Two general approaches have dominated recent discussions with regard to reducing the incidence of poverty among rural households headed by working age poor. One approach has stressed the need for increasing job opportunities for residents of rural areas. The other has stressed the need for increasing the level of investment in human capital to enhance the productivity and employability of people in rural areas. While these are basically complementary rather than alternative approaches to reducing the incidence of poverty among the working age poor in rural communities, integrative analyses encompassing both of these approaches have been lacking.

Farris and Padberg, Krenz, and Boxley have discussed different ways of projecting the distribution of firm sizes. Farris and Padberg utilize Markov chain analysis where transition probabilities were derived from observed changes in firm size for Florida citrus packing firms over a five-year period. Krenz, recognizing the difficulty of securing data with which to estimate transition probabilities, developed rules which could be used to derive transition probabilities from census data. Krenz applied this technique to the size distributions of North Dakota farms. Finally, Boxley applied a completely different technique to estimating farm size distributions in the United States. Boxley's technique involved fitting negative exponential functions to firm size distributions observed from census data. According to Boxley, these functions were sufficiently stable to permit estimation of future firm size distributions.

In recent years there has been increased concern over the maintenance of open space by various levels of government. Planning agencies and environmentalists have recognized that the quality of the environment and specifically air quality is in large part dependent upon wise land use planning. However, the role of agriculture in terms of what it can contribute to the maintenance of productive open space has not been fully recognized by the planners. Lands in close proximity to metropolitan centers have been looked upon as a potential supply for the more intensive uses while agriculture has been considered as a residual user.

In 1963 the government of Jamaica, in an effort to reconcile prevailing milk consumption levels with the volume of local production, initiated a Dairy Settlement Project as part of a Dairy Development Program. This project aimed at establishing a corps of new dairymen on 25 acre farms set up on lands acquired by the government under its land reform program. A pre-investment study indicated that the project was viable and a soft loan was obtained from the United States Agency for International Development to finance the project.

The Soviet economic system is based on the principle of public ownership of all means of production. Consequently, private enterprise in Soviet socialist economy as a rule is not tolerated, allegedly to exclude unearned income and to prevent “exploitation of man by man”. From the Soviet point of view, private enterprise is a disturbing and unpredictable element in their system of central planning, command economy and Party control. If it is not considered an outright crime it is characterized in the Soviet Union as a parasitic, socially unnecessary activity undertaken primarily for personal profiteering and for obtaining unearned income – all unacceptable activities in a socialist society.

Historically, farm families relied primarily on income from farming for family living needs. Income from off-farm sources was usually of minor importance to the family. However, as mechanical and technological revolutions reduced total labor requirements needed in farming, many farmers combined farming with a nonfarm job to stabilize or increase their family income and improve their overall economic situation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of off-farm income among people with farm earnings, especially the wage and salary component of off-farm income.

During the past decade about 90 percent of the potatoes utilized for human consumption was used in the form of tablestock or fresh potatoes, frozen potato products, and potato chips and shoestring potatoes. Recent trends in the national per capita consumption of these potato products (Table 1) indicate that consumers have substituted processed potato products for fresh potatoes. In addition, the variety of package sizes for potato products, especially the processed products, has increased during this same ten year period.

“Give the government back to the people,” a popular phrase in recent months, exemplifies the concern over the proper role of the federal, state and local units of government in providing and financing public services. Constituents are frustrated by bureaucratic programs, frequently insensitive to local needs, that are initiated at higher levels of government. They are equally frustrated by the inability of units of local government to initiate and finance programs designed to satisfy the needs of the local community.

The spread of suburbs into previously rural areas has become commonplace in the United States. A rather striking aspect of this phenomenon has been the discontinuity which results. This aspect is often manifest in a haphazard mixture of unused and densely settled areas which has been described as “sprawl”. A more useful definition of suburban sprawl, its causes, and its consequences, is provided below in order to introduce the econometric objectives of this paper.

Since its emergence in the early part of this century, planning in the United States has been predominantly urban. Regional planning of watersheds, has received some attention but planning for rural areas has not been widely practiced, nor has it been taught in planning schools. Support for this generalization may be found in planning texts which consider 50,000 population a “small” municipality. Further evidence is found in town plans prepared through support of federal “701” funds during the past decade. These plans are usually for expansion of urban facilities and services and ignore exclusively rural land uses. Planning in England presents a contrast. It is appropriately referred to as “town and country planning” as it covers the range of land use intensities from agricultural to the highest value urban block as interrelated and interconnected parts of a single fabric.