Date of Graduation

12-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Agricultural Economics (MS)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness

Advisor/Mentor

Ahrendsen, Bruce L.

Committee Member

Speelman, Stijn S.

Second Committee Member

Dodson, Charles B.

Third Committee Member

Short, Gianna G.

Keywords

Agricultural Producers; Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers

Abstract

This study aims at identifying racial and gender discrimination in the usage of credit for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers (SDFR) in the United States. Usage of credit is considered successful when a loan has been paid in full and a failure is considered when the borrower defaults. Identifying such a pathway would provide useful information to the Federal government United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) to evaluate the effectiveness and equity of loan programs. This study uses data from the USDA FSA farm loan programs that mainly target socially disadvantaged farmers and other underserved groups. The analysis has been realized through a subdistributional Competing Risks model of survival analysis. The null hypothesis considers that SDFR status has no impact on loan outcome and length of time to loan outcome, where loan outcome is paid-in full, default, or censored. The alternative hypothesis considers there is a difference in loan outcome regarding the SDFR status. The results obtained highlighted that Black and Hispanic farmers and ranchers had higher rates of delinquency and long-term delinquency and lower rates of payment in full than other groups. While these results are not a clear indicator of discrimination, they do not refute its absence.

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