Agricultural Entrepreneurs: The First and the Forgotten?

Abstract

This essay is not a comprehensive study of all issues facing agriculture today. It will be noted that agriculture is a rapidly changing industry with many high value resources at its disposal. Farmers tend to be referenced as a uniform group by the majority of Americans. Upon closer inspection, farmers are discovered to be anything but uniform as evidenced by the abundance of descriptive terms and metrics encountered in the literature. Rather than argue the many arbitrary definitions of "farmer", this paper strives to accurately depict today's agricultural entrepreneur and contemplate policies that best support him or her - regardless of farm size or business strategy. With the implicit understanding that not every farmer or aspiring farmer is entrepreneurial, it is the authors' hope that casual assumptions about agriculture can be dispelled and meaningful policy issues can be discussed objectively.