Almost a third of U.S. farm households generate income by engaging in business ventures independent of commodity production, with distinctly different community and household benefits. In 2007, 686,600 farm households engaged in 791,000 income-generating activities distinct from commodity...

Rural development specialists working with agricultural statistics confront the tension between collecting data for the purposes of measuring farm sector performance versus that of assessing farm household well-being. While it is recognized that the activities of the farm enterprise and farm...

In this paper, we: 1. Provide a conceptual discussion of the “portfolio” of mechanisms used by farms and households to adjust to price, income and wealth shocks. Farms adjust their production activities and employment to maximize profits given changes in relative prices and factor returns....