Agricultural debt restructuring,accounting, and public policy: A study of the Farmers Home Administration

Federal credit policies toward agriculture reflect the human values of maintaining the farm production sector largely as an industry characterized by small-scale, family farms. The Farmers Home Administration has implemented various credit programs designed to carry out this policy objective. As a result of the prolonged financial crisis in the farm economy, the agricultural community is becoming more aware of the controversies surrounding the mission of FmHA and its debt restructuring program. This paper discusses the debt restructuring program administered by the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), as authorized by the Agricultural Credit Act of 1987, and amended by the recently enacted Farm Bill of 1990. It discusses the key provisions of the Agricultural Credit Act authorizing FmHA to establish a debt restructuring and debt forgiveness program aimed at achieving the public policy objective of keeping financially stressed farmers in business, whenever possible.In the course of reviewing the restructuring program, FmHA officials and congressional committees reviewed the FmHA's mission and its program implementation. This review indicated that several unintended negative consequences resulted from several abuses stemming from inadequate administrative mechanisms and controls and conflicting legislative objectives of debt forgiveness and federal tax policy. In enacting the 1990 Farm Bill, Congress sought to reorient FmHA's mission to a temporary source of credit and to eliminate various abuses associated with the implementation of FmHA's debt restructuring program. The 1990 Farm Bill reflects an effort by Congress to address some the controversies surrounding federal credit policies toward agriculture. Although Congress placed limits on debt restructuring, the overall public policy objective of maintaining a family-farm posture in the agricultural sector continues to be an important social value.     

Values and policy conflict in West German agriculture

Family farming became a major social force in the Federal Republic following World War II. Several political, economic and social factors facilitated the development of a unified political representation within the farm sector. The German Farmers Union (Deutscher Bauernverband) became the main representative of the farm sector. Its platform included the preservation of family farms and it attempted to realize this goal through the promotion of commodity price support policies. Political support for these programs was legitimized with the elaboration of a system of values espousing the positive qualities of family farms. Price support policies were opposed by free market advocates with an alternative system of values that fundamentally contradicted those of family farm advocates. Although commodity price supports promoted by partisans of family farming dominated agricultural policy formation in the 1950s and 1960s, fiscal crisis in the EEC and economic differentation within the farm sector began to undermine the position of family farming as a social force. But economic stagnation also prevented the free market position from gaining dominance. Economic differentiation within the farm sector has had an important regional dimension, and this has served as a basis for policy compromise. Economic changes over the post-WWII period have undermined the family farm as a social force. Nevertheless, values associated with family farming continue to have a place in agricultural policy. However, family farming is valued less as an end in itself, and more as a means to the realization of more practical ends such as the preservation of rural landscapes for recreational purposes.     

Restructuring of Eastern European agriculture

Agricultural restructuring in Eastern Europe is a part of the restructuring of the economy as a whole. After democratic changes, Eastern European countries have fallen into a deep crisis. There are several reasons for this, including the large debt burden, decreased export opportunities, and monetary restrictions. The major reasons, however, are the lack of a clear economic policy at the governmental level and lack of confidence in the future of enterprises. In the industry and service sectors, ownership conditions are uncertain, and this hinders investing from both private investors and managers of state owned enterprises. An unambiguous situation can be created only by rapid privatization. Privatization is slow and difficult, however, and there is no agreement even on its form. In agriculture, problems arise differently. Privatization there would mean giving up economies of scale. For widespread small farming, both capital and producer motivations are lacking as well. Working on state and cooperative farms with additional part-time farming has been a lifestyle of the people for decades. Apart from that, new smallholders, left on their own, could not survive falling domestic demand for agricultural products and decreasing export opportunities. Therefore, measures need to be implemented in order to reduce agricultural supply, labor, and land area. A feasible solution would be for socialist producer cooperatives to be transformed into real cooperatives, with cooperative and individual farming allowed to develop side by side.     

