Agricultural Economics Commons^™

Novel Pilot Development Of A Closed-Loop Sustainable System Between Biogas Renewable Energy, Distilling, And Aquaculture By Vermiculture Of Stillage Wastes, Samuel C. Kessler

The Cardinal Edge

This study provides a mixed-methods approach in analyzing a potential closed-loop system between renewable biogas production from anaerobic digestion, vermiculture production, aquaculture production, and organic wastes with a particular focus on stillage wastes. Such system may hold significant promise for significantly reducing organic carbon and methane emissions from its components, and should be assessed for such. The 2021 IPCC report essentially identified methane reduction as the single fastest way to slow global warming (IPCC, 2021), making the study and implementation of methane-reducing systems and supportive policy for them critical. Knowledge gaps to implementing this system were qualitatively identified as disconnect …

Readiness For Change, Charlotte Narjes, Marilyn R. Schlake

Cornhusker Economics

One community is innovative in addressing long-term issues and situations related to quality of life, economic impact, and demographic renewal. Another community is not. What is the difference? What can communities do to be ready for change? What role can Extension play in helping a community address complex situations such as identifying new leaders, being competitive in a digital economy, creating healthy communities, or attracting new populations and retaining exciting community members? One key to success is assessing community readiness for change.

Hemp Growth Factors And Extraction Methods Effect On Antimicrobial Activity Of Hemp Seed Oil: A Systematic Review, Klaudia Ostapczuk, Samuel Obeng Apori, Giovani Estrada, Furong Tian

Articles

The bioactive Hemp Seed Oil (HSO) is becoming very popular in the medical and research fields due to its antimicrobial properties against several diseases caused by bacteria and fungi. However, the effect of hemp-growing factors and extraction methods on the bioactivity of HSO does not receive adequate research attention. Therefore, this review aims to investigate the effect of growth factors and extraction methods on the antimicrobial activity of HSO. Articles were retrieved from Google Scholar and the Scopus database and screened against inclusion and exclusion criteria. The study revealed that HSO prefers warm climates and favorable humidity ranging from 20 …

Does The Covid-19 Pandemic Change Consumers’ Food Consumption And Willingness-To-Pay? The Case Of China, Wei Yue, Na Liu, Qiujie Zheng, H Holly Wang

Department of Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

Since COVID-19 was first detected in China in 2019, governments around the world have imposed strict measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which substantially impacted people’s life. Consumers’ food consumption behavior has also changed accordingly with reduced grocery shopping frequency, replaced in-person grocery shopping with online shopping, and increased valuation on food. In this paper, we aim to investigate the change in Chinese consumers’ food consumption and their willingness to pay (WTP) for vegetables and meat, using a dataset with 1206 online samples collected between February and March 2020. Consumers’ WTP for vegetables and meat is estimated using …

Eu And Us Consumers’ Willingness To Pay For Genome-Edited Apples, John C. Beghin

Cornhusker Economics

New Plant Engineering Techniques (NPETs) refers to new biotechnology tools that allow alterations to a plant’s genome by adding, resequencing, or silencing some of its genes or combined with genes from a crossable plant (so-called cisgenesis). NPETs include genome editing (GenEd) tools, such as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR), and transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALEN). These techniques lead to mutations in plants, which could have been obtained with conventional hybridization and genetic mutation techniques. For that reason, they may be perceived as more natural. These techniques might raise fewer concerns than transgenic techniques incorporating foreign genes into a …

Farmers’ Adoption And Perceived Benefits Of Diversified Crop Rotations In The Margins Of U.S. Corn Belt, Tong Wang, Jin Hailong, Yubing Fan, Oladipo Obembe, Dapeng Li

Economics Faculty Publications

Monoculture and simplified two-crop rotation systems compromise the ecosystem services essential to crop production, diminish agricultural productivity, and cause detrimental effects on the environment. In contrast to the simplified two-crop rotation, diversified crop rotation (DCR) refers to rotation systems that contain three or more crops. Despite multiple benefits generated by DCR, its usage has dwindled over the past several decades. This paper examined determinants of farmers' adoption decisions and perceived benefits of DCR in the west margins of the U.S. Corn Belt where crop diversity has declined. We analyzed 708 farmer responses from a farmer survey conducted in the eastern …

