If farmers are risk averse, greater farm income variability should increase off-farm labor supply. This effect is confirmed for a sample of Kansas farmers. Off-farm employment of farmers and their spouses is also found to be significantly influenced by farm experience, off-farm work experience, farm size, leverage, efficiency, and farm-specific education. In addition, farm operators and spouses...

I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms "machine" and "think." The definitions might be framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of the words, but this attitude is dangerous, If the meaning of the words "machine" and "think" are to be found by examining how they are commonly used it is difficult to...

this study investigated the effects of land size and two leased and private farming systems of machinery on economic efficiency and factors such as total production cost per hectare (ratio of total cost of agricultural inputs and operations to farm size), total income (ratio of product and byproduct value to farm size), yield (ratio of crop production to farm size) and degree of mechanization f...

Intercropping has a strong potential to counteract the severe degradation of arable land in the North China Plain (NCP). However, a rapid decline of intercropping can be observed in the last decades. The present paper investigates the reason for this development and suggests solutions on how to adjust intercropping systems to fit modern agriculture. Firstly, the developments of socioeconomic co...

OBJECTIVES a) To identify possible risk factors associated with rural accidents in women, b) to describe women's knowledge about zoonosis, c) to describe women's risk perception about farming, d) to describe mothers' risk perception about children's activities in rural settings, e) to estimate the initial age of exposure to the rural setting and its dangers, and f) to identify possible risk fac...

Adopt principal component regression for researching the optimal subsidy mode of cotton production in China. The result indicates that, from the perspective of economic stimulatory effect, the optimal cotton subsidy in China is farm chemical subsidy rather than seed subsidy. The reason is that there are frequent pest disasters in cotton producing areas in China. So farm chemical subsidy is the ...