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Abstract
Socioeconomic factors could affect acreage owned and acreage farmed by small producers. However, there is limited research on the issue in the Southeastern U.S., for example, Alabama. Thus, this study examined the impact of socioeconomic factors on acreage owned and acreage farmed by small livestock producers in Alabama. The data were collected from a convenience sample of producers from several counties in Alabama, and analyzed using descriptive statistics and ordinal logistic regression analysis. The results showed that a majority had farming experience of more than 30 years, but had livestock farming experience of less than 30 years. Also, a little over half owned over 60 acres of land, and a majority (58%) farmed over 60 acres. The ordinal logistic regression analyses showed that, of the socioeconomic factors, only age and education had statistically significant effects on acreage owned and acreage farmed. The findings suggest that socioeconomic factors, specifically, age and education, are important to farm size in the study area.
Highlights
Farm size has always been of interest to agricultural scholars and practitioners
The results showed, among other things, that the respondents comprised more full-time than part-time producers; more female producers than male producers; more producers with at least some college education compared to other categories, and more producers with at least $40,000 as annual household income compared to other categories
The study assessed the impact of socioeconomic factors on acreage owned and acreage farmed
Summary
Farm size has always been of interest to agricultural scholars and practitioners. The Smallholders in Transition Team, FAO (2017, p. 4) defined farm size as “the land operated by the household, intended as the land owned plus the agricultural land rented/borrowed/sharecropped in minus the agricultural land rented/lent/sharecropped out. 4) defined farm size as “the land operated by the household, intended as the land owned plus the agricultural land rented/borrowed/sharecropped in minus the agricultural land rented/lent/sharecropped out. 1) defined farm size as the crop acres operated by a farm, meaning “the cropland it owns, plus any that it rents, minus any rented to others.”. Crop farm size in the U.S has been increasing; at the same time, the number of very small farms has been increasing. They argued that the increase in farm size can be attributed to improvements in technology, changes in farm organization, and government policy. They, in addition, observed that the increase in farm size has been associated with specialization and the increase in production and marketing contracts
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