Digital Commons Network^™

A County Level Analysis Of 2014 Farm Bill Commodity Payments, Seth Cole Boone

Open Access Theses

United States commodity policy was subject to a large transition in how the federal government supports agricultural producers when the 2014 Farm Bill was passed in February of 2014. The new programs are the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs. Methods used by the federal government to distribute farm income support have evolved from constant decoupled payments into programs that respond to agricultural market fluctuations, delivering payments that are inversely related to market performance.

The United States has a long history of government programs directly and indirectly supporting farmers and their income, dating back to …

The Labor Market Consequences Of Endogenous Low-Skill Migration With A Market-Based Immigration Policy, German A. Marquez Alcala

Open Access Theses

The undocumented migration of Mexican nationals to the U.S. is largely influenced by labor demand in low-skill sectors. The legal migration channels available to Mexican nationals with little education are based on family petitions and subject to visa quotas which are dwarfed by the demand for entry to the United States; visa approval can take upwards of 20 years for a Mexican national with little education and few resources. Thus, undocumented immigration is a more responsive unskilled labor distribution mechanism than the existing quota-based immigration policy. However, the restrictive legal migration channels and increased costs of undocumented migration are stifling …

The Effect Of Climate Change On The Economics Of Conservation Tillage: A Study Based On Field Experiments In Indiana, Whitney Hodde

Open Access Theses

This study evaluates the economics of conservation tillage (chisel till and no till) and examines how climate change will likely affect it. We use data from long-term experimental plots in Indiana to estimate how corn and soybean yields respond to weather patterns under alternative tillage practices. Yield functions are coupled with random draws of weather variables to construct distributions describing the probability that conservation tillage will result in higher profits than more intensive tillage, under current and future climatic regimes. Results suggest that, in our study area, projected climate change will make conservation tillage more attractive.

Mergers And Acquisitions In Food And Agribusiness: Returns, Drivers, And Long Run Performance, Josiah M. Ringelberg

Open Access Theses

Food and agribusiness in the U.S is a dynamic and ever changing business. The industry has seen booms and busts, considerable consolidation, and continued globalization in the past few decades. Businesses operating within its sectors have had to demonstrate flexibility and adaptability as the industry’s landscape consolidates at the consumer, supplier, and producer level. One strategy companies have used to grow and position themselves throughout years of industry consolidation has been merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions.

During the eleven years from 1985 and 1995, the food industry was listed in the top 10 M&A most active industries ten times. It …

Irrigation Adoption, Groundwater Demand And Policy In The U.S. Corn Belt, 2040-2070, Molly A. Van Dop

Open Access Theses

Climate change across the U.S. Corn Belt will significantly increase precipitation variability and temperatures by midcentury. Corn and soybean producers will seek to find strategies that may help to mitigate the potentially negative effects on yield. The adoption of irrigation technology has increased over the last several decades to improve yields in areas with insufficient rainfall, and is currently being adopted by producers who are choosing to minimize risk due to weather variability. To see if this trend in irrigation adoption has the potential to expand in the wake of climate change, this study uses weather data from four General …

Economic And Environmental Impacts Of A Hypothetical Global Gmo Ban, Harrison H. Mahaffey

Open Access Theses

The objective of this research is to assess the global economic and greenhouse gas emission impacts of GMO crops. This is done by modeling two counterfactual scenarios and evaluating them apart and in combination. The first scenario models the impact of a global GMO ban. The second scenario models the impact of increased GMO penetration. The focus is on the price and welfare impacts, and land use change greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with GMO technologies. Much of the prior work on the economic impacts of GMO technology has relied on a combination of partial equilibrium analysis and econometric techniques. …

Investigating U.S. Resident Perceptions Of Corporate Social Responsibility In Food And Agriculture, Carissa Jae Morgan

Open Access Theses

Corporations are prioritizing corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities by investing in and actively promoting their social practices. In the U.S. of the modern food supply chain creates a unique challenge for corporations to address concerns about social issues of consumers and non-consumers alike. This study is motivated by the need to better understand individuals’ perceptions of CSR as it pertains to the food supply chain. In April 2015 an online survey collected information from 1,201 U.S. residents with the objective of investigating individuals’ perceptions of relative importance of eight prominent CSR areas relevant to food and agriculture. Demographic, household consumption, …