Agricultural and Resource Economics Commons^™

Farmers Markets And The Local Food System: The Case Of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Paul A. Di Salvo '13, Claire Quinn '13, Robin Arnold '13, Caroline Clark '13, Suzanne Englot '13, Andrew Mello '13, Julia Mitchell '13, Emily Ruhl '13, Rebecca Taormina '13, Cashin Conover '13, Valerie Leone '13, Michael Mattaini '13, William Patton '13, Elizabeth Rouillard '13, Nicholas Smith-Herman '13, Jordan Swenson '13, Kelly Webster '13, Brian Wooldredge '13, Randall K. Wilson

Student Publications

In order to examine and obtain a better understanding of the local food system within Adams County, Pennsylvania, this study explores the characteristics and perspectives of the customers and vendors at the farmers markets in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Survey findings from the Gettysburg Farmers Market and the three Adams County Farmers Markets include customer demographic information, perspectives and shopping behavior as well as vendor product information, farm size and location and preference for market management. Introductory background information on the Farm Bill and the influence of agricultural practices on the environment, human health and nutrition and the relationship between farmers markets ...

Exploratory Landscape Metrics For Agricultural Sustainability, Eric Vaz, Teresa Noronha, Peter Nijkamp

Geography Publications and Research

Socio-economic growth and urban change have been an increasing concern for decision makers in recent decades. The monitoring, mapping and analysis of agricultural land-use change, especially in areas where urban change has been high, is crucial. The collision between traditional economic activities related to agriculture in tourist areas such as the Algarve and current demand for tourism infrastructures in urban regions is also leading to loss of economic activity. This paper uses a combined Geographical Information System approach with CORINE land cover datasets to perform a Shannon’s diversity index quantifying changes in agricultural areas. The paper then expands on ...

Building Upon Common-Pool Resource Theory To Explore Success In Transitioning Water Management Institutions, Christina M. Hoffman

Dissertations & Theses in Natural Resources

Nebraska, like many regions around the world, is faced with the challenge of adapting to a new era in water management. Increasing demands for water resources, mounting concerns over threatened and endangered species, and obligations to abide by interstate water allocation agreements have motivated Nebraska to revisit traditional water management approaches. However, although Nebraska’s water management institutions have undergone much change, little research exists on the influence these changes have had on the ability of water institutions to successfully manage water allocations. This research (1) qualitatively explores the perspectives and experiences of stakeholders in the overappropriated region of the ...

Traditional Wild Protein Collection Techniques Of The Naso People: On The Verge Of Change, Caldwell Rohrbach

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

I studied the traditional wild protein collection techniques of the Naso people in the Syellick community Naso Territory, Bocas del Toro for 15 days during the end of November. The goal of this research was to record the various hunting techniques used by the Naso and determine whether those practices will disappear after the passing of this generation. I used informal and unstructured interviews as well as participant, objective, and passive observation (Master of Business Administration).

The Naso people complete at least one form of wild protein collection every day. The given technique is directly related to the weather on ...

Nutritional And Economic Analysis Of Small-Scale Agriculture In Imbaburra, Ecuador, Jake Erickson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nutritional and Economic Analysis of Small-Scale Agriculture in Imbabura, Ecuador Intervention projects in the developing world normally aim to satisfy either the nutritional needs of a group, or advancing the economic stability, but not both. One of the many issues that may arise by narrowly focusing and creating an aid program is that although a group may be fed, they are not equipped to mitigate risks that will arise after project completion and thus continue or revert back to a malnourished state. A bridge is required to join the economic and nutritional programs to create aid interventions that are sustainable ...

Overfishing: Economic Policies In Finite Resource Biological Pools, Abdullah Nasser

Undergraduate Economic Review

Common-property fishing is a classic example of the tragedy of the commons. Driven by competition, rational fishermen are forced to overfish to maintain marketplace viability. This shortsighted strategy will lead to the depletion of the common resource pool, and ultimately the destruction of the local fishing industry. In this paper, we present a dynamic differential system of a finite-resource fishing pool to model choices faced by average fishermen. We show that the situation mirrors a Prisonor’s Dilemma on the short- and long-terms, where overfishing is always the dominant Nash equilibrium strategy. Additionally, we use the model to analyze a ...