Epiphyte Identification On Commercially Grown Kappaphycus Alvarezii In Eastern Samar, Philippines [Research Note], Ma. Carla Angelica Deladia, Leni Yap-Dejeto, Kenneth Abuda, Margarita Dela Cruz

The Philippine Agricultural Scientist

The decline in production and quality of Kappaphycus alvarezii is primarily associated with occurrence of "ice-ice" disease and epiphyte infestations. K. alvarezii var. tambalang (brown) in the nursery farms of Balangiga and Lawaan, E. Samar harbored such infestations. This study identified the dominant Epiphytic Filamentous Algae (EFA) on the seaweeds in these farms using microscopic morphological characteristics. Microscopic examinations revealed that the main epiphyte in the farms studied was Melanothamnus apiculatus (Hollenberg) Díaz-Tapia & Maggs (former: Neosiphonia apiculata (Hollenberg) Masuda et Kogame). The epiphytes observed have rhizoids separated from the pericentral cells, unicellular trichoblasts, globose cystocarp and tetrasporangia arranged in …

The Potential For Moral Hazard Behavior In Irrigation Decisions Under Crop Insurance, Karina A. Schoengold, Paloch Suchato, Taro Mieno, Timothy Foster

Cornhusker Economics

The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation provides one of the most widely adopted risk mitigation tools used by crop producers across the United States. In 2018, over 90% of corn and soybean acres were insured in most of the Great Plains and Midwestern United States (Farm Bureau, 2019). As with all insurance, there are questions of whether moral hazard behavior occurs with insurance enrollment. In economics, moral hazard refers to cases where someone makes riskier decisions when he or she is protected from the full cost of doing so. For example, someone with fire insurance on their home may be less …

Arkansas Wheat Performance Tests 2020-2021, J. F. Carlin, R. D. Bond, D. E. Moon, R. B. Morgan

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

Wheat variety performance tests are conducted each year in Ark- ansas by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Department of Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences. The tests provide informa- tion to companies developing varieties and marketing seed within the state and aid the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service in formulating variety recommendations for small-grain producers. The tests are conducted at the Northeast Research and Extension Center at Keiser, the Vegetable Substation near Kibler, the Lon Mann Cotton Research Station near Marianna, the Jackson County Extension Center near Newport, the Pine Tree Research Station near Colt, …

Will Patients Benefit From The Current Philippine Legislative Bill On Medical Cannabis? A Cost-Benefit Analysis, Godofreda Dalmacion, Paul Joseph Ramirez, Zypher Jude Regencia, Emmanuel Baja

The Philippine Agricultural Scientist

The Philippine Congress is pushing House Bill (HB) 6517 to decriminalize medical cannabis use in the Philippines. This study aims to evaluate the cost and benefit that will likely result from the legalization of medical cannabis. Focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and review of secondary data were done with stakeholders to validate and localize the benefits and costs associated with the legalization of medical cannabis versus the current status quo. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) was based on the requirements of HB 6517. Only direct effects on major stakeholders were covered in the final CBA. Results were expressed as Net Present …

Green Economics: Assessing The Feasibility Of A New England Green Crab (Carcinus Maenas) Fishery Through Fishermen Perspectives, William L. Walter

All Theses And Dissertations

The European green crab (Carcinus maenas) is a well-adapted invasive species that has flourished throughout coastal New England. Its arrival has caused numerous negative environmental and socioeconomic impacts, including the decline of the Maine soft shell clam (Mya arenaria) fishery. Increases in north Atlantic sea surface temperatures have simultaneously propelled the proliferation of C. maenas and caused northward shifts in the geographic ranges of commercially relevant species, including the American lobster (Homarus americanus). C. maenas represents an underutilized species that H. americanus and M. arenaria fishers can target to supplement any lost income if …

