Agricultural and Resource Economics Commons^™

Food Access And Dignity Among University Of Wyoming Students, Alanna Elder

Honors Theses AY 17/18

Because Albany County is the home of the state’s only four-year university, there is a question as to how the student population affects the proportion of county residents considered food insecure. Until now, it has been unclear how many students are struggling to access food. In 2017, a group of University of Wyoming faculty and administrators from the Department of Agricultural Economics, Financial Services, and the Office of Academic Affairs signed up for The Ohio State University’s College Study on Financial Wellness, which included a food security module (Alexander). Surveying 722 undergraduates and using USDA metrics, the researchers ...

Sustainability And Tourism: A Case Study Of The United States' First Offshore Wind Farm, Andrew Carr-Harris, Corey Lang

Corey Lang

Boundary Spanners And Trust Development Between Stakeholders In Integrated Water Resource Management: A Mixed Methods Study, Jodi L. Delozier

Dissertations & Theses in Natural Resources

Natural resource issues are inherently complex, even more so are those that involve the management of water. Because watersheds tend to cross multiple jurisdictional and geographical boundaries, a diverse set of stakeholders are needed to develop appropriate and sustainable management policy. This research sheds light on the importance of boundary spanners assisting in the development of trust between stakeholders in integrated water resource management (IWRM). Previous literature has explored the advantages to boundary spanning leadership in business practice, emergency management, university and community management as well as fish and wildlife management, but has failed to address the area of integrated ...

Sustainability Of Utilizing Renewable And Nuclear Energy In Saudi Arabia Using Different Types Of Life Cycle Assessment, Kamel Almutairi

Theses and Dissertations

Evaluating the global environmental impacts of the current and future energy policies in Saudi Arabia using Life cycle assessment (LCA) method was the main objective of this dissertation. First, the attributional life cycle assessment (ALCA) framework was used to evaluate the Saudi’s air conditioning systems, as they are responsible for about 70% of the total Saudi residential electricity consumption. The ALCA’s results showed that the AC use phase produces the largest share of the environmental impact and the magnitude of the environmental impacts is influenced by the type of primary fuel used for electricity generation.

Emerging non-fossil sources ...

Effects Of China’S Trade Policies On The U.S. Distiller’S Dried Grains, Vanessa De Oliveira

Dissertations and Theses in Agricultural Economics

Domestic and export demand for distillers’ dried grains (DDG) has increased since the early 2000s. DDG have become an important component of livestock feed given its nutritional value and competitive price. Over the last decade, China has become one of the major export destinations for U.S. DDG. However, there have been recent changes in trade policies in China. In this thesis, we develop an inverse demand equation to analyze the impact of China’s policies on U.S. DDG prices. The model contributes to the literature by incorporating domestic and international demand through which exogenous shocks, such as China ...

Irrigation Management, Environment, And Profits: Who Wins?, Emily O'Donnell

Dissertations and Theses in Agricultural Economics

The impact of irrigation technology on farmers’ management strategies and resulting environmental benefits depends upon agronomic properties and market forces. We evaluate the role of deficit irrigation using soil moisture probe technology on corn yield and evapotranspiration, which is a measure of water use efficiency. Evapotranspiration represents the water that transits through the plant during planting to harvest (transpiration) and the evaporation from the soil into the environment, or the displaced water in the production process. We develop yield and evapotranspiration response functions to inform a constrained profit maximization model used to identify the optimal irrigation level across a variety ...

Using Regression Analysis To Determine Land Cover Impacts On Groundwater Levels In The High Plains, Dylan T. Riley

Dissertations and Theses in Agricultural Economics

Many parts of the High Plains region are facing declining aquifer levels, which threatens the long-term viability of irrigated agriculture. Furthermore, some areas of the High Plains region, like the Republican River Basin in Nebraska, need to keep groundwater levels high enough in the short-term to ensure that hydrologically connected rivers have enough streamflow to fulfill surface water obligations, such as Nebraska's interstate river compact with Colorado and Kansas. To better manage groundwater, it is important to understand the unintended effects of policies that may not be aimed at groundwater conservation, such as the USDA- Conservation Reserve Program (USDA-CRP ...

Estimating Adaptation To Climate Change In Groundwater Irrigation, James Keeler

Dissertations and Theses in Agricultural Economics

Understanding the adaptive capacity of irrigated agriculture, including to what extent producers adjust irrigation choices along the intensive and extensive margins, is vital to the development of accurate and holistic estimates of the impacts of climate change on agricultural production and the sustainability of water-related ecosystem services. This thesis proposes and implements a natural experiment using statistical matching methods to estimate how producers adjust groundwater extraction, irrigated crop acreage, and irrigation technology in response to long-term changes in precipitation and evapotranspiration. Results from groundwater irrigated fields in Kansas suggest that intensive and extensive margin water use adaptations are generally limited ...

Integrating Environmental And Social Sustainability Into Performance Evaluation: A Balanced Scorecard-Based Grey-Danp Approach For The Food Industry, Gazi M. Duman, Murat Taskaynatan, Elif Kongar, Kurt A. Rosentrater

Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Publications

In addition to retaining high levels of customer satisfaction, sustainability of businesses is also heavily reliant on the efficiency of their internal and external processes. Continuous performance evaluations using key performance metrics to leverage operations are essential in maintaining a sustainable business while achieving growth objectives for revenue and profitability. Traditionally, companies have considered various financial criteria, quality characteristics, and targeted levels of service as their primary factors for performance evaluation. However, increasing environmental and social awareness and accompanying governmental legislations are now requiring companies to integrate these two aspects into their performance evaluations. With this motivation, this study proposes ...