The Effects Of Potential Changes In United States Beef Production On Global Grazing Systems And Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Jerome Dumortier, Dermot J. Hayes, Miguel Carriquiry, Fengxia Dong, Xiaodong Du, Amani E. Elobeid, Jacinto F. Fabiosa, Pamela A. Martin, Kranti Mulik

Economics publications and other works

We couple a global agricultural production and trade model with a greenhouse gas model to assess leakage associated with modified beef production in the United States. The effects on emissions from agricultural production (i.e., methane and nitrous oxide emissions from livestock and crop management) as well as from land-use change, especially grazing system, are assessed. We find that a reduction of US beef production induces net carbon emissions from global land-use change ranging from 37 to 85 kg CO₂-equivalent per kg of beef annualized over 20 years. The increase in emissions is caused by an inelastic domestic ...

The Environmental And Economic Impact Of Removing Growth-Enhancing Technologies From U.S. Beef Production, Judith L. Capper, Dermot J. Hayes

Economics publications and other works

The objective of this study was to quantify the environmental and economic impact of withdrawing growth-enhancing technologies (GET) from the U.S. beef production system. A deterministic model based on the metabolism and nutrient requirements of the beef population was used to quantify resource inputs and waste outputs per 454 × 10⁶ kg of beef. Two production systems were compared: one using GET (steroid implants, in-feed ionophores, in-feed hormones, and beta-adrenergic agonists) where approved by FDA at current adoption rates and the other without GET use. Both systems were modeled using characteristic management practices, population dynamics, and production data from ...

Developing A Space For Children: An Internship With The Mullumbimby Community Garden, Eden Olsen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper aims to demonstrate my independent study project internship at the Mullumbimby Community Garden (MCG), an interactive learning site for the citizens of Byron Shire. As an intern I spent 152.5 hours from October 29^th to November 23^rd planting, planning projects, attending meetings, and helping to educate about the importance of sustainable food production. More specifically, I focused on the development of the Children’s Garden, building vertical garden beds, planting the sensory garden, attending meetings, and helping to design and analyze costs for new structures to be implemented in the near future.

This study reaches ...

Identificación Y Análisis De Las Determinantes Sociales Que Mayormente Influyen El Uso Inseguro De Los Plaguicidas En El Valle De Azapa En La Región De Arica Y Parinacota, Emma Garrison

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In recent history, agricultural expansion to satisfy ever growing populations has introduced new chemical agents that pose a great threat to human, animal, and environmental health. With growing prevalence every decade, agricultural pesticides are the cause for thousands of acute and chronic illnesses across the world. In Chile, more specifically in the region of Arica and Parinacota in the Azapa Valley, the recent, more thorough, documentation of pesticide intoxications has lead the issue to be recognized as a prominent public health concern of the agricultural region. This study focuses on the identification and analysis of the most prominent social factors ...

Embarrassingly Easy Embarrassingly Parallel Processing In R: Implementation And Reproducibility, Michael Delgado, Christopher Parmeter

Christopher F. Parmeter

No abstract provided.

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Visual Interventions And The “Crises In Representation” In Environmental Anthropology: Researching Environmental Justice In A Hungarian Romani Neighborhood, Krista Harper

Krista M. Harper

Participatory visual research, or "visual interventions" (Pink 2007) allow environmental anthropologists to respond to three different “crises of representation”: 1) the critique of ethnographic representation presented by postmodern, postcolonial, and feminist anthropologists, 2) the constructivist critique of nature and the environment, and 3) the “environmental justice” critique demanding representation for the environmental concerns of communities of color. Participatory visual research integrates community members in the process of staking out a research agenda, conducting fieldwork and interpreting data, and communicating and applying research findings. Our project used the Photovoice methodology to generate knowledge and documentation related to environment injustices faced by ...

The Changing Composition Of United States Agricultural Trade, E. Wesley F. Peterson

Cornhusker Economics

International trade has been of great importance for United States agriculture since the founding of the nation. Today, about 20 percent of agricultural production in the United States is exported, and the revenue from these exports is an important source of farm income. According to the Economic Research Service over half of U.S. wheat production is exported, as is almost 80 percent of U.S. cotton production. While agricultural exports are always greater than agricultural imports, U.S. consumers depend on imports for many commodities, notably such tropical goods as coffee, cocoa, bananas and other tropical fruits. The real ...