The Changing Picture of Farming in Southeastern Minnesota

Abstract

CHANGES IN FARM ORGANIZATION and farm earnings have been more numerous and more striking during the past 25 or 30 years than at any other time in the long history of agriculture. Some of these changes and the resulting effect on earnings are brought out in the financial and production records kept by a group of farmers in southeastern Minnesota. These farmers were members of the Southeastern Minnesota Farm Management Service. During the first three years, 1928 through !930. only farms in Dodge, Freeborn, Goodhue, Rice, Steele, and Waseca Counties were included. Later it was expanded to include farms in Dakota. LeSueur, Mower, Nicollet, Olmsted, Scott, Wabasha, and Winona Counties, as well as a few in adjoining counties.