By Barry K. Goodwin and Ashok K. Mishra, Agricultural Finance Review. By H.S. El-Osta and M. J. Morehart, Review of Agricultural Economics. See A Safety Net For Farm Households for more detail. ERS researchers Janet Perry , Ashok Mishra , Cheryl Steele and Robert Hoppe are investigating factors affecting financial performance of limited resource and other small farms. The farming occupation farms are further divided into low and high sales farms.
Financial performance is measured by net farm income and operators' labor and management income.
The empirical model is estimated by a weighted Jackknife Least Squares procedure using the 1996 Agricultural Resource Management Study survey data. Financial performance of small farms other than limited resource farms depends on age of the operator, farm size, type of ownership, farm diversification, and crop insurance. Results further show that a major source of variation in the performance measures of both limited resource and other small farms is the ratio of variable costs to value of agricultural production. Seminar, February 19, 1998. Steele, C. J. and Ashok K. Mishra.