Agricultural and Resource Economics Commons^™

Scla 521 Ai In Society, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides access to information resources on societal impacts of artificial intelligence from multiple libraries databases covering multiple disciplines including government information resources.

Driving Green Investments To Address Climate Change, Baptiste Gibrat

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

The climate crisis is no longer news, and society needs to accelerate the transition to net zero emissions. Otherwise, the consequences of climate change will become increasingly catastrophic.

This thesis develops a framework to drive green investments, which reduce society’s dependance on fossil fuels. Initially, the research provides a comprehensive examination of these investments, followed by an exploration of three strategies to enhance their adoption: leveraging financial instruments and capital markets, implementing regulatory frameworks, and harnessing the power of technologies. To integrate these elements within a comprehensive framework, the study employs market research, reviews relevant literature, and includes interviews with …

Coffee In Brasil: Sustainability And The Role Of Intermediaries, Livia Petzinger

Capstone Collection

ABSTRACT

Coffee is traded in a highly complex global value chain where countless sustainability initiatives have emerged to address social, economic, and environmental issues, challenges which persist due to dominance of the market structure by largescale traders and roasters. Specialty coffee and direct trade have emerged as alternative trade arrangements that promote high-quality coffee through the use of sustainable practices, transparency, and a shortened supply chain. This research analyzes the role that intermediaries in the Brazilian specialty coffee supply chain play in the implementation of sustainability initiatives asking what kinds of sustainability practices they implement and why, and how this …

Rural Business Development Corporation 2024 Annual Report, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

All other publications

Chair foreword

I am pleased to present the 2023-24 Annual Report of the Rural Business Development Corporation (RBDC). The role of the RBDC is to administer approved assistance schemes, carry out research and give advice to the Minister for Agriculture and Food. As a board we are deeply committed to ensuring that the Corporation is responsive to the needs of the state’s regional and rural businesses and communities.

The Corporation’s support for rural businesses in WA, principally through the administration of financial assistance, remains as vital as ever. The past year has seen many of the state’s primary producers experience …

Research Report: Well-Being, Heather Akin, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Mary Emery, Katelyn Larson, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Rebecca J. Vogt

Nebraska Rural Poll

This year, rural Nebraskans are more pessimistic about their current situation than they’ve been since this study began. The proportion believing they are worse off than they were five years ago was 33 percent, up from 27 percent last year and 21 percent in 2022. This is the highest level across all years of the study. This increase in pessimism was matched with a sharp decrease in optimism. This year, just over one-third (36%) of rural Nebraskans believe they are better off compared to five years ago, down from 45 percent last year.

This trend continued when looking to the …

Linking Risk Preference, Women’S Empowerment, Farm Investment And Household Well-Being, Samuel Olusesi Olumide

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

A nuanced understanding of intra-household dynamics can inform the design of more effective empowerment and agricultural investment policies. By integrating household risk preferences and empowerment dynamics, this work offers valuable insights into the complex mechanisms driving household welfare and provides a framework for future interventions to promote gender equality and economic development in rural settings. This thesis addresses three core hypotheses: first, that the spouses of risk-seeking male heads are more likely to be disempowered compared to those of risk-averse male heads; second, that households with risk-seeking male heads and disempowered spouses are likely to invest more in farming activities; …

Corn Leaf Disease Prediction Using Deep Learning, Meghana Varayuri

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Corn is a widely cultivated agricultural product, serving as a cornerstone in food production and industrial applications such as biofuels, playing a crucial role in the global economy. This study explores the application of deep transfer learning to accurately classify major corn diseases from leaf images, aiming to enhance disease management strategies for improved agricultural productivity and sustainability. The customized Dense net 201 model achieved 95% prediction accuracy on an untrained dataset. Data augmentation improved the model’s accuracy from 91% to 95%. This supervised learning approach enhances the model’s performance by increasing the diversity, leading to better generalization and accuracy. …

Three Essays In Food Security And The U.S. Sugar Program, Jacob Michels

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Chapter one devises an approach to adjust estimates of the number of food insecure for changes in sedentarism over time. Existing methodologies are biased upwards and date back several decades. We build a household model utilizing a Stone-Geary utility function, which rationalizes households shifting their labor decisions towards sedentary activities. Our comparative statics examine the impacts of changes in the productivities of sedentary types, as opposed to my physically demanding types, of activities and also their returns. Our empirical approach is informed by our theoretical model and comparative statics, in which we construct a unique pseudo-panel dataset. Sitting time serves …

Effect Of Beef Heifer Development Systems Utilizing Corn Residue And Late Summer Planted Cover Crops On Growth, Reproductive Performance, And Economics, Hannah F. Speer, Robert A. Cushman, Harvey Freetly, Jay Parsons, Jessica Windh, M. E. Drewnoski