Evaluating The Impact Of Covid-19 On Nebraska Land Auctions And Implications For Future Farm Real Estate Sales In 2021, Jim Jansen, Jeffrey Stokes

Cornhusker Economics

The Nebraska Farm Real Estate Market Survey and Report 2020-2021 provides insight into recent trends on the market value of agricultural land and cash rental rates across the state. Each year, the special feature section from this report covers topics on new or emerging issues related to the agricultural land industry in Nebraska. These topics reflect interest expressed by panel members and readership of the Nebraska Farm Real Estate Market Highlights Reports. The special feature section in 2021 evaluates the effects of COVID-19 on Nebraska land auctions over the prior year and implications for this transaction method involving future agricultural …

Measuring Palatability As A Linear Combination Of Nutrient Levels In Food Items, Jeffrey S. Young

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

It well known that palatability and nutritional quality of foods and/or diets are viewed as being in tension with one another. While there exist multiple measures of healthiness, there are no such measures for tastiness. This gap limits the degree to which researchers can investigate this tension and its implications for dietary behavior and hence public health and nutrition policy. The scope of future work concerning the dietary behavior of Americans would expand greatly if researchers better understood consumers’ willingness to eat certain foods, which matters as much as recommending those foods for them to eat in the first place. …

Data From: Yellow Air Day Advisory Study, Arthur J. Caplan

Browse all Datasets

Using a dataset consisting of daily vehicle trips, PM2.5 concentrations, along with a host of climactic control variables, we test the hypothesis that “yellow air day” advisories provided by the Utah Division of Air Quality resulted in subsequent reductions in vehicle trips taken during northern Utah’s winter-inversion seasons in the early 2000s. Winter inversions occur in northern Utah when climactic conditions are such that PM2.5 concentrations (derived mainly from vehicle emissions) become trapped in the lower atmosphere, leading to unhealthy air quality (concentrations of at least 35 µg/m3) over a span of what are called “red air days”. When concentrations …

Beef Cow Operations During Drought: Dealing With More Than Dry Conditions, Matthew Stockton

Cornhusker Economics

The most recent drought conditions have grown to cover a large portion of the west and the central United States, as shown in Figure 1. Those depending on rain continue to watch and hope that conditions will change, while implementing and considering various strategies to preserve their livelihoods. Those who have been in the business for years have seen other occasions when dry conditions limited forage production and created hardship. Each occurrence has varying outcomes, depending on the many factors faced by individuals. While drought may produce the same dry conditions for many, its effects are individualized. There are as …

Essays On The Designs And Benefits Of Land Conservation Programs, Badri Khanal

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation analyzes the policy designs and economic benefits of a land conservation practice called prairie strips. The first chapter investigates the impact of policy designs on individual household preferences. The study measures the value that Iowa residents place on the ecosystem services of prairie strips and determines if that value changes under different policy designs. The policy design treatment varies in who runs the program and who has enrollment priority. The willingness to pay (WTP) for ecosystem services is estimated using stated preferences from a choice experiment. Results indicate significant public support for expanding and funding the prairie strips …

Growing Climate Solutions Act Of 2021, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

On June 24, 2021, the U.S. Senate adopted S. 1251, the  Growing Climate Solutions Act of 2021. Cosponsored by  54 senators, including Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer, S. 1251 seeks to make it easier for farmers and ranchers to participate in voluntary carbon credit markets and to get a fair share of the carbon credit revenue they generate. If  adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives and signed into law by the President, S. 1251 would go a long way in facilitating effective producer participation in U.S. carbon markets.

