The changing organization and well-being of midsize U.S. farms, 1992-2014

The changing organization and well-being of midsize U.S. farms, 1992-2014 PDF Author: Christopher Burns
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Farm income
Languages : en
Pages : 46

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The changing organization and well-being of midsize U.S. farms, 1992-2014

The changing organization and well-being of midsize U.S. farms, 1992-2014 PDF Author: Christopher Burns
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Farm income
Languages : en
Pages : 46

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Book Description


The Changing Organization and Well-being of Midsize U.s. Farms, 1992-2014

The Changing Organization and Well-being of Midsize U.s. Farms, 1992-2014 PDF Author: U. S. Department Agriculture
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781542482981
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
This study uses data from the Census of Agriculture and the Agricultural Resource Management Survey to investigate the well-being and changing organization of U.S. midsize farms from 1992 to 2014. During this period, changes in midsize farms reflect a farm economy experiencing rapid technological development, rising costs of production, and the increasing profitability of larger farms. While the number of midsize farm operations has declined slightly since 1992, they constituted 21 percent of total production in 2014. During the study period, total production on midsize farms has shifted toward grain and oilseed crops, hogs, and poultry and away from dairy and high-value crops. The households operating midsize farms have been transformed as well, enjoying more diversified income portfolios and much higher net worth. Moreover, midsize farms have less debt relative to their assets. Using census data from 2007 and 2012, the authors find that one-third of midsize farms saw their income increase or decrease by more than 50 percent. During this same period, Government payments played a small but positive role in the survival of midsize cash-grain and oilseed farms. One common growth pathway for these farms that increased in size from 2007 to 2012 was renting greater amounts of land. Keywords: direct payments, gross cash farm income, farm household income, farm exits, farm financial performance, farm operators, farm structure, farm survival, farm type, midsize farms, value of production

Institutions as Conscious Food Consumers

Institutions as Conscious Food Consumers PDF Author: Sapna Elizabeth Thottathil
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128136189
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Institutions like schools, hospitals, and universities are not well known for having quality, healthy food. In fact, institutional food often embodies many of the worst traits of our industrialized food system, with long supply chains that are rife with environmental and social problems and growing market concentration in many stages of food production and distribution. Recently, however, non-profit organizations, government agencies, university research institutes, and activists have partnered with institutions to experiment with a wide range of more ethical and sustainable models for food purchasing, also known as values-based procurement. Institutions as Conscious Food Consumers brings together in-depth case studies from several of promising models of institutional food purchasing that aim to be more sustainable, healthy, equitable, and local. With chapters written by a diverse set of authors, including leaders in the food movement and policy researchers, this book: Documents growing interest among non-profit organizations and activists in institutional food interventions through case studies and first-hand experiences; Highlights emerging evidence about how these new procurement models affect agro-food supply chains; and Examines the role of policy and regional or geographic identity in promoting food systems change. Institutions as Conscious Food Consumers makes the case that institutions can use their budgets to change the food system for the better, although significant challenges remain. It is a must read for food systems practitioners, food chain researchers, and foodservice professionals interested in values-based procurement.

Food and the Mid-level Farm

Food and the Mid-level Farm PDF Author: Thomas A. Lyson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262622157
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Agriculture in the United States today increasingly operates in two separate spheres: large, corporate-connected commodity production and distribution systems and small-scale farms that market directly to consumers. As a result, midsize family-operated farms find it increasingly difficult to find and reach markets for their products. They are too big to use the direct marketing techniques of small farms but too small to take advantage of corporate marketing and distribution systems. This crisis of the midsize farm results in a rural America with weakened municipal tax bases, job loss, and population flight. Food and the Mid-Level Farm discusses strategies for reviving an "agriculture of the middle" and creating a food system that works for midsize farms and ranches. Activists, practitioners, and scholars from a variety of disciplines, including sociology, political science, and economics, consider ways midsize farms can regain vitality by scaling up aspects of small farms' operations to connect with consumers, organizing together to develop markets for their products, developing food supply chains that preserve farmer identity and are based on fair business agreements, and promoting public policies (at international, federal, state, and community levels) that address agriculture-of-the-middle issues. Food and the Mid-Level Farm makes it clear that the demise of midsize farms and ranches is not a foregone conclusion and that the renewal of an agriculture of the middle will benefit all participants in the food system--from growers to consumers. Thomas A. Lyson was Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Development Sociology at Cornell University until his death in 2006. He was the author of Civic Agriculture: Reconnecting Farm, Food, and Community. G.W. Stevenson is Senior Scientist with the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems at the University of Wisconsin-- Madison. Rick Welsh is Associate Professor of Sociology at Clarkson University.

U. S. Farmland Ownership, Tenure, and Transfer

U. S. Farmland Ownership, Tenure, and Transfer PDF Author: Daniel Bigelow
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781457863486
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 53

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Book Description
Farmland tenure shapes many farm decisions, including those related to production, conservation, and succession planning. The relatively advanced age of many farmers raises questions abut land ownership, especially how land will be transferred to the next generation of agricultural landowners and operators. This study provides a descriptive baseline analysis of land ownership and then focuses on more detailed aspects of land tenure, including non-operator landlords, rental agreements, the acquisition and transfer of land, and how decisionmaking is shared by landlords and their tenants. The report is designed to support broad discussions related to agricultural land ownership and to provide a starting point for more detailed statistical analysis. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.

Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture

Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture PDF Author: Kim S. Cameron
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118047052
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture provides a framework, a sense-making tool, a set of systematic steps, and a methodology for helping managers and their organizations carefully analyze and alter their fundamental culture. Authors, Cameron and Quinn focus on the methods and mechanisms that are available to help managers and change agents transform the most fundamental elements of their organizations. The authors also provide instruments to help individuals guide the change process at the most basic level—culture. Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture offers a systematic strategy for internal or external change agents to facilitate foundational change that in turn makes it possible to support and supplement other kinds of change initiatives.

The Structuring of Organizations

The Structuring of Organizations PDF Author: Henry Mintzberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Synthesizes the empirical literature on organizationalstructuring to answer the question of how organizations structure themselves --how they resolve needed coordination and division of labor. Organizationalstructuring is defined as the sum total of the ways in which an organizationdivides and coordinates its labor into distinct tasks. Further analysis of theresearch literature is neededin order to builda conceptualframework that will fill in the significant gap left by not connecting adescription of structure to its context: how an organization actuallyfunctions. The results of the synthesis are five basic configurations (the SimpleStructure, the Machine Bureaucracy, the Professional Bureaucracy, theDivisionalized Form, and the Adhocracy) that serve as the fundamental elementsof structure in an organization. Five basic parts of the contemporaryorganization (the operating core, the strategic apex, the middle line, thetechnostructure, and the support staff), and five theories of how it functions(i.e., as a system characterized by formal authority, regulated flows, informalcommunication, work constellations, and ad hoc decision processes) aretheorized. Organizations function in complex and varying ways, due to differing flows -including flows of authority, work material, information, and decisionprocesses. These flows depend on the age, size, and environment of theorganization; additionally, technology plays a key role because of itsimportance in structuring the operating core. Finally, design parameters aredescribed - based on the above five basic parts and five theories - that areused as a means of coordination and division of labor in designingorganizational structures, in order to establish stable patterns of behavior.(CJC).

Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators

Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators PDF Author: United States. Department of Agriculture. Economic Research Service
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agricultural resources
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description


The Political Economy of the 2014-2020 Common Agricultural Policy

The Political Economy of the 2014-2020 Common Agricultural Policy PDF Author: Johan F.M. Swinnen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1783484853
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 597

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Book Description
After five years of debates, consultations and negotiations, the European institutions reached an agreement in 2013 on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the 2014-2020 period. The outcome has major implications for the EU’s budget and farmers’ incomes, but also for Europe’s environment, its contribution to global climate change and to food security in the EU and in the world. It was decided to spend more than €400 billion during the rest of the decade on the CAP. The official claims are that the new CAP will take better account of society's expectations and lead to far-reaching changes by making subsidies fairer and ‘greener’ and making the CAP more efficient. It is also asserted that the CAP will play a key part in achieving the overall objective of promoting smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. However, there is significant scepticism about these claims and disappointment with the outcome of the decision-making, the first in which the European Parliament was involved under the co-decision procedure. In contrast to earlier reforms where more substantive changes were made to the CAP, the factors that induced the policy discussions in 2008-13 and those that influenced the decision-making did not reinforce each other. On the contrary, they sometimes counteracted one another, yielding an ‘imperfect storm’ as it were, resulting in more status quo and fewer changes. This book discusses the outcome of the decision-making and the factors that influenced the policy choices and decisions. It brings together contributions from leading academics from various disciplines and policy-makers, and key participants in the process from the European Commission and the European Parliament.

A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System

A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030930783X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
How we produce and consume food has a bigger impact on Americans' well-being than any other human activity. The food industry is the largest sector of our economy; food touches everything from our health to the environment, climate change, economic inequality, and the federal budget. From the earliest developments of agriculture, a major goal has been to attain sufficient foods that provide the energy and the nutrients needed for a healthy, active life. Over time, food production, processing, marketing, and consumption have evolved and become highly complex. The challenges of improving the food system in the 21st century will require systemic approaches that take full account of social, economic, ecological, and evolutionary factors. Policy or business interventions involving a segment of the food system often have consequences beyond the original issue the intervention was meant to address. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System develops an analytical framework for assessing effects associated with the ways in which food is grown, processed, distributed, marketed, retailed, and consumed in the United States. The framework will allow users to recognize effects across the full food system, consider all domains and dimensions of effects, account for systems dynamics and complexities, and choose appropriate methods for analysis. This report provides example applications of the framework based on complex questions that are currently under debate: consumption of a healthy and safe diet, food security, animal welfare, and preserving the environment and its resources. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System describes the U.S. food system and provides a brief history of its evolution into the current system. This report identifies some of the real and potential implications of the current system in terms of its health, environmental, and socioeconomic effects along with a sense for the complexities of the system, potential metrics, and some of the data needs that are required to assess the effects. The overview of the food system and the framework described in this report will be an essential resource for decision makers, researchers, and others to examine the possible impacts of alternative policies or agricultural or food processing practices.