Business Commons^™

Insurance, Policy, And Education For Livestock Producers, Milan Chauhan, Bradley Lubben

Cornhusker Economics

Federal crop insurance programs have existed since the 1930s, but for livestock producers, federal insurance programs were virtually nonexistent until the past 20 years. Livestock producers may not face exactly the same production risks that crop producers face, but they do face similar production risks related to grazing capacity and forage production and of course face price risks just like crop producers do.

Nebraska Crop Budgets 2024, Robert N. Klein, Glennis Mcmclure

Department of Agricultural Economics: Presentations, Working Papers, and Gray Literature

The 2024 Nebraska Crop budget projections were created using cropping practice norms for many producers in Nebraska. However, each individual farming operation is unique, and these budgets should be used only as a guide. The budgets for 2024 are available in the Agricultural Budget Calculator program at:https://agbudget.unl.edu/. To modify these budgets, you can download UNL budgets into your ABC program account or create your own. In addition, the reports for each of the 2024 crop budgets are saved as printable (PDF) files. See also the new budget calculator at https://cap.unl.edu/abc.

The following individuals contributed to these budgets …

Crop-Livestock Diversification And Efficiency In Agriculture, Jay Parsons, Maroua Afi

Cornhusker Economics

Diversification is a familiar strategy for managing risk in agriculture. It can take several forms including growing more than one crop or operating a farm with both crop and livestock enterprises. As with other strategies for managing risk, diversification comes with a unique set of costs. Managing a farm with multiple enterprises creates additional overhead as well as additional demands on management, labor, land, capital, and other resources. Diversification adds complexity to an operation and too much complexity can lead to inefficiencies.

Producer Long-Term Marketing Opportunities With Ethanol Plants, Austin Harthoorn, Logan Lloyd, Cory Walters, Kate Brooks

Cornhusker Economics

Commodity marketing operates in a complex decision environment with constant information flow, which can conceal long-run financially profitable marketing opportunities for producers. In the corn marketing space, the competitive role of ethanol plants throughout the state may provide producers with long-run financial gains by strategically approaching marketing decisions. In this article, we characterize whether producers can gain financially from strategically marketing corn to ethanol plants. For example, do ethanol plants provide a better long-run return from pre-harvest hedging, spring sale, or harvest sale?

We investigate three important contracting times--forward contract for harvest delivery (called pre-harvest hereafter), harvest delivery, and spring …

Things To Consider Before Co-Signing A Loan, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

In the context of family farms, includes some general points to consider before you sign a loan guarantee for a family member who is heavily in debt.

Conclusion: Having to consider whether to co-sign a child's loan is a very difficult situation-no one wants to be part of losing part of the family farm or ranch to loan foreclosure. But if the loan guarantee isn't part of a financial turnaround plan that has at least a fighting chance of success, don't sign the guarantee unless you absolutely don't need the money for your own retirement.

Deficit Irrigation Management For Irrigated Corn In Nebraska: Economically Viable?, Lia Nogueira, Cory Walters, Emily O'Donnell, Wesley Peterson, Suat Irmak

Cornhusker Economics

In this study we determine the economic value of deficit irrigation management using both technological and methodological advancements. The use of soil moisture probes represents the technological improvement. We provide improvements in the methodology as follows. Regarding data, we employ a field-size study, instead of plots, where the irrigation decision is determined by the moisture level in the soil measured through a soil moisture probe. Regarding the understanding of the yield response to water, although we examine the commonly used quadratic function, we improve upon this specification by also examining an alternative response function, the linear response stochastic plateau. Our …

2023 Nebraska Women In Agriculture Conference, Jessica Groskopf, Katie Hothem

Cornhusker Economics

Includes a recap of the 38th Nebraska Women in Agriculture Conference held in February 2023 in Kearney, Nebraska.

