Agricultural Economics Research and Extension Needs of Small-Scale, Limited-Resource Farmers

A traditional approach to defining problems or needs is to compare a situation (what is) with objectives or valuations (what ought to be). A more elaborate version of this approach introduces some dynamics into the scheme by projecting current trends to determine how the expected situation some time in the future compares with what we would like the situation to be. One difficulty in such an approach is deciding what dimensions of the situation are important. In considering the problems of small farms, do we primarily examine income and the measures of wellbeing — or emphasize the structure of agriculture and its implications for our society? Must we consider the extent to which concern for conservation of soil and energy resources is related to size of farms? Should we complicate the picture even more, as is often argued, by including the non-market-goods dimensions [18]? Some researchers would merely use a change in the number of small farms as indicative of a problem, but this is only symptomatic of more basic factors at work.