中国粮食作物家庭农场适度规模的比较研究

推进家庭农场适度规模经营是发展现代农业、建设社会主义新农村的必然趋势。选取粮食作物家庭农场为研究对象,对我国粮食作物家庭农场适度规模相关文献进行归纳与总结,主要针对粮食作物家庭农场的适度规模进行了比较,提出需确保粮食作物家庭收入达到当地城镇居民收入水平;种植水稻家庭农场的适度规模,应该约为10 hm~2,小麦的适度规模约为30 hm~2,无法达到规模的地区,应考虑种养结合、或者不同农作物的轮作和套种来实现适度规模经营;地理位置较偏远的山区,可考虑发展种植经济作物的家庭农场和农业合作社,利用合作社的优势为家庭农场的发展提供产业链服务,以期为我国的农业生产实践提供指导建议。     

What is so disturbing about Jan Smiley's A Thousand Acres?

Jane Smiley's award winning and disturbing novel, A Thousand Acres, invites a critical appraisal of a popular assumption for proponents of sustainable agriculture: that family farming and sustainable agriculture are (at least indirectly) mutually reinforcing. This process begins with a plot that presents an Iowa multigenerational farm family headed by an acutely dominant father. Consequences of this dominance include subjugation of everyone involved with the farming operation, varieties of abuse of the daughters, and primitive non-environmental farming. Also in the novel three structural components of the family farm/rural setting aggravate the nightmarish situation: multigenerational participation in one farming operation, children remaining on the farm, uninterrupted, into adulthood, and the power of community appearances. It is argued that these components contribute not only to the family problems, but also to making the poor farming that emerges in this family not very coincidental. This analysis, if correct, raises many issues about farm structure and farming practices. They include how the younger generation(s) of family farm structures cope with their situations, whether aspects of family farms skew who decides to remain to farm, family farm ownership and transfer structure, how well farmers understand their own farms, and the case for voluntarism regarding environmental issues in farming. One theme throughout the essay is that the novel enables better recognition and appreciation of the subtle relationship between family problems and farming practices.     

我国发展家庭农场的现状和问题及政策建议

本文分析了当前我国家庭农场的发展现状,即家庭农场呈现出经营规模差异较大、经营效益较好、发展速度较快等特征,其发展面临着中央和地方政府高度重视、农民有强烈愿望发展家庭农场等大好机遇,但也面临着家庭农场经营主体缺失、资金短缺等严峻的挑战。总结了国外发达国家发展家庭农场的做法与经验及启示,结合我国农业发展的实践,提出了要明确确定土地权属关系、着力构建新型家庭农场经营主体培育机制、加强家庭农场金融扶持政策创新、加快完善新型农业社会化服务体系、发展适度规模经营家庭农场等政策建议,以期为实现家庭农场持续快速健康发展提供基础支撑和良好环境。     

How knowledge deficit interventions fail to resolve beginning farmer challenges

Beginning farmer initiatives like the USDA’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP), farm incubators, and small-scale marketing innovations offer new entrant farmers agricultural training, marketing and business assistance, and farmland loans. These programs align with alternative food movement goals to revitalize the anemic U.S. small farm sector and repopulate landscapes with socially and environmentally diversified farms. Yet even as these initiatives seek to support prospective farmers with tools for success through a knowledge dissemination model, they remain mostly individualistic and entrepreneurial measures that overlook structural barriers to productive and economic success within U.S. agriculture. Analysis of the BFRDP’s funding history and discourse reveals a “knowledge deficit” based program focused on the technical rather than the structural aspects of beginning farming. This is contrasted with qualitative analysis of beginning farmer experiences in California’s Central Coast region. The discrepancies between the farmer experiences and national structure of the BFRDP program ultimately reveal a policy mismatch between the needs of some beginning farmers and the programs intended to support them.     