Nebraska Farmland Values And Cash Rental Rates In 2023, Jim Jansen, Jeffrey Stokes

Cornhusker Economics

The market value of agricultural land in Nebraska increased by 14% over the prior year to an average of US $3,835 per acre, according to the 2023 Nebraska Farm Real Estate Market Survey. This marks the second-largest increase in the market value of agricultural land in Nebraska since 2014 and the highest non-inflation-adjusted state-wide land value in the 45-year history of the survey.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Department of Agricultural Economics annually surveys land industry professionals across Nebraska, including appraisers, farm and ranch managers, agricultural bankers, and related industry professionals. Results from the survey are divided by land class and …

Impact Of Cosmetic Standards On Food Loss, Pascale Crama, Yangfang (Helen) Zhou, Manman Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A significant portion of the food loss in agricultural supply chains occurs at the farm level and has been linked to high cosmetic standards adopted by retailers regarding the size, color, and shape of the produce. We examine the economic incentives for retailers to adopt such high standards and their impact on food loss. We build a sequential game between a retailer and a farmer, where the retailer signs a contract with the farmer specifying both the wholesale price and cosmetic quality standard. Setting a high standard allows the retailer to sell the products at a price premium but increases …

The Impact Of Organized Activism On Technology Sharing, Ahmed Chennak, Amalia Yiannaka

Cornhusker Economics

What factors influence a firm's decision to share its technology with competitors? While patent licensing has received considerable attention in the literature, studies have typically focused on the optimal licensing contract for product and process innovations in various market settings. A key finding of this literature is that the optimal licensing strategy depends on the type of the patentee; that is, whether the patentee is a producer in the market (insider patentee) or not (outsider patentee). Little attention has been given, however, to the role the general public can play on firms' incentives to share their innovations through licensing contracts …

Role Of Social Network On Technology Adoption: Application To Nebraska Producers In The Face Of Undesirable Vegetation Transitions, Sabrina Gulab, Holly K. Nesbitt, Simanti Banerjee, Theresa Floyd

Cornhusker Economics

Conclusion

Producers need to have access to information regarding new conservation practices and technologies to ensure land management in the face of ecological threats in general and vegetation transitions (VTs) in the context of our study. This study investigates the role of an individual producer's social network on the willingness to seek information about technologies and management practices and the likelihood of new technology adoption with special attention to risk attitudes and producer spillover effects. Our results provide evidence that network composition and information obtained through a producer's social network don't influence an individual's willingness to seek information about new …

The Role Of Behavioural Factors And Opportunity Costs In Farmers' Participation In Voluntary Agri-Environmental Schemes: A Systematic Review, Sergei Schaub, Jaboury Ghazoul, Robert Huber, Wei Zhang, Adelaide Sander, Charles Rees, Simanti Banerjee, Robert Finger

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Agri-environmental schemes (AESs) are increasingly implemented to promote the adoption of environmentally friendly practices by farmers. We use a systematic review to explore the role of behavioural factors and opportunity costs in farmers' decisions to participate in AESs in Australia, Europe and North America. Behavioural factors influence how farmers value and perceive options, while opportunity costs relate to farmers' forgone utility when choosing to participate in schemes. We synthesise insights from 79 articles and over 700 factors explaining the participation in AESs. We find that a set of behavioural factors seem consistently connected to participation, including agricultural training, advice and …

Food Fraud: A Persistent Problem That Demands A Comprehensive Approach, Amalia Yiannaka

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Food fraud commonly refers to the deliberate and economi­cally motivated adulteration and mislabeling of food, but more broadly defined it also includes food theft, simulation that makes a fraudulent food product look like the legiti­mate product it copies, diversion, and overrun (Moyer et al. 2017). It is a longstanding and persistent challenge that impacts the global food sector; according to some estimates, food fraud results in annual costs of $40 billion (Food Standards Agency 2020). The complexity of globalized agri-food supply chains which are long, fast-moving, and involve a large number of intermediaries, coupled with lax regulatory monitoring and oversight …

Evaluating The Relative Impact Of Multiple Healthy Food Choice Interventions On Choice Process Variables And Choices, Christopher Gustafson

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Fiscal tools—taxes and/or subsidies—are increasingly used to address diet-related health problems. However, some studies have found that these tools are markedly more effective if attention is drawn to the tax or subsidy, suggesting that the price change alone may go unnoticed in the complex food environments that consumers face. Interventions that prompt individuals to consider health during choice show promise for promoting healthy food choices in both simple laboratory settings and complex, real-world markets. In this pre-registered study, I examine the impact of dietary fiber health prompts and/or dietary fiber subsidies on the per-serving fiber content of foods chosen, the …