|
Institute of Agricultural & Environmental Research Tennessee State University |
||||
|
Seminar Series Abstract
Are U.S. Farmers Business Entrepreneurs? Dr. Faqir S. Bagi Senior Economist Economic Research Service, USDA Little over two million American farm families have been in farming, mostly on the same family farm, for many generations and have deep roots. They operate almost a billion acres scattered all over the 48 States, and anchor rural America. These farm families have remained rooted on the farm through trying times: severe crop damage, crop failures, dust bowl, great depression, increasing globalization, and continuous exodus out of farming. They are resilient, resourceful, take economic risks, and search for opportunities to adjust, adapt, and stay ahead of the changes in local, national, and global markets and economic conditions, and that is the personification of an entrepreneur. Various farmers are currently engaged in a number of entrepreneurial activities: rent/lease either a part or all of the land they operate, operate a second (or third) farm, use their farm machinery and equipment to do custom work for others, grow certified organically produced crops, use their woodland and timber to produce forest products, enter into livestock grazing arrangements, use their land and other farm resources for agro-tourism/recreations, invest capital into off-farm businesses, and allocate time and human capital embodied in the operator/spouse to off-farm wage/salary jobs. This paper presents an economic profile of the eighteen farm groups engaged in various entrepreneurial activities.
|
||||
