Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare the characteristics of farms who participate in farm management associations to the wider population of farms at the state level. Design/methodology/approach -Farm-level records obtained from the USDA's Agricultural Resource Management Survey...

Purpose – For many farm families and operators across the OECD countries, off-farm income has become a major determinant of their well-being. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential role of off-farm employment as a risk management tool among farm operators....

Purpose – US decoupled direct payments, paid to farm operators based on historic yields and base acreage under the 2002 Farm Bill, may alter a farmer's access to credit or his ability to meet debt servicing obligations. More specifically, direct payments might improve the farmer's liquidity...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify relevant financial concepts and skills that are being taught and/or should be taught, as part of the financial management curriculum in undergraduate agricultural economics and agribusiness programs. Design/methodology/approach – The skill...

Purpose – Building on the property rights framework, the purpose of this paper is to frame the cooperative business model in terms of strategic options held either by the board or by members. Options that are analyzed include growth and restructuring, dividend allocation, member entry and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel measure of access to credit suited to estimate the relative change in credit reserves. Design/methodology/approach – A debt possibility frontier is estimated using data envelopment analysis and the Malmquist index is calculated. The...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a discussion on the idea of “policy rationing”. Policy rationing refers to constraining impacts on farm credit through policy action or inaction. To present the ideas the author discusses ten themes in policy rationing, ranging from...

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to study the weather risk management practices of agriculture producers. In particular, the authors look at the extent to which farmers use weather derivatives to complement insurance. Unlike insurance, weather derivatives mitigate risk associated with...

Purpose – Using a unique dataset of a commercial microfinance institution (MFI) in Madagascar, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how credit access probabilities and loan volume rationing magnitudes for farmers change if the MFI switches to offer flexible microfinance loans, which can...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify, present and compare agricultural production financing alternatives available to grain producers in South Africa. From the South African perspective, agricultural land cannot always be utilised as collateral and therefore alternative financing...