Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Agricultural Land-Use Change And Local Context: The Shenandoah-Cumberland Valley Apple-Growing District In The Eastern United States, Joseph Paul Guttmann

Doctoral Dissertations

Across the United States, the rural-urban fringe continues to be a place of dynamic land-use change. One area that has experienced a change in its agricultural base is the Shenandoah-Cumberland Valley Fruit District of Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. Since 1982, apple acreage in the Fruit District has declined by nearly 50 percent. Using a mail survey and personal interviews, this dissertation investigates the factors behind the Fruit District’s 25-year decline in apple acreage, the reasons why this decline has not been spatially uniform across the Fruit District, and the ways that growers have adapted to ensure the future …

Primary Wood-Using Mills And Forest Resources: Interactions Between Wood Demand And Procurement Areas, Consuelo Brandeis

Doctoral Dissertations

It is a common belief that the presence of forest industry and associated wood demand will result in forest management of procurement areas. The following essays examined the relationship between mill demand and procurement areas by assessing the likelihood of forest management and the ability to predict future wood output. The first study investigates the likelihood of forest management given proximity to mills using a multivariate probit model, incorporating forest characteristics and primary wood-using mill information collected by the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis and the Timber Products Output (TPO) survey. The second essay explores the use of …

Feasibility And Impact Analysis Of An International Grain Reserve, Haijing Zhuang

Masters Theses

Recent price surges have caught the attention of the entire society, and have put food reserve policy back into the political spotlight. However, few studies have investigated the operation of a grain reserve on a global scale. Therefore, the objectives of my research are to model and compare alternative operational price bands of an international grain reserve, and determine the relative feasibility and impact of the alternative price bands.

A global economic model was modified by building the capability to analyze alternative price bands of an international grain reserve. The feasibility of alternative price-band scenarios were evaluated by comparing: 1) …

Factors Influencing Precision Farming Technology Adoption Over Time In Southern U.S. Cotton Production, Pattarawan Watcharaanantapong

Masters Theses

This study analyzed factors of farm and farmer characteristics that influenced the timing of PF technology adoption using Trivariate Tobit models for three PF technologies. Data from the Cotton Incorporated Southern Precision Farming (PF) Survey conducted in February and March of 2009 for the 2008 crop year were analyzed for PF adoption by Southern U.S. Cotton Producers. The number of years a cotton farmer had used yield monitoring (YMR), remote sensing (RMS) and grid soil sampling (GSS) were the dependent variables and farm and farmer characteristics were the independent variables.

Results of Trivariate Tobit model for YMR suggested that younger …

Essays On Spatial Analysis Of Policy Impacts, Daegoon Lee

Masters Theses

This thesis is composed of two essays under the theme of spatial analysis of policy impacts. The objective of the first essay was to analyse how population dynamics affect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The effects of population redistribution resulting from the South Korean government’s decentralization efforts on GHG emissions were assessed. Simulation results suggest that the direction of change in total GHG emissions depends on the share of the population redistributed from higher to lower population density regions. If the entire redistributed population of 877,000 persons expected from the government’s decentralization project were from the Seoul Area, annual CO_{2 …}

Feasibility Of On-Farm Milk Processing, Packaging, And Marketing For Tennessee Dairy Farmers, Jonathan Joel Moss

Masters Theses

The Tennessee dairy industry has experienced a milk price and feed cost squeeze over the past several years, resulting in declining dairy farm numbers. Many dairy farmers are looking for ways to capture more of the food dollar. One alternative is employing a value-added enterprise. With added managerial and financial responsibilities, it is important that a market and financial feasibility be examined prior to entering into such an undertaking. This study focused on the feasibility of on-farm processed milk, cheese, and yogurt. The feasibility analysis consisted of two major components: market potential and financial feasibility. Market potential was examined for …

Evaluating The Contribution Of Infrastructure To U.S. Agri−Food Sector Output, Tingting Tong

Masters Theses

The effect of infrastructure investment or capital on private sector output and productivity has been widely discussed over the past two decades. However, only limited studies have focused on the contribution of infrastructure to the output of U.S. agricultural and food sector. Considering the importance of agriculture in U.S. economy and its strong dependence on infrastructure, two empirical analyses were made in this thesis to evaluate the output impact associated with infrastructure in agricultural and food sector in the United States. The first study examines the spillover effect of two major transportation modes, roads and rails, on agricultural output across …

Data Anti-Suppression Methods And An Application Of Spatial Concentration Measures To Evaluate Green Energy Value Chain Concentration, David Lane Register

Masters Theses

A number of renewable, or so-called “green energy” products have emerged in response to the environmental, national security, and economic risks posed by the consumption of fossil fuels. The development of the renewable fuels sector, including ethanol, biodiesel, landfill and dairy methane gas, and solar and wind energy have also been considered potential sources of economic growth. But continuously changing market and policy conditions put at risk recent accomplishments in green energy sector development, thus placing a greater emphasis on efficient coordination between producers and suppliers.

Recent advances in firm location theory have produced a variety of analytical tools to …

Examining Impacts On Water Demand Resulting From Population And Employment Growth Using A Regional Adjustment Model, Steven Blake Thomas

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the currently available water use data and its limitation for use in scientific research. The first chapter offers a description of the current nationwide water data including descriptions of collection methods and trends found within the data. The varying collection methods used result in inconsistencies within the datasets and between the years. These inconsistencies have resulted in the data being used more as a point of reference than in nationwide empirical analysis of water use. There has been a calling for systematic improvements to the data, which could contribute to greater empirical analysis taking place at the …

Economic And Environmental Effects Of Switchgrass Production On A Representative Cow-Calf Farm In Middle Tennessee, Hanna Leah Watts

Masters Theses

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the economic tradeoffs and land use dynamics of incorporating switchgrass into the farm plan of a representative middle Tennessee cow-calf operation. A net revenue simulation and multi-year mathematical programming model was used to find the optimum mix of switchgrass and cow-calf enterprises that will maximize whole farm net revenues over 30 years on a representative middle Tennessee beef farm under both average and above average management. Land use changes predicted by the mathematical programming model were used to assess the carbon change associated with incorporating, or transitioning to, switchgrass production.

For a …

The Trans-Pacific Partnership And Japanese Politics, Eliot Francis Watson

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.