Farm Income Variability and the Supply of Off-Farm Labor by Limited-Resource Farmers

By O. Vergara, Keith H. Coble, G. Patrick, T. Knight, A. Baquet. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 2004

371 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the relationship between the off-farm labor decision and the limited-resource farmers' and spouses' off-farm wages, experience, education, and sources of income. We found that farmers' and spouses' off-farm experience and wages are significant factors in explaining the off-farm labor supply decision. Contrary to expectations, farm income variability is not significant in the farmers' and spouses' decision to seek off-farm work. The off-farm labor supply of farmers and their spouses is negatively correlated with income transfers from the government. It was also found that the spouse is a residual supplier of on-farm and off-farm labor.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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Citations in the corpus

Succession Decisions in U.S. Family Farm Businesses (2010, background): “Previous studies have shown that even when farming cannot provide the family with an adequate standard of living, farmers refrain from selling farm assets (Chambers and Vasavada, 1983) and attempt to supplement their income from other sources, such as off-farm work (Mishra and Goodwin, 1997; Mishra ”
Analysing behavioural differences of farm households: An example of income diversification strategies based on European farm survey data (2017, background): “A further important motive for income diversification relates to the risk perception of farmers (Hansson et al., 2010; Mishra and Goodwin, 1997) and the related relative attractiveness of food pro- se Pol d m k p f p y t s d a c n i p i v d t p p o g m f 4 f ( m g 2 o w i a t o m e m f h t e p o f…”
Income, Wealth, and the Economic Well-Being of Farm Households. (2002, background): “For example, Mishra and Goodwin (1997) and Mishra (1996) found a positive correlation between off-farm employment and farm income variability.”
The Impact of Coupled and Decoupled Government Subsidies on Off-Farm Labor Participation of U.S. Farm Operators (2006, methodology): “Prior to the 1996 policy change, both El-Osta and Ahearn (1996) and Mishra and Goodwin (1997) indicated that payments were negatively related to off-farm participation.”
Factors affecting farm enterprise diversification (2004, background): “Additionally, Mishra and Goodwin (1997) found a positive relationship between the coefficient of variation for farm income and off-farm work.”