Farm financial trend in Missouri and its future implications

This paper reviews the current and future implications of the recent farm financial problems of Missouri for the rural and state economy. To provide a backdrop against which the current and future financial situation may be assessed, the paper first looks at the farm income trends of the state for the period 1964–1985. Although the level has dropped drastically since 1982, the study found that net income had increased significantly for most of the study period. However, the trend in farm debt shows that between 1974 and 1982, total farm debt of Missouri farmers almost tripled. In fact, the farm financial situation in the state deteriorated faster than did farm financial situations in the nation. As a result, Missouri was the leader in the number of farm bankruptcies in the nation in 1985. The paper shows that, since the full-time family farms make up over seventy (70%) percent of the state's total farm, the greater financial problems, resulting in farm losses, occurred in these groups of farms, which are the source of the economic and social health of rural Missouri. It then indicates the serious effects that this wave of farm failures, which amounts to a depopulation of farms and farm families, has on the social and economic structure of rural communities, cheap but reliable food supply system, and competition within the farm sector. To keep the farm sector competitive and for the family farm to survive, the paper identifies the need for innovative policies (and suggests some), and for the cooperation and coordination of efforts among different agencies and organizations in the country.     

当前家庭农场的发展现状与对策

对当前家庭农场的发展现状及存在的问题进行了深入分析,认为家庭农场是今后商品农产品特别是粮食作物农产品的主要提供者,将在构建新型农业经营体系中占据重要位置。发展家庭农场,应加大政策扶持力度,建立健全激励与退出约束机制,加快农业社会化服务体系建设,加强农业人才培养,做好政策统筹协调,推动家庭农场又好又快发展。     

京郊休闲型家庭农场发展创新策略及保障机制

北京郊区具备发展休闲型家庭农场的多种条件,可以通过理性规划,准确定位;注入农耕文化,融于体验;塑造品牌,注重营销的创新发展策略来展开。在此基础上,政府应通过加强引导,提供各种政策保障;调整发展思路,促进农场区域化发展;建立休闲型农场专门人才的培养机制,提升农场主文化与经营水平等一系列保障机制来实现。     

Methodological considerations for redesigning sustainable cropping systems: the value of data-mining large and detailed farm data sets at the cropping system level

Redesigning cropping and farming systems to enhance their sustainability is mainly addressed in scientific studies using experimental and modeling approaches. Large data sets collected from real farms allow for the development of innovative methods to produce generic knowledge. Data mining methods allow for the diversity of systems to be considered holistically and can take into account the diversity of production contexts to produce site-specific results. Based on the very few known studies using such methods to analyze the crop management strategies affecting pesticide use and their effect on farm performance, we advocate further investment in the development of large data sets that can support future research programs on farming system design.     

家庭农场不同规模稻作绩效及影响因素研究——以湖南为例

家庭农场已成为我国引领适度规模经营、保障粮食安全的有生力量,绩效是家庭农场进行水稻生产决策和政府扶持的主要依据。基于投入产出和环境变量视角,通过对湖南120户家庭农场的实地调查,构建由CCR模型、灰色关联度和相关分析模型、SBM超效率模型组成的"三步模型法",分析不同规模稻作绩效及影响因素。结果表明,稻作规模在13.33 hm2和20.00-26.67 hm2范围内的投入产出综合效率达到最优,稻作规模6.67 hm2和33.33 hm2的家庭农场相对效率较高。对家庭农场稻作绩效影响最大的环境因素是租田费用和稻作补贴,其次为家庭劳动力稻作率和稻谷销售价格,农场主年龄和文化程度的关联度较低。因此,为提升家庭农场稻作绩效,建议制订完善水稻家庭农场经营的"适度规模"指标、规范稻田流转管理与服务、增加稻作补贴、加强价格扶持等政策性措施。     

家庭农场发育的内在机理、政策演化与推进策略

家庭农场作为一种新型农业经营主体,不仅在形式上体现了对传统家庭经营形式的继承与转化,对农村社会阶层分化的适应与调整,更在内容上反映了农业现代化和社会化的发展需求,是对农业生产经营体制的创新与发展.国内有关这一经营形式的相关政策在历经一系列的发展变化后开始逐渐明晰,但当前家庭农场在融资、保险、竞争、政策、培训等领域还面临诸多问题.对此,提出了推进家庭农场发育的具体策略,包括完善土地流转机制、加强对家庭农场的政策支持、建立健全农业社会化服务体系、大力培育新型职业农民等.     

