Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1977

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Agricultural Economics

Major Professor

Billy Trevena

Committee Members

Brady Deaton, S. Darrel Mundy

Abstract

The impact of nonfarm development upon rural areas has been the subject of a considerable amount of research in recent years. One important aspect of this topic area that has received little attention is the relationship between nonfarm development and adjustments in the local agricultural sector. The lack of current research on this topic means that the evaluations of future impacts of present nonfarm development in rural areas may be incomplete. This represents a particular problem for leaders of rural communities and small towns who wish to encourage nonfarm development without sacrificing the rural character of their communities. This study was undertaken as part of a larger project investigating part time and limited resource farming in 15 Upper East Tennessee counties, an area that has experienced substantial nonfarm development in metropolitan areas, small towns and rural areas in the past 20 years. It was intended as an updating of previous research done in roughly the same study area by William Nicholls in the 50's. Nicholls found that between 1900 and 1954 agricultural resources were generally concentrated in those counties with greater nonfarm development and that net income per farm worker was also relatively higher in those counties. These findings supported his hypothesis that urban industrial growth and development in a county would cause reorganization of the local agriculture or a higher income greater productivity basis. The updating of Nicholls' work involved correlation analysis of relationships between per capita nonfarm payrolls, a proxy variable for level of industrial development and data on various agricultural indicators drawn from the agricultural census, 1954, 1959, 1964, and 1969. Analysis of the data for the census years 1954-1969 provided evidence that the relationship between nonfarm development and adjustments in local agriculture characteristic of the 1900-1954 period had weakened. These conclusions are tentative. Evidence for causality is lacking during the 1954-1969 census years. In addition, Nicholls' conceptualization of the relationship does not allow consideration of a) the role of original resources, b) negative or neutralizing effects, c) adequate distinction between particular industrial as opposed to urban effects, and d) the need for a flexible level of generality in considering such influences as internal factors within the agricultural sector, size and type of the urban center. Finally, time related factors such as changes in farm technology and organization, changes in patterns and type of nonfarm development, changes in economic ties from local to regional over time, are not accounted for. Thus while the statistical evidence indicates a weakening in the relationship between nonfarm development and adjustments in the local agricultural over the 1954-1969 period, problems related to the conceptualization of the relationship make any conclusions based on such statistical trends tentative at best.

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