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

The objective of this study was to evaluate growth and reproductive performance of heifers developed using 3 different winter systems in the midwestern U.S. Spring-born heifers (n = 1,156; 214 d of age; SD ± 17 d) were used in a 3-yr study to evaluate performance in winter development systems, which utilized cover crop (CC) and corn residue grazing. Heifers were assigned to 1 of 3 treatments: grazing corn residue with 0.77 kg/d dried distillers grains (CD) or 1.69 kg/d wheat midds (CW) supplementation followed by a grower ration in the drylot, or grazing late summer planted oat-brassica CC followed …

Exploring Producers' Willingness To Pay For Ecosystem Services: Three Essays On Soil Health, Location Preferences, And Cover Crop Adoption, Kaouter Essakkat

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation comprises three essays: one assessing Midwest producers' willingness-to-pay (WTP) for soil health-enhancing ecosystem services (ES), another examining the impact of policy implementation locations on WTP, and a third identifying factors influencing producers' adoption of cover crops (CC).

The first essay pioneers the understanding of agricultural producers’ valuation of soil health-associated ES amid growing concerns of soil degradation due to agricultural intensification. Using a discrete choice experiment, this study assesses producers’ WTP for a policy that incentivizes ES provision, specifically improved water quality, carbon sequestration, and enhanced crop yield. Surveying producers across Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, our results show …

Utilizing Extreme Value Theory To Uncover Yield Distributions From Farm And County Level Historical Corn Yields, Gerald H. Van Tassell

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

Yield risk represents a major portion of the financial risk facing corn producers and is found in the left tail of the yield distribution. Traditional methods for generating yield distributions fall into two categories: parametric and non-parametric. The shape and behavior of the tail of parametric yield distributions are determined by distributional assumptions. Non-parametric distributions fail to account for the possibility of as yet unseen extreme events, often referred to as “Black Swans”. Extreme Value Theory (EVT) rectifies these issues by providing an empirical, parametric estimate of the risk of extreme events, regardless of the underlying distribution of corn yields. …

Stock Market Volatility In The United Kingdom: Simulating Post-Covid-19 Recovery, Bala A. Dahiru, Mohammed Shuaibu, Najibullah Hassanov

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This paper investigates the time it would take for the FTSE-100 index to reach its post-COVID-19 peak. The paper utilises an exponential generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (EGARCH) model that accounts for leverage effect and asymmetries. The preferred models amongst competing variants was the Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA)-EGARCH(2,1) specification and was used to predict daily FTSE-100 data from 5th January 2000 to 21st June 2024. The empirical exercise showed that the COVID-19-induced financial crisis negatively affected the United Kingdom’s stock market performance. The results show that the FTSE100 index could reach its post-pandemic peak around 27th August, 2024 (two months after …

Economic Research On Ethanol Feed-Use Coproducts: A Review, Synthesis, And Path Forward, Elliott James Dennis, Daniel Gertner, Galen E. Erickson

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

During the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, the domestic ethanol industry witnessed substantial growth, with ethanol coproducts emerging as vital elements for plant profitability and livestock feeding. Initially serving as supplementary revenue streams, coproducts from ethanol production have evolved into diverse value-added offerings, bolstering revenue streams, and sustaining profit margins. This study reviews existing economic research on ethanol coproducts, detailing methodologies, product focus, and research locations. Initially gathering 972 articles from 9 databases, 110 articles were synthesized. We find that most studies primarily examined the growth and future of the ethanol industry with a limited focus on specific coproducts. Feed-use …

Exploring The Relationship Between Load Shedding And Crime In Gauteng, Bhavesh Ram

Master's Theses

This study investigates the impact of load shedding, a recurring power outage phenomenon in South Africa, on crime rates in the densely populated Gauteng province. Using a novel dataset that combines Eskom's load shedding schedules with detailed crime statistics from 2015 to 2022, a fixed-effects regression model is employed to examine the relationship between blackout hours and various crime categories. Findings reveal that while load shedding does not significantly affect overall crime rates, it significantly increases the incidence of contact crimes and sexual offenses, particularly during daylight hours. Additionally, our results provide evidence that load shedding diminishes the ability of …

Designing Future Agriculture: Design For Complex Systems And Cross-Cultural Interactions, Karina Madzari

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Climate change is now recognized by businesses as a major challenge, prompting the agribusiness sector to transform to meet sustainability goals. However, there are many ways to achieve sustainability. Precision agriculture and agroecology are two concepts that evolved from conventional and regenerative approaches respectively, and offer distinct perspectives on sustainability attainment. Precision agriculture relies on technological solutions like artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, gene editing, and carbon dioxide removal technologies (CDR) and aims to revolutionize industry operations through automatization. Agroecology, on the other hand, creates a symbiotic relationship between farming practices and ecosystem services. It aims to replace non-renewable resources with …

