Agricultural entrepreneurship is receiving heightened attention as a potential means for economic revitalization of communities adversely affected by changes in the agricultural sector. In particular, resource limited farmers in the Appalachian region of the United States have been hit by major changes in the tobacco industry. Very little is known about resource limited farmers respond to changing industry conditions and policy attempts to remedy structural change. Recently, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has attempted to assist farmers in adopting new farmbased enterprises to expand their income base. However, it is unclear about the factors that drive entrepreneurial or diversification activities among resource limited farmers. In general, it is expected that resource limited farmers, most of whom work off-farm for a significant portion of their income, face a tradeoff between off-farm work constraints and potential new sources of income on-farm. This paper uses a survey of 765 farmers in Northeast Kentucky to explore factors correlating with agricultural entrepreneurship and understanding this tradeoff.
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DP2004-02_miriti_scorsone.pdf