A nationwide survey of landowners indicates that owner operators of farmland made more frequent capital expenditures for conservation, land clearing, and drainage than nonoperator owners. This result applies to individual and family owners as well as to nonfamily partnerships and corporations. Retired owners made capital expenditures less frequently than other nonoperator owners. Three alternatives for maintaining and increasing the productivity of rented land are: develop land enhancing technologies that are attractive to tenants; include nonoperator owners in the services offered by local, State, and Federal agencies; and develop land purchase contracts that are mutually advantageous to tenants and older landlords.
