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acts of God and man such as wars, insurrections, and revolts. All of these forces

converge to determine the actual yield which will be obtained in any given crop

year. (Post-harvest losses while stored, processed or transported could also be
 1/
included if the loss is borne by the farmer.)

 Second, there is cost variability. Despite the predominance of subsistence

and semi-subsistence type agriculture which heavily involves "subsistence
 sometimes
production," there are still inputs required for production which are/purchased.

These items range from minor farm tools and fertilizer to oxen rental and hired

labor. Whether or not actual "cash" is employed in the payment process is in-

consequential. The critical issue is the variability in the incidence of such

costs. The typical farm decision-maker faces a number of such expenses which

tend to fall into two categories: those which are endogenous in the sense that

they are subject to his decision-making control and those which are exogenous in

the sense that their costing and incidence are outside his control. In both

cases, however, predictable and unpredictable probabilities are involved, i.e.,

risk and uncertainty. Family labor is fundamentally an endogenous variable

whose utilization and remuneration is subject to the control of the farm decision-

maker. But, its utilization is affected by illness and even the availability of

off-farm employment. There are a number of exogenous factors which are subject

to year to year variability and for which the farm operator must predict specific

values in advance of or during the crop season. The costs of farm product pro-

cessing such as milling, and off farm storage and transport to market are equally

exogenous from the standpoint of the farmer. Knowing what these costs were in



 Day's [1965] rigorous study of yields using U.S. data showed that field crop
 yields were non-normal and that the degree of skewness and kurtosis depended upon
 the amount of available nutrients. Similar findings for yields in developing
 areas havenot yet been established, but their apparent significance should not be
 lost as one observes the necessary increases in fertilizer application required
 by the newer varieties. The point is not that increased fertilizer application
 should be avoided but that its effects upon yield distribution characteristics
 should be recognized.