Income possibilities on farms in the cotton section of West Tennessee

Agricultural Economists have long been cognisant of differences in resource use and returns from resources between various geographical areas. This has resulted in much concern by those interested in determining the specific causes for these existent differences and establishing policies to alleviate the inequitable return for effort expended in obtaining a livelihood from agriculture.

This study was addressed to the problem of investigating the income possibilities in the cotton section, such as Type of Farming Area 3, in West Tennessee. Many factors have been proposed as causing low returns to farmers. One very prominent factor that has received a great deal of attention has been the quality of resources. Quality of resources has been considered as the limiting factor by many research workers, while others attribute the differential in income between areas to the improper functioning of the capital market.

Many studies have shown that differentials in income do exist in the Southern States and in various sections of each state the problem is more serious than In other major regions of the United States, Previous Research efforts have been directed along two approaches, first to show that a difference in income did exist and secondly to examine the extent of the differences.

Since so much work of this nature has been done in the past, the comparison of income and resource use in the United States, Tennessee and Fayette and Hardeman Counties, located in West Tennessee, is a rather brief analysis, merely to point up the problem that this research work was directed towards. Fayette and Hardeman Counties are situated in Type of Farming Area 3 in beet Tennessee and have relatively low per capita income.