アメリカ農業における家族経営の変貌と経営形態

Abstract

In recent years, the family farm in American agriculture has changed in many aspects. One important aspect of the change is the increase in the legal types of organization. In addition to the sole proprietership, partnership and corporation have increased in their numbers, and their shares in the total number of farm firms have also increased. There are many factors behind this increase in the legal types. Among those, such factors as rapid expansion in the minimum optimum size caused by the technological growth, tax policy, the limitation in the direct payment in the Federal farm program are important. Adjustments of the legal types is an important managerial strategy for the growth of the family farm. Especially family partnership and family corporation owned and managed by a family and its relatives are the developed legal types of family farm which retain the advantages of the family farm on the one hand, and decreased its disadvantages on the other hand.