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A Message From The Associate Dean Of The Honors College And Co-Chair Of The Service Learning Initiative, Jennie Popp

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Discovery: The Student Journal Of Dale Bumpers College Of Agricultural, Food And Life Sciences - Volume 20 2019, Several Authors

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

An Evaluation Of The Racer Academy Of Agriculture And Its Effectiveness, Caleb Brannon

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Through this thesis research study, an evaluation of the Racer Academy of Agriculture (RAA) is performed to get a better understanding of how well it is doing in several key areas. One of the focus areas for the RAA as well as most other dual credit programs includes allowing high school students to attain college credit through participation in a class that counts both towards high school and collegiate degree completion. Other key objectives for these programs include aiding in the recruitment of students to the participating university, preparing the students to succeed at a higher rate once becoming full-time …

The Ethical (Or Not So Ethical) Story Behind Your Bar Of Chocolate: The Untold Tale Of A Distressed Ghanaian Farmer, Nadia Ayensah

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

In a time where the ethics of business dealings have become a key factor in the likelihood of the success of that venture due to globalization, it is important to start considering those ventures that are so popular, but whose inner working are rarely heard of. This paper analyzes the history and process of cocoa production in Ghana. It looks at the status quo with regards to the social and economic standing of Ghanaian Cocoa farmers as opposed to the earnings made by cocoa processing companies. With the statistics derived, the paper then considers who is to take responsibility for …

Greenhouse Aquaponics: Custom Aquaponic Systems At Home, Jesse L. Blanchard, David G. Hyatt, Jennie Popp, Leah English

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Taking advantage of inherent natural systems, aquaponic practices hold the potential to serve as an educational, sustainable, and profitable hobby for home gardeners facing common constraints such as temperature, space, and pests. The goal of this research was to assess the feasibility of implementing a small scale (4,542-liter) home -based aquaponic system in a small (48.768 square meter) greenhouse to produce fresh produce and fish protein. System construction and maintenance costs were compared to the value of crops and fish produced to determine whether this aquaponic system is a feasible option for the home grower. It was hypothesized that this …

Identifying Arkansas Food Desert Blocks Suitable For A Peer-To-Peer Modeled Food Redistribution Program, Emily A. King, Jennie S. Popp, Michael R. Thomsen, Di Fang, Alvaro Durand-Morat

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Abstract

Nearly 10% of Americans reside in low-income urban food deserts which are low-income areas that lack access to affordable and nutritious foods. Food deserts in Arkansas contribute to a food insecurity rate above the national average, making it one of the most food insecure states in the country. Increased internet usage and consumer interest in sharing based companies contribute to the idea of a sharing, or peer-to-peer (P2P) style food redistribution program. The objective of this study is to identify which of the 186,211census blocks in the state of Arkansas are food deserts and best suited for and in …

Innovation Behavior Of Agri-Food Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises: Emerging Countries, Gaukhar B. Kussainova

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This paper examines the innovative behavior of agri-food firms located in Central and Eastern Europe. In the literature, empirical analyses on innovation activities of firms focus on various case studies from around the world. However, very few studies explored the innovation of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from Central and Eastern Europe’s agri-food sector. The analysis uses the logit estimation method and firm-level data, which are obtained from ERBD-World Bank Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS). Results suggest that firms that spent some proportion of their financial budget on research and development (R&D), had workforce training programs and …

Island Invasion: The Silent Crisis In Hawaii, Sophia Janssen

Pomona Senior Theses

Keeping out invasive species may, upon first review, seem like a trivial environmental cry from ecologists and deep environmentalists; a belated wish to return to an undeveloped world where nature was pristine. However invasive species create problems that impact all of us and can have far more severe consequences than changing a stunning landscape. These problems are heightened in islands like Hawaii, where the fragile ecosystems have developed over centuries of evolution and adaptation. The introduction of a disease-carrying mosquito can put the people of Hawaii at risk to many vector-born illnesses and create an epidemic, taking human life. The …

Impact Of Selected Infrared Wavelengths On Inactivation Of Microbes On Rough Rice, Rebecca L. Bowie, Griffiths Atungulu, Abass Oduola, Shantae Wilson, Zeinab Mohammadi-Shad

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Formation of harmful microbes and their associated mycotoxins on rough rice during storage presents negative socioeconomic impacts to producers and consumers. The objective for this study was to investigate the impact of treating rough rice with selected infrared (IR) wavelengths at different IR intensities and heating durations, followed by a tempering step for further inactivation of microbes (mold and bacteria) on the grain. Freshly-harvested long-grain, hybrid, rough rice (XL 745) with initial moisture content (IMC) of 18.4% wet basis (w.b.) was used. Two-hundred grams (200 g) samples of rice were treated at different IR wavelengths (λ), 3.2, 4.5, and 5.8 …