Farm and market structure, industrial regulation and rural community welfare: conceptual and methodological issues

The Goldschmidt Hypothesis posits that rural community welfare is negatively associated with the scale of farms surrounding them. The intervening mechanism that links a farm structure dominated by larger farms to negative rural community welfare outcomes is polarized class structure. There have been a number of studies that have found support for the basic relationship between increasing farm scale and negative rural community outcomes. However, since Walter Goldschmidt’s original study was completed in the 1940s, the agricultural market and farming structures have changed dramatically. Market structure is now more differentiated than in previous decades. Vertical and horizontal integration, contract production, organic and other specialty markets, and direct marketing are examples of new marketing forms that have emerged over the past few decades. In addition, as farm and market structure have shifted, some states have enacted public policy to forestall negative outcomes related to the industrialization of agriculture. Previous studies which measured the effects on rural community welfare from the structure of the surrounding farming sector have been valuable contributions to the development of the sociology of agriculture and have led to increased understanding of agriculture and rural development. However, a new generation of studies should be undertaken to address the impacts of changing market structure as well as assess public policy attempts to mitigate negative impacts of agricultural industrialization. To that end I present a discussion of conceptual and methodological issues related to such a research program. And I offer a conceptual model intended to be useful in guiding future research in this area.     

Community digester operations and dairy farmer perspectives

Rising energy costs, increasing herd sizes, and other structural changes affecting the New York dairy industry may make farmers receptive to new energy production technologies. Anaerobic digestion represents a possible benefit to farmers by reducing odor while producing methane for electricity. However, current digester designs are for herd sizes of 300 or more cows, with significant economies of scale, so smaller operators may have little interest in the technology. Moreover, without a favorable policy environment and reliable grant programs, the initial investments required for digester installation might deter operators. One solution to these issues may be community digesters, which are centrally located facilities that accept manure from multiple farms. Data from a survey of New York dairy farmers were used to assess farmers’ interest in community digesters. In general, interest was associated with power generation outcomes and reservations about organic farming practices; advocates might encourage their use among smaller conventional farm operators looking for new sources of profit and diversification.     

Factors affecting the adoption of on-farm milk safety measures in Northern China — An examination from the perspective of farm size and production type

The cow stock of smallholder farmers with less than 100 cows still accounted for nearly 50% of total cows in China. Since the milk scandal occurred in 2008, raw milk safety has become focus for the sound development of the Chinese dairy industry. Adoption of on-farm milk safety measures by smallholders is a key for ensuring milk safety, and these measures are largely voluntary in nature. The recent survey conducted in northern China reveals that an overall adoption rate of various milk safety measures by smallholders is close to 48% with wide variations across the dairy farmers. We employ the Poisson regression model to study the determinants of farmers' adoption of voluntary milk safety measures. Compared with backyard dairy farmers, dairy complex and scaled dairy farms adopted more milk safety measures. Moreover, the empirical result indicates that farmers' adoption of raw milk safety measures is positively affected by farm size. These findings suggest that the changing dairy production structure towards larger farms and away from backyard dairy farming prompts smallholder dairy farmers to adopt more raw milk safety measures. This lends some support to the role of recent policy initiatives towards larger farms and away from backyard dairy farming on increasing the farmers' milk safety practices and reducing on-farm incidence of milk safety.     

