Figures released by the French Department of Agriculture shows that the average size of farms has increased since 1950s. In 1950, the mean size of a farm was 174 acres; by 2007 the average size was 471 acres. Between those years the number of farms decreased but the amount of tillable land remained relatively constant, so now the farms are bigger. This trend might be explained, in part, by the inability of small farms to compete with prices and costs of large-scale operations and to produce a level of income necessary to support the farmer's desired standard of living. Suppose an agribusiness researcher believes that average size of farms has now increased from the 2007 mean figure of 471 acres. To test the notion, the researcher randomly sampled 23 farms across France. Use 5% level of significance to test her hypothesis. The number of acres per farm can be assumed to be normally distributed.

445 489 474 505 553 477 454 463 466 557 502 449

438 500 466 477 557 433 545 511 590 561 560

1. What steps that you would take to test the claim, give reasoning?
2. Test the claim at 5% level of significance.
3. Is the researcher, right? Explain it graphically.

What can be the business implication of the results achieved in part b and c.