Beginning farmers and ranchers have some unique characteristics, including more education and more off-farm jobs, compared with established farmers and ranchers.

Beginning, limited-resource, and socially disadvantaged farmers make up as much as 40 percent of all U.S. farms. Some Federal conservation programs contain provisions that encourage participation by such “targeted” farmers and the 2008 Farm Act furthered these efforts. This report compares...

This study examines the financial performance and stress experienced by beginning and retired farms in the U.S. Using USDA’s ARMS data, probit models are estimated to study the personal and farm characteristics that affect whether or not the financial ratios fall into critical zones. The...

This study examines the financial performance and stress experienced by beginning farmers in the U.S. Using the USDA’s ARMS data, probit models are estimated to study the personal and farm characteristics that affect whether or not the financial ratios fall into critical zones. The results...

Concerns about beginning farmers in Canada derive from trends in data that show that the population of farmers and the number of young farmers are declining. This paper discusses and analyses issues regarding the constraints and opportunities beginning farmers in Canada face. The discussion...

This study considers the issue of the transition of new farmers into U.S. agriculture, by examining land ownership and leasing trends. Our approach is to characterize the entire distribution by farmer age and farmer experience rather than using young versus old and beginning versus established...

U.S. 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. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Resource...

Today the European agrofood sector is increasingly confronted with the threats as well as the opportunities of liberalizing markets. Therefore, competitiveness on global markets is becoming of paramount importance for European farmers. The challenges of global markets are accompanied by a...