If farm size indicates how farmers experience their professional and economic lives, then the place they farm and the way place shapes farm activities are important in understanding that experience. Environmental context is also a critical consideration.
Some of that context is historical, in the sense that farmers who arrived near the time a region was settled may have different experiences through their lives than do those who began their farming career after a region was well established. These patterns are significantly shaped by the context in which farmers operate.
Agricultural economics builds on firm size distributions, and labor needs to show the importance of the farmer’s age in determining the development of the farm. Environmental variation in aridity was a key driver of farm structure.Ĭhanges across a farmer’s life cycle, the size and composition of the farm household, and the environment in which the farmer is operating have all been posited as key correlates of farm extensification and intensification across a wide body of literature. These findings validate farm- and life cycle theories and offer support for intergenerational motivations for farm development that include both daughters and sons. Results of multilevel statistical modeling indicate that farmer’s age, household size, and household structure are simultaneously related to both the extent of farm operations and the intensity of land use, taking into account local environmental conditions and time trends as Kansas was settled and developed. This paper extends the debate to the agricultural development of the United States Great Plains region, using unique data from 1875 to 1930 that link families to farms over time in 25 environmentally diverse Kansas townships. Recent debate in the literature on population, environment, and land use questions the applicability of theory that patterns of farm extensification and intensification correspond to the life course of farmers and to the life cycle of farm families.
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