Farm and Operator Characteristics Affecting the Awareness and Adoption of Precision Agriculture Technologies in the US

Precision agriculture (PA) technologies have been commercially available since the early 1990s. However, not only has the pace of adoption in the US been relatively modest but a surprisingly large number of producers are not familiar with these technologies. Using farm level survey data, this study quantifies the role that awareness plays in the decision to adopt PA technology and allows us to explore the potential for public or private information programs to affect the diffusion of PA. PA adoption and awareness are modeled as jointly determined dichotomous variables and their determinants are estimated using a two-stage (i.e. instrumental variable) logistic specification. The first-stage logit model indicated that operator education and computer literacy, full-time farming, and farm size positively affected the probability of PA awareness while the effect of age was negative. Grain and oilseed farms (i.e. corn, soybean, and small grains) and specialty crop farms (i.e. fruits, vegetables, and nuts) as well as farms located in the Heartland and Northern Great Plains regions were most likely to be aware of PA technologies. The second-stage PA adoption logit model, which included an instrumental variable to account for the endogeneity of awareness, revealed that farm size, full-time farming, and computer literacy positively influenced the likelihood of PA adoption. Grain and oilseed farms were the most likely types of farms to adopt PA as were farms in the Heartland region. Awareness, as defined in this study, was not found to be limiting the adoption of PA, suggesting that farmers for whom the technology is profitable are already aware of the technology and that a sector-wide public or private initiative to disseminate PA information would not likely have a major impact on PA diffusion.     

广东家庭农场发展现状、问题与对策建议——基于湛江和梅州两地的实地调查

家庭农场是现阶段中国新型农业经营主体,它代表着未来中国农业发展的方向。本文通过对广东湛江和梅州两地的实地调研,发现广东家庭农场的发展普遍呈现出三个特点,即概念界定模糊,名称多样;流转山地多,水田少;单一种植少,种养结合多。家庭农场发展主要面临三个难题,即土地流转难、资金周转难和用工难。针对出现的这些问题,进而提出在全省制定扶持和培育家庭农场的政策文件、建立健全的土地流转机制、制定金融部门支持家庭农场发展的政策和建立完善的农业服务体系等对策建议。     

Family farming and gendered division of labour on the move: a typology of farming-family configurations

Family farming, understood as a household which combines family, farm and commercial activity, still represents the backbone of the world’s agriculture. On family farms, labour division has generally been based on complementarity between persons of different gender and generations, resulting in specific male and female spheres and tasks. In this ‘traditional’ labour division, gender inequality is inherent as women are the unpaid and invisible labour force. Although this ‘traditional’ labour division still prevails through time and space, new arrangements have emerged. This paper asks whether we are witnessing changes in the unequal structure of family farming and analyses the diversity of farming family configurations, using the Swiss context as a case study. The typology of farming-family configurations developed, based on qualitative data, indicates that inequalities are related to status on the farm and position in the configuration rather than to gender identity per se. This insight enables a discussion of equality and fairness in a new light. This paper shows that farming-family configurations are often pragmatic but objectively unequal. However, these arrangements might still be perceived as fair when mutual recognition exists, resulting in satisfaction among the family members. The paper concludes that although family farming presents challenges to gender equality, some types of farming-family configurations offer new pathways towards enhanced gender equality.     

我国家庭农场发育的动力与困境及其可持续发展机制构建

家庭农场作为一种新型农业经营主体,是促进农业生产集约化、专业化、规模化的有效形式。本文以江苏省无锡市锡山区先锋家庭农场为例,探讨家庭农场的发展动力及实际运作情况。研究发现,目前我国家庭农场在实际发展中还面临着融资困难、农业保险制度不健全、地方政府干预过度、支农政策不平衡等一系列困境。从准入认定、扶持管理、合作与激励、社会化服务、职业农民培育等五个方面,提出了积极构建家庭农场可持续发展机制的相关措施。