Dept. of Economics, 260 Heady Hall, Ames, IA 50011-1070. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Curtis Balmer ().