Weight Status Perceptions And Food Choice, Christopher R. Gustafson

Cornhusker Economics

Does your weight status—whether your height and weight put you into the normal weight, overweight, or obese category—predict your food choices, or even the types of food you’ll pay attention to when making a choice? What about the weight status you perceive yourself to be? These are important questions because the percentage of the population that is overweight or obese in the U.S.—and world-wide—has been increasing for decades despite a wide range of efforts aimed at slowing/reversing its growth. In the U.S., over 70 percent of the population is overweight or obese. High body weight has numerous consequences for individuals …

Yield And Economic Performance Of Crop Rotation Systems In South Dakota, Hanxiao Feng, Tong Wang, Shannon L. Osborne, Sandeep Kumar

Economics Faculty Publications

Crop yield and economic profitability, both highly dependent on local crop management, soil characteristics, and weather conditions, are among the most influential factors to consider when considering a cropping system. The objective of this study was to compare the economic returns of three different 4-yr diverse crop rotations with that of a 2-yr traditional crop rotation in eastern South Dakota. The rotations included were (a) corn (Zea mays L.)–soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]–spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)–pea (Pisum sativum L.) (CSSwP), (b) corn–pea–winter wheat–soybean (CPWwS), (c) corn–oat (Avena sativa L.)–winter wheat–soybean (COWwS), and (d) corn–soybean …

Economic Contribution Of The Agricultural Sector To The Arkansas Economy In 2019, Leah English, Jennie Popp, Wayne Miller

AAES Research Reports and Research Bulletins

Agriculture and associated agricultural activities are major contributors to the Arkansas economy. Agriculture is defined as the sum of agricultural production and processing activities, unless otherwise specified, and includes crop and animal production and processing, agricultural support industries, forestry and forest products, and textile goods. Agriculture contributes to the economy through direct agricultural production and value-added processing, leading to economic activity in other parts of the economy.

This report is the fourteenth in a series that examines agriculture’s economic contribution to the Arkansas economy. The total economic contribution of agriculture (direct, indirect, and induced effects) on value added, employment, and …

Impacts Of Crop Insurance And Intra-Season Hedging On Long-Run Net Income Risk, Kara Zimmerman

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Each year producers must make risk management decisions early in the growing season when many variables are unknown. In this thesis we create an empirical model utilizing thirty years (1989-2018) of historical yield, cost, and daily price series data, to determine the optimal risk management strategy of crop insurance and an intra-season marketing plan that will both minimize net income risk and maximize average net income. The empirical model is taken a step further to include an out-of-sample year in order to test the robustness of empirical results to financially devastating events that have never been seen. We test the …

The Determinants Of Food Insecurity In The United States: A State Level Analysis, Zhuoya Li

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the determinants of food insecurity at the state level with the goal of providing policy guidance to reduce the prevalence of food insecurity in the United States. Data for the study was collected from various governmental and non-governmental sources. Linear regression models and sensitivity analyses were conducted. The study found that increase in household income is likely to significantly reduce the prevalence of food insecurity and very low food security. While poverty alleviation is more important than level of education for food insecure households, level of education is more important than poverty …

Revenue Protection Crop Insurance And Prices Rising From Spring To Fall, Jessica J. Groskopf, Cory Walters

Cornhusker Economics

Storm damage has been felt by many Nebraska farmers this growing season. Crop insurance is a useful tool to help farmers mitigate production losses coming from storm damage. However, given current price trends, the amount of support producers will receive cannot yet be determined. This article will review how revenue protection crop insurance works when prices rise from the spring to the fall.

Lrp-Feeder Cattle Insurance Usage Up With Recent Changes, Jay Parsons

Cornhusker Economics

Market uncertainties pose a significant risk to cattle producers, who have a substantial amount of money invested in breeding livestock, land, and other infrastructure. Live-stock Risk Protection (LRP) insurance became available in the early 2000s from the USDA Risk Management Agency to provide cattle and swine producers with a simple price risk management tool to protect against unexpected down-swings in the national market price. LRP is a single-peril insurance product that provides an indemnity to insured producers if a national price index falls below a selected coverage price on the end date of the policy. LRP insurance functions like a …

Commitment Behaviour In The World Trade Organization's Trade Facilitation Agreement, Russell Hillberry

