Farm Operator And Labor Trends

By Matthew Diersen

Farms today support a wide range of operators, employees, and households. In a recent report, Brown et al. (2015) cover several aspects of structural change in South Dakota production agriculture gleaned from recent Census of Agriculture volumes. Aspects related to farm operator characteristics, hired farm labor, and the number of different households that depend on farms in South Dakota are highlighted here.

Principal Operators

Among principal operators, one counted per farm, there were more full-owners, fewer part-owners and fewer tenants of farms in 2012 than in earlier Census years. The percentage of operators listing farming as their primary occupation also declined. Farming was the main occupation for only 3 of 5 operators in 2012, versus 4 of 5 operators in 1982. On 1,168 farms in 2012, the operator was a hired manager, another result of a steadily growing trend in recent Census years.

Multiple-Operator Farms

South Dakota has a large number of multiple-operator farms, with a total of 48,987 operators serving the 31,989 farms. On at least 9,195 farms, one of the additional operators was the spouse of the primary operator. On at least 6,686 farms, one of the additional operators was not the spouse. These numbers do not total cleanly because the Census only gathered information on up to three operators per farm. Across all operators, only 55% reported farming being their primary occupation. Again, the number of farms does not clearly reflect the number of people making farm-related decisions.

On-Farm & Off-Farm Work

The split between farm work and off-farm work was evident across all operators in 2012. Of the 48,870 operators who provided detailed information, 42% reported doing no off-farm work (Figure 1). In addition, 21% of operators reported doing 1 to 199 days of off-farm work. The remaining 37% of operators reported doing more than 200 days of off-farm work. Those without off-farm work included some retired operators. However, the large absolute number of operators with no off-farm days or only some off-farm days worked speaks to the amount of labor needed or available for on-farm work.

Figure 1. Number of operators by days worked off farm.

Households Supported by Farm Income

Similarly, a large number of farms supported more than one household with farm income. On 7,252 farms, more than one household shared in the farm net income. Weighting the farms by number of households supported implies that at least 42,450 households shared in farm net income. The number of households sharing farm income is positively correlated with the sales class of farms; larger farms tend to support more households. New in the 2012 Census of Agriculture was a tally of unpaid workers, totaling 25,248 in South Dakota. Presumably, such workers were not operators nor hired laborers and were perhaps other family members.