The Price Of Progress: American Agricultural Innovations In Relation To Economic And Social Change, 1920-1989, Zachary Cass Moye

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Agriculture is an industry that defines a unique society in the American Midwest. When farming technologies changed, agriculture as a system and society also changed. This thesis explores the critical changes that farmers faced during the 20th Century. Those links include a changing educational system, which would guide farmers into the world of mechanical farming technology, and the permeation of that technology in farm society. The economic cost of the changing aspects of agriculture drove social and technological change that took place during the years of the Great Depression through the 1980s Farm Crisis. Finally, this thesis covers the future …

Observations And Applications Of Husbandry Methodologies On A Backyard Poultry Farm In Dangriga, Belize, Bailey A. Carpenter, Frank Dustan Clark

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

This study explores the husbandry methodologies on a backyard poultry farm in Dangriga, Belize, with the purpose of producing a set of guidelines for backyard poultry growers that have limited resources in similar regions. The majority of data collection occurred through survey questions approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which is responsible for protecting the rights and welfare of human research subjects, necropsies approved by IACUC, and general observations. There has been a steady increase in poultry production in developing regions due to its positive effects on income and relative nutrition. However, due to a lack of accessible communication …

Successful Climate Change Strategies In Corporate Farming, Deann Renee Reaves

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (2016), climate-related disasters occurring from 2011 to 2015 caused property damages in excess of US$230 billion—and the agriculture sector incurs some of the largest losses (Hoffmann, 2013). The purpose of this case study was to identify, through an in-depth interview and document review, successful climate-change-based sustainability strategies in a publicly held farming operation. The findings indicated that the farm’s climate-change-based sustainability strategy had basic qualities of corporate social responsibility, triple-bottom-line thinking, and systems thinking. Specific approaches identified were mitigation- and adaptation-oriented approaches. Implications for social change include …

Farm To Label: A Critique Of Consumer Activism In The Sustainable Food Movement, Olivia Whitener

Pomona Senior Theses

“Local,” “organic,” “natural,” and “Fairtrade” are just several of the many claims adorning the food products that line grocery store shelves. These promises of environmental sustainability and social responsibility are pillars of the “good food revolution” sweeping the nation as consumers demand alternatives to the products of the industrial food system. Green consumerism, the premise that consumer demand for environmentally sustainable goods will bring about ecologically beneficial outcomes, is at the heart of the sustainable food movement. This thesis takes a critical look at the operation of green consumerism in the food system. It explores the ideology and shortcomings of …

Foreign-Born Workers' Effect On Agricultural Industry In Iowa, Hannah Mcdevitt

Honors Program Theses

It is no secret that Iowa’s reputation relies heavily on farms. Several years ago, a woman from California actually asked me if I ride my tractor to school. I wish I could tell you that was just a fun hook to get you interested in my paper, but it happened. Farming is a part of Iowa’s culture and an essential piece of the state’s economy. Iowa is one of the main pork, corn, and soybean producers in the United States, and its farming roots extend deep into the state’s rich soil.

Quantifying The Announcement Effects In The U.S. Lumber Market, Zarina Mamadalievna Ismailova

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The impact of public reports on price fluctuations has been widely investigated in many commodity markets, but little attention has been paid to the lumber market. In this thesis, we examine the impact of two housing market reports, namely the New Residential Construction (Housing Starts) and the New Residential Sales reports, on the U.S. lumber futures market. Our results suggest that the housing starts report does indeed affect lumber market volatility, while the New Residential sales report exerts a minor impact on lumber price volatility. Price volatility is measured by changes future contract prices for lumber. We further find that …

Volatility Spillovers Among Oil And Stock Markets In The Us And Saudi Arabia, Marinela Adriana Finta, Bart Frijns, Alireza Tourani-Rad

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this article, we use high frequency data and an identification via changes in volatility approach to assess the volatility spillovers among oil and the US and Saudi Arabian stock markets. We document the existence of asymmetry in contemporaneous spillover effects. Particularly, during the times when oil’s trading hours overlap with the US and Saudi Arabian stock markets, the volatility spillover from oil to the stock markets is higher than the other way around. We highlight the importance of taking into consideration the information present during continuous trading hours of oil, especially during simultaneous trading hours with the stock markets. …

Staying Afloat In A Dying Industry, Naomi Yane

Capstones

Staying Afloat in a dying Industry

The storied neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay, which sits on the southern tip of Brooklyn, is named after a fish that once inhabited the waters surrounding the town. Like the Sheepshead fish, the community's once booming fishing industry might soon be wiped out due to increasing regulations. Despite complaints from local fishermen, government agencies have taken their stand.

https://www.naomiyane.com/capstone

A Decade Of Change: A Case Study Of Regulatory Compliance Costs In The Produce Industry, Lynn Hamilton, Michael Mccullough

Agribusiness

Regulatory pressure is a source of increasing concern to the California agricultural industry. In the decade since 2006, new rules at both the state and federal levels have imposed significantly higher regulatory burdens on growers, specifically with respect to food safety, water quality, labor wages, air quality; and worker health and safety. Additional regulations are in process as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is developed at the local levels for implementation in 2022, and minimum wage and overtime laws for farmworkers are phased in, also by 2022.