Health Prompts Affect Consideration Of Health But Not Intertemporal Preferences While Promoting Healthier Food Choices, Olivier Tuyizere, Christopher Gustafson, Devin J. Rose

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Diet-related diseases impact populations across the globe. While intertemporal preferences—a fundamental preference for the distribution of benefits across time—have been used to explain low-quality food choices, the recent literature proposes another cause: inattention to the future implications (or opportunity costs) of the options faced. Food choices tend to become habitual to conserve cognitive resources, rather than carefully modeling future health impacts. Both low discount rates for future benefits and attention to future health impacts predict healthier decisions. While intertemporal preferences are stable, attention may provide an opportunity to intervene in the decision process to promote healthier decisions. In this study, …

The Economic Impacts Of Social Activism And Corporate Social Responsibility On Food Fraud, Anubrata Deka, Amalia Yiannaka, Konstantinos Giannakas

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

The study examines the relationship between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) investments of a food firm, an activist’s incentive to target the firm to uncover and deter fraudulent behavior, and the firm’s incentive to commit food fraud. Specifically, we develop a game theoretic model to analyze the strategic interaction between a food firm that decides whether to provide a credence food attribute and whether to misrepresent the quality of its product, and an activist who decides whether to monitor the firm and launch a campaign to uncover and remove false/misleading quality claims. We further examine the effect of CSR and …

Identifying High-Value Tactical Livestock Decisions On A Mixed Enterprise Farm In A Variable Environment, Michael Young, John Young, Ross S. Kingwell, Philip E. Vercoe

Animal production and livestock research articles

Context

Australia is renowned for its climate variation, featuring years with drought and years with floods, which result in significant production and profit variability. Accordingly, to maximise profitability, dryland farming systems need to be dynamically managed in response to unfolding weather conditions.

Aims

The aim of this study is to identify and quantify optimal tactical livestock management for different weather-years.

Methods

This study employed a whole-farm optimisation model to analyse a representative mixed enterprise farm located in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. Using this model, we investigated the economic significance of five key livestock management tactics. These included …

Factors Affecting Graduation With Honors: A Case Study In Bumpers College, Timothy Dalton Roberts

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study aims to understand the factors influencing the graduation rate with honors in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences (Bumpers College) at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville (UAF). Utilizing data from 2004 to 2014 provided by the Office of Strategic Analytics & Insights at UAF, this research investigates several demographic and academic variables to potentially identify predictors of successfully graduating from the Bumpers Honors Program. The methodology involved cleaning the data, statistical analyses including T-test and Chi-square tests, and logit regression models to determine significant factors impacting graduating with honors.

After chi-square and t-tests and …

Implementing A Dairy Industry In Mauritius, Lainey Deitrick

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Over the Summer, I interned at the University of Mauritius and the Ministry of Agro Industry and Food Security from May 18th to July 15th, 2022, researching issues with Mauritius’s food security and helping to create solutions to their economic problems. My project covered all Mauritius’s agricultural imports, but it had an emphasis on their dairy industry. While in Mauritius, I conducted research on food security among Mauritians, and a feasibility study on if residents would be open to drinking more fresh milk, which is a market the country is exploring to replace sugar cane. My data analysis will be …

Surveys Assessing Food Security And Willingness To Buy Dairy Products In Mauritius Conducted Summer 2022, Abigail Burch

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the summer of 2022, I worked on a team of University of Arkansas and University of Mauritius students to administer surveys regarding the consumption of dairy milk and the impact of COVID-19 on food security in the island nation of Mauritius. This project was created by both universities in conjunction with the Mauritian Ministry of Agro Industry and Food Security.

Community Development In Stann Creek, Belize, Connor O'Neill

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research attempts to understand the inner workings of community development by taking part in ongoing development projects in Belize. Through collaboration with existing government entities, we took part in meetings, surveys, and site visits to gather the data necessary for the development projects. These projects consisted of finding cost of production, collecting market research, and constructing business plans. During our time, we experienced multiple difficulties similar to those that developers consistently encounter. Ultimately, we gained valuable insight into procedures involved in community development, as well as being able to aid in ongoing development work.

