Growing Farm Size and the Distribution of Farm Payments
James D MacDonald, Robert Hoppe, and David Banker ( March, 2006 )
Summary
Commodity program payments shifted sharply to higher income households between 1989 and 2003. While Congress made important changes to program design in the 1996 and 2002 farm bills, this shift was not caused by change in design. Instead, changes in payment flows resulted from structural changes in farming that are driving production to very large family farms. We expect those structural changes to continue, because larger farms appear to be more profitable and because many more operators of smaller farms are nearing retirement age. In consequence, in the absence of any fundamental changes to commodity policy, commodity payments will continue to shift to higher income households.
Details
| Organization | Economic Research Service |
| Publisher | United States Department of Agriculture |
| Publication Date | March, 2006 |
| Publication Views | 826 |
| Material Type | Written Material |
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