ABSTRACT
This chapter offers the proposition that many owner-operators are real estate investors using off-farm income to help them stay on the farm until they choose to capture their capital gains. If this description fits an operation, it can be argued that the household is more accurately portrayed as an investment firm, even if its members are enjoying an agricultural way of life. For those firms, the business motivating their rural way of life has little to do with real production agriculture. The discussion in this chapter implies that a majority of America's farms and ranches are hobby farms that represent a lifestyle choice more than a commercial business. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), those family farm businesses are sometimes referred to as owner-operator households. The terminology gets a bit confusing at times, but one thing is clear: it is important to sort out the embedded issues in order to understand the conflicting forces beneath the current agricultural policy debate.
