Understanding Producer Strategies: Identifying Key Success Factors of Commercial Farms in 2013

Farm management is a series of complex processes incorporating a variety of dynamic factors, including biological aspects, resource allocation and management, and the management of increasingly complex financial/economic systems, which managers are constantly asked to prioritize and allocate management effort amongst. This work determines which success factors, from five predetermined factors (managing production; managing land, equipment, and facilities; controlling costs; managing output prices; and managing people) commercial producers identified as most important for the success of their operation. A total of 28.6 % of respondents selected controlling costs and 27.3% selected managing production as most important factors. From producer-specific estimates of a mixed logit model, correlations between the success factors were estimated; the strongest correlation observed was the negative relationship between managing production and controlling costs. Implications for self-identified success factors of commercial agricultural producers are far reaching, potentially influencing sales, marketing, and decision support for these operations, as well as driving research and programmatic focus to provide relevant information to these producers moving forward.