For the Southwestern Association, average accrual net farm income was $62,699 in 1996 for the 203 farms included in this report. This is an increase of 9% from 1995 making 1996 another high income year in a job with large swings in income. This volatility can be seen whether income is measured...

The enterprise budget, whole farm cash flow, and income statement are fundamental tools of farm and ranch management. The "Microcomputer Budget Management System" (MBMS) is a microcomputer software package that facilitates the storage and use of information for crop and livestock budgeting. It...

The majority of farm families have not named a successor nor developed an up-to-date farm business transition and estate plan. This program effort was designed to enable these farm families gain a better understanding of the process required and thus develop and implement a farm transition and...

This paper explicitly models the interdependent finance and investment decision in order to increase the understanding on how fluctuations in agricultural investment are attributable to changes in financial decisions. Euler equations for investment and finance are estimated by the use of the GMM...

An intertemporal model in which farm capital accumulation and work choices by a single-agent farm household are interdependent is developed and tested using a farm-level data set. Estimation is done using a recursive two-step simultaneous censored equations model. The results of this study are...

Changes and trends in farm productivity have been of intense interest to many involved with agriculture. This study used data envelopment analysis (DEA) to estimate the output-oriented Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) index from panel data for 1993-2006 for farms in Southern Minnesota....

Inter-firm differences in economic efficiency are major factors explaining differences in firm survival and growth and changes in industry structure. Thus, factors explaining differences in efficiency are of major interest to many involved in or affected by the industry. This study was...

This study employs a dynamic continuous time model to calculate farm and total farm/financial/off-farm investment portfolios. Data are from the Southwestern Minnesota Farm Business Management Association records. Results are derived for classes of farms sorted by farm profitability. It is shown...

The state of Minnesota seeks to reduce phosphorus loading to the Minnesota River by 40% from current levels. The state agency charged with achieving this reduction has indicated each watershed should reduce its current phosphorus loading by 40%. We hypothesized that policies targeting specific...

When all strategies received conventional market prices, 4-year cropping sequences had greater net returns than 2-year sequences, and the organic input, 4-year strategy had the highest net return. Adding 50% of the estimated organic premium, the 4-year, organic strategy dominated all low- and...