Previous studies regarding the regulatory environment in California have quantified the total cost …

Creating An Efficient Business Plan For Longview Club Lambs, Karlee J. Dornbush

Agricultural Education and Communication

Longview Club Lambs is a small startup business located in Lincoln, California. Longview Club Lambs has the goal to maintain a high of level efficiency and productivity to compete with other club lamb businesses within the next three years (Longview Club Lambs, 2018). In order to do this, Longview Club Lambs will need to evaluate its current practices and determine the necessary adjustments that should be made to their business plan.

To create this new business model, the business will need to re-evaluate all its management practices and make the needed changes to adjust to a larger scale operation. Implementing …

Management Of Cull Dairy Cows—Consensus Of An Expert Consultation In Canada, Jane Stojkov, G. Bowers, M. Draper, Todd Duffield, P. Duivenvoorden, M. Groleau, Deb Haupstein, R. Peters, Jane Pritchard, C. Radom, N. Sillett, W. Skippon, H. Trépanier, David Fraser

Farm Animal Welfare Collection

Many cull dairy cows enter the marketing system and travel to widely dispersed and specialized slaughter plants, and they may experience multiple handling events (e.g., loading, unloading, mixing), change of ownership among dealers, and feed and water deprivation during transport and at livestock markets. The objectives of this study were to describe the diverse management of cull dairy cows in Canada and establish consensus on ways to achieve improvements. A 2-day expert consultation meeting was convened, involving farmers, veterinarians, regulators, and experts in animal transport, livestock auction, and slaughter. The 15 participants, recruited from across Canada, discussed regional management practices …

Assessing Rice Consumers’ Preferences And Willingness To Pay In Haiti, Cleeford Pavilus

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the last 30 years, rice has become the number one food staple in Haiti, and rice imports have outpaced domestic production to supply the country’s increasing rice demand. Policy makers support the claim that increasing local rice supply will not only reduce the dependency on imported rice but also upheave the national economy. However, there is a lack of information on Haitian consumers’ preferences for rice to aid the development of the local rice supply chain. This research aims to bridge that gap by assessing Haitian consumer preferences and willingness to pay for selected rice quality characteristics. The results …

Commodity Return Predictability: Evidence From Implied Variance, Skewness And Their Risk Premia, Marinela Adriana Finta, Jose Renato Haas Ornelas

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper investigates the role of realized and implied and their risk premia (variance and skewness) for commodities’ future returns. We estimate these moments from high frequency and commodity futures option data that results in forward-looking measures. Risk premia are computed as the difference between implied and realized moments. We highlight, from a cross-sectional and time series perspective, the strong positive relation between commodity returns and implied skewness. Moreover, we emphasize the high performance of skewness risk premium. Additionally, we show that their portfolios exhibit the best risk-return tradeoff. Most of our results are robust to other factors such as …

Classifying Interdependencies In The Food And Agriculture Critical Infrastructure Sector, John Doerpinghaus

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work classifies examples of infrastructure interdependencies found in the food and agriculture critical infrastructure sector. Interdependencies are identified through an examination of rice and poultry agriculture throughout the state of Arkansas. The subtleties of interdependence examples in the food and agriculture sector are inadequately captured by the well-studied interdependence classification taxonomies. Through 39 interviews, we develop an understanding of the subtle temporal, geographic, and productivity scales of interdependence in over 100 examples and present five new, distinct classifications of interdependence: (1) dynamic physical, (2) dynamic geographic, (3) deadline, (4) delay, and (5) human, economic, and natural resource interdependencies. An …

Risk And Return Comparisons Of Pre-Harvest Marketing Strategies, John Leander Turner V

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes risk and returns associated with pre-harvest corn grain marketing strategies for the state of Arkansas. Farming is characterized by a volatile environment. Numerous risks are taken by producers in order to provide commodities that are bought and sold by various parties in the supply chain. Price, yield, and production costs vary daily and can have large variation between years. Risk and Return Comparisons of Pre-harvest Marketing Strategies examines the effectiveness of using pre-harvest marketing strategies to enhance returns and to mitigate inherent price risk in the Memphis cash corn market. Thirteen strategies are compared to the October …

