The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on November 17, 2009). Thesis advisor: Dr. Patrick Westhoff. Includes bibliographical references.

Average Canadian farm incomes tend to be consistently lower than non-farm incomes. Many reasons, including aggregate overproduction are advanced as possible explanations of the above problem. This thesis attempts to determine whether overproduction has been one of the causes of the farm income problem. The bulk of information used in this study was time series data as prepared by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics for the years 1935 to 1965. A model was constructed to test two related hypotheses regarding the presence of excess capital formation and its effect on income and overproduction. The basic findings of the study were that capital formation was not greater than required to produce an aggregate supply of agricultural products equal to aggregate demand. The growth in aggregate supply and aggregate demand were found to be very similar for the period 1935 to 1965, thus indicating that the farm income problem was not aggravated during this era by overproduction. In subsequent analysis, a broader view of the problem was undertaken. To begin, it was established that per capita farm incomes have been growing at a rate similar to that of non-farm incomes. In addition the so called "cost-price squeeze" was not found when the entire 1935 to 1965 period was observed but rather was only found in subperiods. Factor share analysis was used to show that agricultural capital offered returns at least equal to the opportunity costs of capital. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

The basic objectives of this thesis are to build an earnings function for farm incomes of Canadian farm operators, and estimate the rate of return to schooling. It is hypothesized that the low levels of farm income are related to the low investment in education by farm operators. If reasonable estimates of positive returns to schooling are found, they will be useful for policy makers in considering the improvement of the quality of farm operator labour via schooling, as an alternative measure to increase farm income. To achieve the goals of this study, an earnings function is built for the group of entrepreneurs, in particular the farm operators. As a test of functional form a digression is made and a value added approach discussed and utilized as an alternative way of computing the contribution of schooling to farm income. Although both methods yielded significant estimates of the return to schooling comparable to previous studies, the value added approach was found to be a better specified formulation with respect to estimating the productivity of schooling in farm production. The estimate of the marginal product of schooling using the earnings function approach was found to be higher as we concentrated on the full-time farmers. For the value added approach, the estimates differed as we varied the input specification, being higher as we decrease the number of decision variables in the estimating equation. Estimates for both models however have their respective biases and shortcomings attributable mainly to the variables omitted in both specifications. These estimates could be improved with the availability of better specified variables and use of an alternative analytical procedure. In addition to providing strong evidence that schooling is a significant determinant of farm incomes, this study also led to another important conclusion. Using a transformed labour variable in the value added function at the census division level led to an important finding that a similar output-input relationship exists in the agricultural sectors of both the U.S. and Canada. Specifically the relationship was identical for the elasticities of output with respect to labour, with respect to education (schooling), and with respect to the weighted labour variable (product of labour and schooling) values of selected years. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

No description available.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1965 K68 / Master of Science

Thesis (M.Sc. (Agriculture)) --University of Limpopo (Turfloop Campus), 2008 / A large number of emerging farmers in South Africa is involved in subsistence agriculture as a result of poor resource endowment or due to other constraints. Relatively few agricultural products from emerging farmers reach the formal agricultural market. Livestock production is common among emerging farmers and a large proportion of the national livestock is in the hands of the rural poor. Horticultural crops are generally perishable and require immediate disposal, thus implying that the farmers who produce horticultural crops do so with intention to sell their products. Most studies tend to group farmers regardless of their line of production. Only few studies have attempted to investigate the socioeconomic characteristics of farmers, differentiating the commodities that they produce. The objective of this study is to identify and compare the socioeconomic characteristics that determine the farm income of the emerging livestock farmers and horticultural farmers in South Africa. Such an analysis would allow more targeted policy responses for different groups of emerging farmers. The data used in this study consisted of 202 livestock farmers and 126 horticultural farmers selected through quota sample covering all nine provinces in South Africa. The data were collected by the Development Bank of Southern Africa in 2005. Descriptive Analysis and Discriminant Analysis are applied to determine the factors that matter the most in determining incomes of livestock and horticultural farmers. Farm iv income is used as the dependent variable, and fourteen independent variables were identified. The factors that matter the most in determining livestock farmers’ income are, namely access to finance, farm size, age of the household head, membership to farmer organizations and government support. The factors that matter most in determining horticultural farmer’s income are namely farm size, age of the household head, land type (land ownership), and extension services. The results of this study showed that access to land and age of the household head matter the most to both livestock and horticultural farmers. The study found that poor access to land is one of the major constraints facing emerging farmers in South Africa. Land is also one of the factors that may determine the amount of credit the emerging farmers can obtain and, if farmers produce on communal land, it becomes harder to obtain credit. Memberships to farmer’s organisations, government support and access to finance are characteristics that matter the most to livestock and do not seem to matter that much to horticultural farmers. Farmer organisations often lobby for collective provision of appropriate and needed services for their membership. The services that are often lobbied for are services such as extension, marketing and provision of training to empower women and young people so as to enable them to participate fully in farming activities. The results of this study show that there are differences in socio-economic characteristics that matter the most in determining farm income for livestock and horticulture farmers. v Horticulture farmers should be given much support to improve access to get enough land and training while in livestock farming assistance focus should be on access to finance and support services. vi

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on March 17, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Thesis advisor: Dr. Laura McCann. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-56).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Davis, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 147-151).

A computerized dairy herd simulation was developed to evaluate the economic impact of changing length of lactation relative to length of dry period in a dairy herd. It created weekly production for individual cows in a typical herd. Cows were dried off early if they were producing below a designated daily milk yield. They were replaced with fresh cows to produce more daily milk and increase profit while maintaining a constant number of cows in milk (98 to 102). A two by four factorial of dry off strategies was designed using rates of lactation decline of 6% and 8% and early dry off at 8, 13, 18, and 23 kg. Cows producing less than this for 2 wk consecutively were dried off. There were 100 cows in each herd and each of the eight scenarios was run 10 times (10 herds) for 80 herds total. Dry cow groups at 8, 13, 18, and 23 kg dry off were 14, 17, 23, and 32% of total herds, respectively. Average daily milk (kg) increased for the four dry kg: 30.4, 31.2, 32.3, and 33.7 kg/d per milking cow, whereas RHA decreased. Three different milk-feed income scenarios, (+20%, average, -20%) were combined with three dry cow costs, (+20%, average, and -20%). Nine combinations were analyzed statistically at each rate of decline. Net cash income changed $3561, $1571, and $-3051 from 8 to 13 to 18 to 23 kg dry kg under a normal economic situation. Net farm income under the same scenario changed $3170, $2945, and $-1154. Under the best economic situation, net cash income increased with each successive dry kg, $5086, $4248, and $921. Net farm income also increased by $4695, $5621, and $2819. Net cash income and net farm income were largest at 13 and 18 kg when milk-feed income was low and dry cow cost was high, the worst economy scenario. Only in the most optimistic economic situations does it appear practical for a dairy business to adopt early dry off beyond 13 kg/d per cow given the small gains and the yearly variability. Strategies of dry off at larger dry kg, although not greatly profitable, nevertheless were not extremely unprofitable either. / Master of Science