Agricultural and Resource Economics Commons^™

Impact Of Increased Minimum Wage On Southern San Joaquin Valley Navel Orange Producers, Kallie Donnelly, Jay E. Noel

Agribusiness

The California Institute for the Study of Specialty Crops (CISSC) developed a representative farm simulation model for navel producers in the Southern San Joaquin Valley. The farm simulation model simulates a producer’s financial statements for 2005-2014, including the income statement, statement of cash flows, and balance sheet. This model allows model prices and yields to vary over time. The variability is based on historical variation in navel orange prices and yield. This is done to capture the risk and uncertainty associated with variable prices and yields.

Evaluation Of Cauliflower And Broccoli Varieties: Autumn Planting (January - May 2006), Kristen Stirling

Horticulture research reports

This document has been prepared from a cauliflower and broccoli variety evaluation trial conducted at the Manjimup Horticultural Research Institute, South Western Highway, Manjimup WA 6258. The results reflect the growth characteristics, yield, quality and density of the cauliflower and broccoli varieties as recorded at this site during the conditions of the growing period (January to May 2006).

This report is the second in a series of four produced from the evaluation of cauliflower and broccoli varieties conducted at the Manjimup Horticultural Research Institute. The results are provided to allow seed suppliers, seedling nurseries, producers, packers and marketers to identify …

Evaluation Of Cauliflower And Broccoli Varieties: Winter Planting (April - August 2006), Kristen Stirling

Horticulture research reports

This document has been prepared from a cauliflower and broccoli variety evaluation trial! conducted at the Manjimup Horticultural Research Institute, South Western Highway, Manjimup WA 6258. The results reflect the growth characteristics, yield, quality and density of the cauliflower and broccoli varieties as recorded at this site during the conditions of the growing period (April - August 2006).

This report is the third in a series of four produced from the evaluation of cauliflower and broccoli varieties conducted at the Manjimup Horticultural Research Institute. The results are provided to allow seed suppliers, seedling nurseries, producers, packers and marketers to identify …

An Examination Of Additively Separable Willingness-To-Pay For Environmental Attributes: Evidence From A Pork Experiment, Sean P. Hurley, James B. Kliebenstein

Agribusiness

This paper examines what is the best method for pork producers to market pork products with environmental attributes. The objective is to examine evidence of whether it is beneficial for pork producers to incorporate multiple environmental attributes into a single product or sell multiple products with a single environmental attribute.

Determining The Impact Of Food Price And Income Changes On Obesity, Christiane Schroeter, Jayson Lusk, Wallace Tyner

Agribusiness

Despite the significant rise in obesity in the U.S., economic research on obesity is still in its infancy. This paper employs a microeconomic approach to investigate the effects of price and income changes on weight in an effort to determine how a high-calorie food tax, a low-calorie food subsidy, and/or income changes affect body weight. Although raising the price of high-calorie food will likely lead to decreased demand for such goods; it is not clear that such an outcome will actually reduce weight. The model developed in this paper identifies conditions under which price and income changes are mostly likely …

Estimating The Impacts Of Differing Price-Risk Management Strategies On The Net Income Of Salinas Valley Lettuce Producers: A Stochastic Simulation Approach, Roland Fumasi, Wayne H. Howard, Jay E. Noel

Agribusiness

While government safety-net programs are used to mitigate the price risk for commodity producers, limited programs exist for specialty crop producers. Specialty crop producers utilize forward contracts to reduce downside price risk. In order to estimate the method of price-risk management, if any, that is preferable to selling at market determined prices, a stochastic simulation model was constructed. The completed simulation model was used to estimate probability distributions for Salinas Valley net income under different pricing scenarios. Probabilities of reaching various net income thresholds were compared. Results indicate that Salinas Valley lettuce producers should maximize profitability by using forward contracts.

