Off-farm employment and reasons for entering farming as determinants of production enterprise selection in US agriculture

Abstract

In today's agriculture, farmers consider off-farm employment and lifestyle goals in complex ways to select production enterprises. Data from USDA's Agricultural Resource Management Survey were used to examine how off-farm employment and 'reasons for entering farming' influence production enterprise selection in US agriculture. A two-stage analysis with a multivariate tobit model was used to examine the impact of off-farm employment as influenced by government farm programme payments, reasons for entering farming, demographics and location on production enterprise selection. Results underscore the impacts of reasons for entering farming and off-farm employment on production enterprise choice and provide implications for policy development. The study highlights the importance of government farm programme payments in production enterprise selection by US farmers. © 2011 The Authors. AJARE © 2011 Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Inc. and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.