ABSTRACT
The author states that one of Professor Mellor's objectives to discuss the implications of the microeconomics of such farms for agricultural development policy. This chapter presents a list of various characteristics of subsistence farmers rather than generalizations for agricultural policy. It concerns the exclusive preoccupation with how subsistence farmers behave in ovepopulated countries. It also concerns the framework of analysis and the logical development of the points which are supposed to lead us to "implications for agricultural development policy." Essentially, Mellor presents a string of propositions about subsistence economic behaviour which are almost always "counterbalanced," to use the author's words. Mellor discusses the rationality of farmers' decisions with respect to allocation of existing resources, acquisition of new resources, price response, and response to technical change. Mellor has "counterbalanced" almost all of his propositions and has implied that we cannot make any definite generalizations about the microeconomics of subsistence farmers in traditional economies at this time.