Department of Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

We use a new database of commitments made during the process of ratifying the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) to study variation in countries’ commitment behaviour. The TFA is a novel World Trade Organization agreement because it allows developing countries to select commitments from a menu of best practices in trade facilitation, rather than to consent, or not, to a comprehensive package of negotiated commitments. The operation of this á la carte approach to concluding trade agreements is worthy of study in its own right, but the commitment data also offer a high-level description of progress in an international effort to …

Farm Life In The Asset Economy: First-Generation Farmers And The Agrarian Question, Elizabeth Pickard

Theses - ALL

A massive transition of land ownership is currently underway in the U.S. as an increasing proportion of farmers near retirement age with no successor in place. The question of who will replace them has come to the fore as policy makers and food justice activists alike contemplate a shift to a more equitable and ecologically sustainable food system. Embracing a "beginning farmer theory of change," some scholars have called for an increase in the number of first-generation farmers to account for the labor- and knowledge-intensive methods required for agroecological production. Others have brought attention to the historical and ongoing racial, …

Joint Bidding In Conservation Auctions: An Experimental Study Of Policy Design And Performance, Simanti Banerjee

Cornhusker Economics

In designing conservation policies both ecologists and economists have argued that greater spatial coordination of producer land use adoption can improve environmental outcomes for a range of important environmental targets such as wetlands restoration, nutrient pollution reduction,and species conservation. Economists have suggested two types of incentive policies for achieving such spatial coordination: the Agglomeration Bonus (AB) (Parkhurst and Shogren, 2007) and spatially-connected auctions (Banerjee et al., 2015). However, a majority of the analyses to date have focused on incentives aimed at individual land manager participation in such schemes (e.g., Fooks et al., 2016). In contrast, a number of countries such …

Lessons To Be Learned In Adoption Of Autonomous Equipment For Field Crops, James Lowenberg-Deboer, Karl Behrendt, Melf-Hinrich Ehlers, Carl R. Dillon, Andreas Gabriel, Iona Yuelu Huang, Ian Kumwenda, Tyler Mark, Andreas Meyer-Aurich, Gabor Milics, Kehinde Oluseyi Olagunju, Søren Marcus Pedersen, Jordan M. Shockley, David Rose

Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

Autonomous equipment for crop production is on the verge of technical and economic feasibility, but government regulation may slow its adoption. Key regulatory issues include requirements for on-site human supervision, liability for autonomous machine error, and intellectual property in robotic learning. As an example of the impact of regulation on the economic benefits of autonomous crop equipment, analysis from the United Kingdom suggests that requiring 100% on-site human supervision almost wipes out the economic benefits of autonomous crop equipment for small and medium farms and increases the economies-of-scale advantage of larger farms.

Balancing Food Security And Environmental Sustainability By Optimizing Seasonal-Spatial Crop Production In Bangladesh, Man Li, Zhe Guo, Wei Zhang

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

The intensification of crop production has been identified as one of the major drivers of environmental degradation. While significant advances could still be made with more widespread adoption of sustainable intensification technologies that address the agronomic efficiency of nitrogen fertilizers, the dynamic use of agricultural land across seasons and associated crop-specific responses to fertilizer applications have so far been largely overlooked. This paper explores the potential for improving the economic-environmental performance of crop production through spatially integrated modeling and optimization, as applied to Bangladesh. Results show that per-billion-Taka nitrogen loss from soil would decline by 83% from the baseline level …

Crop Yield And Economics Of Cropping Systems Involving Different Rotations, Tillage, And Cover Crops, J. Singh, T. Wang, S. Kumar, Pete Sexton, J. Davis, A. Bly

Economics Faculty Publications

Diversified cropping systems integrated with winter cover crops (CCs) and no-till (NT) systems can provide substantial soil conservation benefits in the midwestern Corn Belt of the United States, but there is uncertainty on how these practices affect producer profits. This study compared crop yield and economic performance from cropping systems that featured three crop rotations: corn (Zea mays L.)–soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.; two-year), corn–soybean–oat (Avena sativa L.; three-year), and corn–soybean–oat–winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.; four-year); two tillage systems: NT and conventional-till (CT); and two cover cropping managements: CC and no-cover crop. Tillage and rotation treatments …