By Joleen C. Hadrich and C. Robert Holcomb Farmers are entrepreneurs and finding the resources to start their operation can have direct implications on their financial success over time, which is the topic of the second installment of the “Top Farmer” newsletter series. Of the 334 survey respondents, 18% of the farms started independently without any help from family, 47% reported receiving help from their parents while operating their own farm independently, 25% are currently farming with family members in a partnership, and the remaining 10% used other strategies to start farming. These statistics differ when we split the sample between the 20% most profitable and 20% least profitable farms, measured by the adjusted net farm income ratio. Thirty percent of the least profitable farms reported starting their farming operation on their own, while only 13% of the most profitable started on their own without assistance. Over half (60%) of the most profitable farms receive
