Agricultural Economics and Limited Resource Farmers' Production Decisions: Discussion

Abstract

Over past quarter century, there has been a sustained increase in interest in limited resource, or small farmers. This increased interest has been accompanied by an increase in effort to identify and find solutions to problems faced by this group of farmers. Nelson, Brown, and Toomer have attempted to shed additional light on whether limited resource farmers are as efficient in use of their resources as commercial farmers. To test this hypothesis, authors used a sample of 116 farmers, comprised of 71% limited resource farmers and 29% commercial farmers, drawn from two contiguous south Georgia counties. A log-linear Cobb-Douglas production using generalized least squares regression analysis was then used to examine physical economics of size (technical) and allocative efficiency in use of resources between two classes of farmers. They found that elasticity of production for two of resources included in model (land and machinery) differed significantly, but no significant difference existed between two classes of farmers for other resources. They concluded that these differences suggest that limited resource farmers are represented by different production functions. However, they go on to state that no significant difference was found to exist in cumulative elasticity of production between two classes of farmers. The authors conclude that the most recent work seems