The issue becomes especially critical given the growing emphasis being placed by the USDA and others on the need to adopt a sustainable agriculture system, which requires more labor and management skills compared to conventional agriculture. This, combined with the growing phenomenon of off-farm employment among farm households necessitates examining the availability and use of labor by small conventional and sustainable farmers. The objective of this study is to analyze labor use by small conventional and sustainable farmers in Tennessee with the goal of providing results that could assist decision making. It is part of a larger project aimed at assessing the impact of adopting sustainable agriculture practices in Tennessee.
External inputs refer to all purchased inputs such as fertilizer, herbicides and insecticides.
Data was also acquired on practices regarding crop rotation, tillage, fertilization and pest control methods. Based on the above definition of sustainable agriculture, their responses to the questions and practices adopted, farmers were classified as sustainable or conventional. A t-test was used to observe if there are statistically significant differences between the two groups of farmers in their use of labor from different sources. Analysis indicates that farm operators were the primary source of labor for production and farm business management both for sustainable and conventional farmers. However, there is a statistically significant difference between sustainable and conventional farmers in their use of other family members' labor.