Farm Sector Data: Presentation and Improvement: Discussion

While I found considerable merit in many of the proposals advanced here today by Nicol, I also encountered a number of questions or issues that I would like to enumerate briefly for author and audience to consider. While not questioning the importance of macro and micro data on farm enterprise and operator assets, liabilities, and this, change over time, it would be useful to the reader if the author had located the concerns focused upon here within the broader context of farm sector data needs. Other types of economic data and a myriad of noneconomic data may be called for. Also, while enterprises, business owners (or operators), and their families are major components of the farm sector, there are others as well. For instance: the farm population, farm geographic and political areas and communities, and farm work force members who are not farm business owners (i.e., nonoperating farm land and capital owners, hired organizational and operational managers and hired workers). While the need for the types of data Nicol proposes quite likely are obvious to most, a brief review of the reasons for giving high priority to work on these-as opposed to other issues-would be useful. While Nicol addresses numerous conceptual and measurement issues, others remain. I agree that major changes have occurred in both farm size and specialization-numerous other farm structural changes also have occurred. Examples are the increasing transfer of functions to nonfarm entities, increasing separation of farm business and asset ownership, management, and labor, increasing reliance of smaller operators on nonfarm income, increasing irrigation, changes in input quality, and increasing numbers of farm firms organized as corporations. What is the rationale for identifying increased size and specialization, rather than one or more of these other changes, as the "main changes in structure" that have influenced the effectivenes of present aggregate data? If these other changes have had an impact on this data, then, should they not also be measured more effectively? Also, is there not a need for greater disaggregation of these criteria as well? It is not yet clear how Nicol has defined the concept of "farm." It can be defined either as a unitary business firm or as an operating unit. These are not the same because firms may have more than one operating unit. There may be growing utility for enumerating and studying both units. While the unit employed has no impact on the national aggregate data reported here, it does have implications for average farm unit characteristics and levels of resource concentration. If the unitary business firm is the proposed unit, then this is at variance with the Census of Agriculture, which enumerates and reports on operating units. Also, it is not entirely clear how the concept "farm operator" is defined or if it is defined and measured consistently within the farm work force. It may be defined as the "business owner" (i.e., the individual or legal entity that owns) or as the individual(s) or family(ies) in charge of day-to-day operations. Because farm business owners and operational managers are not always the same, it is important to specify which one is the focus and develop rationales, definitions, and procedures to insure unit constancy. Nicol implicitly recommends that the farm operator i.e., entity in charge, be defined as the farm legal entity, i.e., sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation. It is not clear at the individual level, however, whom he views as the operators of farm partnerships and corporations. In sole proprietorships, it is clearly the solitary individual or family proprietor. Individuals occupying analogous positions in the other two types would be the individual or family partners and shareholders, i.e., the farm business owners. If this is the case, then, Richard D. Rodefeld is an assistant professor, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Pennsylvania State University.