CROSS-COMMODITY PERSPECTIVE ON CONTRACTING: EVIDENCE FROM MISSISSIPPI

Cross-Commodity Perspective on Contracting: Evidenc e from Mississippi

perceptions about contracting, demographics, and contracting activity (type and provisions
of contracts). The questionnaire was pretested on several producers and Extension personnel
and revised according to their suggestions.

A random sample of 1,000 producers was drawn by the Mississippi Agricultural Sta-
tistics Service and stratified by major crops grown in the state: field crops, fruits, vegetables,
nuts, cattle, and other livestock.  The breakdown of the population and sample sizes are

shown in Table 2.  To insure an adequate sample size for vegetables, fruits, and nuts, these

groups were oversampled. The livestock sample was somewhat complex. First, the sample
did not target poultry producers because the characteristics of their contracts were already
generally known. For the same reason, the sample did not target hog producers that were
known to be contract growers.   Several of the responding hog producers were producing

under either resource providing or production management contracts, but most were selling
their hogs on cash forward contracts or in spot markets.

The sample of catfish producers was restricted to those with $500,000 in annual
sales or more, and cattle producers were restricted to those with 1,000 head or more. These

restrictions were introduced to insure that responding producers were commercial producers
and not “hobby” farmers.   Inclusion of hobby farmers might introduce a significant het-

erogenity of motivations for farming, thereby masking important results for those producers
who produce the preponderance of the product.

The survey was conducted by mail during the Spring of 2001. A cover letter explain-
ing the benefits of participation and assurances of information confidentiality was included

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