Impacts Of Urbanization On Costs Of Production And Land Use In The Central Southern Seaboard: A Farm-Level Analysis, Richard F. Nehring, Kenneth Erickson, James M. Harris, Charlie Hallahan, Ani Katchova, Flavius Badau

Journal of Applied Farm Economics

This study uses stochastic production frontier (SPF) and DEA frontier methods to estimate the impact of urban influence on the cost of production for traditional corn/soybeans farms in the Southern Seaboard (excepting Virginia and Alabama). We hypothesize that urban influence decreases the technical efficiency of these farms. Although states in this region are not entirely subject to urban influence, some parts of states in this region are highly urbanized. We find that farmers in urban-influenced locations are less technically efficient than farmers in rural locations in the region examined. During 2002-2014, stochastic production frontier and DEA frontier procedures indicate that …

Annual Net Returns To Cover Crops In Iowa, Alejandro Plastina, Fangge Liu, Wendiam Sawadgo, Fernando E. Miguez, Sarah Carlson, Guillermo Marcillo

Journal of Applied Farm Economics

Despite the active promotion of cover crops as a key conservation practice, their adoption is very limited. We developed a series of partial budgets based on a statewide survey of Iowa farmers to evaluate the changes in net returns resulting from the incorporation of cover crops into a corn or soybean production system. The average net returns to cover crop use for farmers who did not use cover crops for grazing livestock or forage were consistently negative across different planting and termination methods, tillage practices, and experience levels. Only farmers who used cover crops for grazing livestock or forage and …

Soil Responses To One-Season Winter Cover Crops, Mckenna Morgan, Iin Handayani

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Soil Responses to One-Season Winter Cover Crops

McKenna Morgan and I. P. Handayani

Hutson School of Agriculture Murray State University, KY, USA

Abstract

In regions like western Kentucky where wooded lots are common there is a growing interest in how to utilize them so that land profits can be maximized. The frequently poor soils in wooded areas due to erosion and lack of ground cover vegetation often cause complications in the creation of pasture areas. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the effect of growing winter cover crops on soils to prepare for pasture systems in the …

2018 – 2019 Kentucky Agricultural Economic Situation And Outlook, Kenneth H. Burdine, Todd D. Davis, Jerry Pierce, William M. Snell, Timothy A. Woods, Jeffrey W. Stringer

Agricultural Situation and Outlook

This publication covers the situation and outlook for 2018-2019 in the following areas:

• U.S. Agricultural Economy;
• Kentucky’s Agricultural Economy;
• Selected Commodity Profiles - Cattle; Poultry; Hogs; Equine; Dairy; Corn; Soybeans; Wheat; Tobacco; Fruits, Vegetables and Greenhouse; and
• Forestry.

Modeling Effects Of Ecological Factors On Evolution Of Polygenic Pesticide Resistance, C. V. Haridas, Brigitte Tenhumberg

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Widespread use of pesticides has resulted in the evolution of resistance in many insect pests worldwide, limiting their use in pest control. Effective pest and resistance management practices require understanding of the genetics of resistance and the life history of the pest. Most models for pesticide resistance assume that resistance is monogenic, conferred by a single gene. However, resistance could evolve as a polygenic quantitative trait resulting from the action of several genes, especially when pesticide dose is low. Further, fitness of the pest could be density dependent and might depend upon abiotic factors such as temperature. It is not …

When Too Much Isn’T Enough: Does Current Food Production Meet Global Nutritional Needs?, Krishna Bahadur Kc, Goretty M. Dias, Anastasia Veeramani, Clarence J. Swanton, David Fraser, Dirk Steinke, Elizabeth Lee, Hannah Wittman, Jeffrey M. Farber, Kari Dunfield, Kevin Mccann, Madhur Anand, Malcolm Campbell, Neil Rooney, Nigel E. Raine, Rene Van Acker, Robert Hanner, Samantha Pascoal, Shayan Sharif, Tim G. Benton, Evan D.G. Fraser

Global Impacts of Industrial Farming Collection

Sustainably feeding the next generation is often described as one of the most pressing “grand challenges” facing the 21st century. Generally, scholars propose addressing this problem by increasing agricultural production, investing in technology to boost yields, changing diets, or reducing food waste. In this paper, we explore whether global food production is nutritionally balanced by comparing the diet that nutritionists recommend versus global agricultural production statistics. Results show that the global agricultural system currently overproduces grains, fats, and sugars while production of fruits and vegetables and protein is not sufficient to meet the nutritional needs of the current population. Correcting …