Dominant enterprise size in the swine production industry

Dominant swine enterprise size may be determined by the geographic location of the production unit and the risk attitudes of the producer. Distributions of after-tax net revenues for thirteen swine production units in three subregions of the Corn Belt are generated from empirical data gathered from 1, 181 swine enterprises. Stochastic dominance with respect to a function is used to rank these distributions for five Arrow-Pratt intervals. Western swine production units stochastically dominate units in the eastern and southern subregions. Risk-averse producers prefer smaller operations, while risk-loving managers prefer relatively large-scale swine enterprises.