Understanding the Farm Problem: Six Common Errors in Presenting Farm Statistics

Farm statistics are regularly quoted in the press and in policy circles, often in misleading ways. This, in turn, can easily lead to mistaken policies. Two examples of misleading statistical presentation include the common refrain that farm incomes are now higher than non-farm incomes, so there is little justification, from either an equity or a social justice perspective, for funding farm programs. Another is the oft-quoted statement that 60% of farmers and ranchers never get any government support at all (Environmental Working Group 2004). It is not just the press and advocacy organizations that present data in misleading ways. Noted agricultural economist Bruce Gardner, in a recent New York Times article, argued that small family farms were thriving. He cited the slowed rates of farm loss and the growth of “non-traditional†small farms sustained by off-farm income. As he noted, 90% of farm household income is from off-farm sources, and as a result farmers now enjoy living standards above the national average (Gardner 2005). All of the above statements are true – and truly misleading. The same data present a very different story when treated more carefully. Small and mid-sized full-time family farms have incomes at or below the national average, and less than half of that income is from their full-time-farming activities. A large majority of this group, which accounts for over three-quarters of full-time farmers, receives government farm-support payments of some sort, and many depend on them to stay above the poverty line and to stay in farming. The largest group of farms in the United States today are so-called “rural residence farms,†which are indeed thriving as Gardner points out, but are doing so primarily because they are part-time operations with ample outside sources of income, from retirement or from full-time non-farm careers. This paper is intended to both highlight some of the common errors in depicting the farm sector and present a more accura(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)