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Abstract
Conventional accounting of agricultural income focuses on the commercial operating income from oak woodland ranches, omitting the value of amenities to the landowner and real capital gains, which includes land revaluation (appreciation). These accounting exercises also mix income earned through self-employed (landowner and household) labor with ranch operating income, making it difficult to estimate separately how capital investment and landowner labor time are remunerated. In this paper we estimate the total landowner income and profitability rates from six oak woodland case studies in Spain and California. We use data from commercial operations, private amenity values from two contingent valuation surveys and average land revaluation rates. Self-employed labor returns are estimated for each economic activity. We find that when private amenity values and capital gains are considered, profitability rates range from 9.7 to 12.6 percent in California, and 6.3 to 8.7 percent in Spanish case studies, rates that are competitive with alternative investments. Self-employed labor is present in two California and in two Spanish case studies, providing positive returns in the former, though below the average wage rate from an alternative employment, and no returns in the latter. Our results provide a more complete economic valuation of these oak woodlands and a better understanding of landowner decisions and motivations for current and future land investment.
Parent Publication
Citation
Oviedo, Jose L.; Huntsinger, Lynn; Campos, Pablo. 2015. Landowner total income from oak woodland working landscapes in Spain and California. In: Standiford, Richard B.; Purcell, Kathryn L., tech. cords. Proceedings of the seventh California oak symposium: managing oak woodlands in a dynamic world. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-251. Berkeley, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station: 189-198.
