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Abstract
Excerpts from the report: The objective of this report is to develop and present certain criteria that might be used for determining when returns to labor and capital employed in farming are approximately equal to those obtained in other sectors of the economy. Section 705 of the Food and Agriculture Act of 1965 directed the Secretary of Agriculture to make a study of parity income and submit a report to Congress. This is the report of that study. Congress has defined parity income in three different pieces of legislation: (1) The Soil Conservation and Domestic Act of 1936, (2) The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, and (3) The Agricultural Act of 1948. The parity income objective, however, has not been measured in a satisfactory way. This study presents statistical measurements of parity income in terms of a concept described as "parity returns." These are the returns that labor and capital employed in agriculture could get if they were employed in other sectors of the economy.