Replaced with revised version of paper 04/20/10.

The objective of this study is to assess the scale and technical efficiencies and other economic performance measures of southeastern U.S. cow-calf farms. We describe and compare cow-calf operations by size and farm resource region and measure their relative competitiveness. We estimate an input...

US swine production has undergone significant structural change in the last two decades, reflecting increasing size and specialization (Key and McBride; Key). In particular, the widespread use of contracting has enabled individual producers to grow by specializing in a single phase of production....

This paper examines how off-farm work affects the economic performance of crop and (selected) livestock farms. It estimates returns to scale and technical efficiency following an input distance function approach and compares the relative performance of dairy and corn farm operator households...

Increased productivity is a key to a healthy and thriving economy. Consequently, the trend in productivity, economywide, is one of the most closely watched of our common economic performance indicators. Agriculture, in particular, has been a very successful sector of the U.S. economy in terms of...

This study provides estimates of the growth and relative levels of agricultural productivity for the 48 contiguous States for the period 1960 to 1996. For the full 1960-96 period, every State exhibits a positive and generally substantial average annual rate of productivity growth. There is...

Productive utilization of resources has enabled American agriculture to supply the nation with vast quantities of food at a high level of efficiency. However, the USDA shows that 2011 pesticide expenses increased by about $100 million resulting from a slight increase of planted acres and a...

The U.S. dairy industry is undergoing rapid structural change, evolving from a structure including many small farmers in the Upper Midwest and Northeast to one that includes very large farms in new production regions. Small farms are struggling to retain competitiveness via improved management...

Given recent concerns expressed about the structural transformation of agriculture and the health of the family farm this study provides a measure of the economic health of small and large farms at the state level. We use nonparametric frontier methods to measure and explain changes in the...