Part-time farming situations among Manitoba farm operators: A typological approach

The investigation of off-farm employment has spanned more than half a century, making use of both census information and primary research. Despite early attempts to formulate part-time farming typologies, many studies rely heavily on descriptive statistics or correlational analyses to interpret this complex phenomenon. This paper begins with a discussion of several conceptual issues impacting the examination of off-farm activities, followed by an empirical analysis of part-time farming situation sin southern Manitoba. Interviews wit 143 male operators who were actively working off the farm provided detailed information concerning farm characteristics, socio-demographic variables and motivational-attitudinal dispositions toward off-arm employment. These variables were submitted to factor analysis and nine emergent dimensions were used as input variables for hierarchical cluster analysis. Six relatively distinct part-time farming situations (i.e. clusters) wee identified in the study sample. The results demonstrate how data-reduction and agglomerative procedures can be used to describe typological distinctions among part-time farmers. The clusters or empirical types afford a basis for evaluating conceptual definitions and theoretical conjecture concerning the relevance of contextual and individual-based variables in explaining operators' decisions to seek employment off the farm.