How Do Restaurant Menu Calorie Labeling Requirements And Exercise Impact Consumer Food Decision Making?, Nigina Rakhmatullaeva

Dissertations and Theses in Agricultural Economics

The percentage of the U.S. population that is obese has increased markedly over the past fifty years. Obesity is driven in part by imbalances in energy consumption and expenditures. There are two main behavioral factors that influence that balance: food consumption and exercise. In this thesis, I report the results of two experiments that encompass both food choice and exercise. The consumption of food prepared away from home is growing rapidly. Since individuals do not control the ingredients in foods prepared away from home, these foods are frequently less healthy than home-cooked foods. The role of calorie labeling for ...

Testing Global Dietary Convergence, Sri Noor Cholidah

Dissertations and Theses in Agricultural Economics

Historical evidence shows that compared to Western countries, where the nutrition transition from a diet heavy in starchy staples to the modern Western diet took more than two centuries, the nutrition transition in developing countries towards Western-type diets has taken only a few decades, suggesting a trend towards global dietary convergence. This thesis explores the extent of such convergence by measuring βconvergence and σ-convergence of diets of 152 countries using FAO data on total calorie intake and calories by source from 1961-2009. Results for β-convergence show that a) countries who started in 1961 with lower calorie intake, in total or ...

Indigenous Access To Skilled Jobs In The Canadian Forest Industry: The Role Of Education, Ian G. Cahill

The International Indigenous Policy Journal

In this article, the effect of education on the skill level of jobs held by Indigenous people working in the Canadian forest industry is examined. A skill index based on detailed occupation is used as the dependent variable in ordered logit models estimated using data from Statistics Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey (NHS). Results are obtained by gender. In the case of men, for Métis (a specific mixed European and Indigenous culture) and for First Nations living off reserve estimates of the effect of education are similar to those for non-Indigenous people. The estimated effect is lower for those ...

The Missing Benefits Of Clean Water And The Role Of Mismeasured Pollution, David A. Keiser

Economics Working Papers

Although the U.S. spends billions of dollars a year controlling water pollution, there is little empirical evidence of comparable benefits. This study argues that measurement error in pollution data causes benefits to be underestimated. Using upstream concentrations as instrumental variables for local concentrations, the study finds substantial benefits from reducing nutrient pollution. Instrumental variable estimates of the effects of phosphorus on recreational use are an order of magnitude larger than conventional estimates. The study uses a long-term pollution dataset from Iowa to show that this difference is consistent with estimates of measurement error in several U.S. water pollution ...

Reference-Dependent Hedging: Theory And Evidence From Iowa Corn Producers, Keri L. Jacobs, Ziran Li, Dermot J. Hayes

Keri L. Jacobs

Agricultural Mechanization And Bmi For Rural Workers: A Field Experiment In China, Zizhen Guo, Yu Jiang, Sonya K. Huffman

Economics Working Papers

This paper examines whether and how agricultural mechanization affects the BMI of farmers in rural China using a unique data set. We conducted a field experiment with face-to-face interviews in 135 counties of 12 provinces in China in 2013. It includes 4,229 individuals from 1,024 rural households, of which 1,033 of the 2,165 workers are farmers. The BMI of farmers who utilize agricultural mechanization is about 10 percent larger than those who don’t at a 1 percent significance level. Our results suggest that the adoption of agricultural mechanization has a positive and statistically significant effect ...

International Energy Geopolitics, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Overview of international energy geopolitical trends. Emphasizes the importance of the Persian Gulf, South China Sea, East China Sea, Russia, and the Arctic to U.S. and international economic and strategic developments. Stresses the continuing importance of fossil fuels in domestic and international energy consumption, the variety of energy sources being used by various global regions, the potential for military conflict over access to natural resources, and how emerging energy leaders will determine global energy, environmental, and international security developments.

The Vermonter's Guide To The Farm Bill, Olivia A. Peña

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

The Farm Bill is a comprehensive set of laws and programs that dictates United States policies across the food system. While it may seem that a farm bill is only related to agriculture, this legislation, in reality, includes a broad set of policies on food production, nutrition assistance, rural community development, research, the environment, international trade, and more. Often known as a farm and food bill, the legislation impacts food systems stakeholders, including those who farm, live in a rural community, and even those who eat food—so that is everyone.

Considering the widespread impacts of the Farm Bill, it ...

How To Create Conducive Institutions To Enable Agricultural Mechanization: A Comparative Historical Study From The United States And Germany, Thomas Daum, Wallace E. Huffman, Regina Birner

Economics Working Papers

Agricultural mechanization is now high on the policy agenda of many developing countries. History has shown that successful mechanization depends on an enabling environment providing various supporting functions, for example, knowledge and skills development and quality assurance. This paper analyses how this enabling environment was created during the mechanization history of two today’s mechanized countries, the United States and Germany, thereby distilling lessons for today’s mechanizing countries. The paper highlights the different roles played by government agencies (public sector), manufacturers of agricultural machinery (private sector) and farmers’ organizations (third sector) for the creation of this enabling environment. The ...

Vaughn, William (Fa 1152), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1152. Student paper titled “The Old and New [Contrast of Traditional and Modern Farm Machinery]” in which William R. Vaughn identifies manual and mechanized farm equipmentand details the differences between the pieces. Vaughn collected information from equipment salesmen and rural farmers. Also included in the paper are black and white photographs of recognizable machines such as plows, wagons, rakes, and cultivators.

Seaborne, Roy, Jr. (Fa 1151), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1151. Student paper titled “Old Farm Machinery and Methods” in which Roy Seaborne, Jr. explores the types of tools farmers, both traditional and contemporary, use to plant, harvest, anddistribute their crops. Information was gathered by Seaborne from farmers in Pike and Taylor counties in Kentucky. The paper also includes black and white photographs of various machinery along with brief descriptions of how the equipment is utilized.