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Agricultural Contracting Update: Contracts in 2003

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By James MacDonald and Penni Korb

Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB9) 26 pp, January 2006

Marketing and production contracts covered 39 percent of the value of U.S. agricultural production in 2003, up from 36 percent in 2001 and a substantial increase over estimated values of 28 percent for 1991 and 11 percent in 1969. Large farms are far more likely to contract than small farms; in fact, contracts cover over half of the value of production from farms with at least $1 million in sales. Although use of both production and marketing contracts has grown over time, growth is more rapid for production contracts, which are largely used for livestock.

Keywords: farm structure, production contracts, marketing contracts, farm size, contracting, vertical coordination, market structure, risk analysis, ERS, USDA

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Chapters are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

Updated date: January 4, 2006

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