Government Program Decision Analysis In Nebraska At The Farm Level, Tatum R. Brunkow

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

The one-year extension of the 2018 Farm Bill until September 30, 2024, has extended several government programs for the 2024 crop year including those in Title I: Commodities. This analysis looks at three different financial scenarios and analyzes five different alternatives for a case farm to select the optimal farm program decision for the operation by evaluating net farm income. Since 2021, eligible producers have been able to elect either Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) or Price Loss Coverage (PLC) for their operation on an annual basis. Support levels for these programs are trending close together making the election decision more …

Exploring The Intersection Between West Virginia Farmland Protection Boards, Landowners, And The West Virginia Agrarian Commons, Samuel W. Bayne, Joshua Lohnes

Undergraduate Scholarship

New Roots Community Farm (NRCF) came to life through the purchase of a piece of land by the Fayette County Farmland Protection Board in a buy-protect-sell model. NRCF then partnered with The Agrarian Land Trust, a New England based organization experimenting with land commons models across the United States, to purchase the property and create the West Virginia Agrarian Commons (WVAC), an entity that could advance land access for the next generation farmers in WV. The experience of NRCF and the WVAC and the vision for its operation and extension of the buy-protect-sell model in partnership with county farmland protection …

Suggestions For Layout Adjustment Of China's Agricultural Regions During Fifteenth Five-Year Plan Period, Yong Xu, Hua Yang, Jian Duan

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Adjusting and optimizing the strategic paradigm of China’s agricultural regions in the new era is of great significance to the implementation of the “Greater Food” concept and the building of a strong agriculture. This study takes the layout adjustment of China’s agricultural regions during the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan period as its theme, and firstly summarizes the problems that exist in the main agricultural production regions and the layout changes in grain production bases. Then, in conjunction with the new requirements of the national strategies, the functional types of agricultural regions are refined, the different function positions are clarified, the adjusting …

U.S. Government Agency Podcasts, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Presents podcasts from U.S. Government agencies which can be discovered through the U.S. Government Publishing Office's Catalog of Government Publications. Agencies whose podcasts are presented include the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Peace Corps, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Government Accountability Office (GAO), National Park Service, Department of Justice, Federal Reserve System, and U.S. Naval War College.

Health And Healthcare: Designing For The Social Determinants Of Health And Blue Zones In North Nashville, Rebecca Tonguis, Honor Thomas, Olivia Hobbs

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Owned by North Nashville’s First Community Church, a now empty site in the Osage-North Fisk neighborhood of North Nashville has been identified as a potential site for a new location of The Store, in addition to a community-centric architectural development based on the social determinants of health and informed by the principles behind Blue Zones, the locations with the highest lifespans in the world. Opened by Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisley, The Store is a free grocery store that “allow[s] people to shop for their basic needs in a way that protects dignity and fosters hope”, for which North Nashville …

Can Machine Learning Models Provide Accurate Fertilizer Recommendations?, Takashi S. T. Tanaka, Gerard B. M. Heuvelink, Taro Mieno, David S. Bullock

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Accurate modeling of site-specific crop yield response is key to providing farmers with accurate site-specific economically optimal input rates (EOIRs) recommendations. Many studies have demonstrated that machine learning models can accurately predict yield. These models have also been used to analyze the effect of fertilizer application rates on yield and derive EOIRs. But models with accurate yield prediction can still provide highly inaccurate input application recommendations. This study quantified the uncertainty generated when using machine learning methods to model the effect of fertilizer application on site-specific crop yield response. The study uses real on-farm precision experimental data to evaluate the …

Synthesis Of Current Evidence On Factors Influencing The Suitability Of Synthetic Biodegradable Mulches For Agricultural Applications: A Systematic Review, Michael Madin, Katherine Nelson, Kanji Fatema, Karina Schoengold, Abhilekha Dalal, Ikenna Onyekwelu, Rushrukh Rayan, Sanaz Saki Norouzi

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Mulching practice offers farmers an opportunity to minimize the effects of drought, water loss, and soil erosion on crop production. Plastic film is widely used as a mulching material; however, contamination of arable lands by residual plastic has become a serious concern. Synthetic biodegradable mulch films and sprays may offer a more sustainable alternative to plastic films, however current evidence on the factors that influence the suitability of these products for agricultural applications is fragmented, making it unclear under what conditions these products meet agronomic, environmental, and societal needs. We address this gap by conducting a systematic review of studies …

Promoting Financial Inclusivity, A Route To Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis From Sub-Saharan African Countries, Sulayman Jallow, Pradipta Kumar Sahoo, Bamadev Mahapatra

Bulletin of Monetary Economics and Banking

The present study deep dives into the relationship between financial inclusion and per capita income growth of 42 sub-Saharan African countries from 2007 to 2020. With the help of the generalized method of moments (GMM) modeling framework, the study discloses that a rise in the number of bank branches, automated teller machines, and savings stimulates per capita economic growth. Conversely, an elevated number of credit provisions to the private sector and high growth of population hinder per capita economic growth. The policy recommendation is for banking authorities to expand their services to underserved areas, raise interest rates on deposits, and …