Continued Growth In Nebraska, Saeed Ahmad, John Austin, Tom Doering, Ernie Goss, Bruce Johnson, Donis Petersan, Franz Schwarz, Eric Thomson, Keith K. Turner

Economics Faculty Publications

National economic conditions will continue to favor growth over the next three years. Increased business investment will combine with rising industrial production, expanding exports, and moderate increases in consumer spending to grow the economy. The rate of inflation is expected to increase as well. The rate of real (inflation-adjusted) growth will moderate compared to strong economic growth during 2004. Real gross domestic product will grow 3 percent to 3.5 percent over the next three years. High oil prices will remain a drain on the economy, siphoning spending from domestically produced goods and services. Fuel prices are expected to remain at …

A Synopsis Of The Regulatory Environment Affecting California Specialty Crops, Sean P. Hurley

Agribusiness

California specialty crop producers face multiple regulatory bodies from both the state and federal government. These producers face regulations pertaining to labor, the environment, marketing, and food safety. When it comes to regulations, ignorance is not bliss. This project develops an informational source for finding federal and state regulations affecting California agricultural producers and provides a perspective of what the California agricultural regulatory environment looks like. This report presents a visual diagram of the top two tiers of federal and state governmental agencies affecting the California agricultural regulatory environment. The visual diagram is set-up with web links to these regulatory …

Marketing Locally Produced Foods: Consumer And Farmer Opinions In Washington County, Nebraska, Mindi L. Schneider, Charles A. Francis

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Local food system potentials were studied in Washington County, Nebraska, United States. As a departure from most studies of locally based systems, farmers were surveyed in addition to consumers for potential participation. Data about the current food system and opinions and preferences for local production, marketing, and purchasing of food were collected using self-administered mail questionnaires. The response rate was 35% for the farmer survey and 37% for the consumer survey. Results indicated that, on the farming side of the food system, conventional corn and soybean production and marketing predominated in Washington County, and farmer interest in producing for local …

Relating Diet, Demographics And Lifestyle To Increasing U.S. Obesity Rates, Christiane Schroeter

Agribusiness

Changes in the American lifestyle are putting more individuals at risk due to the declining quality of their diets. In the last 20 years, the readily available high-fat foods (e.g., "fast foods") combined with the decreased caloric requirements due to lower physical activity levels is assumed to be the major factor in the sharp rise in the prevalence of obesity. The typical away-from-home meal is less healthy than food at home, since it tends to contain more total fat and saturated fat, less calcium, fiber, and iron, and fewer servings of fruits and vegetables. Furthermore, due to the super-sizing trend …

Sustained Growth In Nebraska, Saeed Ahmad, John Austin, Tom Doering, Ernie Goss, Bruce Johnson, Mike Lundeen, Donis Petersan, Franz Schwarz, Eric Thompson, Keith K. Turner

Economics Faculty Publications

National Macroeconomic conditions are favorable for future expansion of income, employment, and revenue in Nebraska. In particular, the U.S. economy is now in the heart of an expansion expected to persist over the three year forecast period. The principal engine of growth will be a sustained expansion in private sector investment and consumption demand. However, the rate of growth in the national economy likely will be moderate rather than rapid. At least three factors will act to moderate growth. The first is higher energy prices. Rapid growth in global demand is expected to keep prices for oil and natural gas …

Assessment Of Biofuels In California And Potential For Future Utilization, Douglas Williams, James J. Ahern, Keith Ochwat

Agribusiness

This study analyzed the potential energy resources contained in the biomass residues from the leading crops and livestock in California. As compared with an earlier similar study by Knutson and Miller (1982), where a total of 24 million tons of biomass was reported having an energy value of 336,000 billion Btu’s, this current study showed a total of over 18 million tons (excluding 7.2 million tons of lumber mill and forest slash residues), which translates to almost 13 million tons of dry matter. The energy value of this biomass is 189,000 billion Btu’s, about 56 % of the 1982 value. …

The Impact Of Health Information And Women In The Work Force On Aggregate Meat Demand, Christiane Schroeter, Ken Foster

Agribusiness

Over the past few decades, U.S. meat consumption patterns have changed. Changes in food consumption patterns can be the result of changing demographic characteristics, changing lifestyles, increasing health awareness, and nutritional concerns. Prior research suggests that these factors have significant influence on the demand for meat (Capps and Schmitz; Kinnucan, Hsia, and Jackson). The recent interest in low carbohydrate diets and the association with increased red meat consumption is an anecdotal example of this phenomenon.

The Impact Of Health Information And Demographic Changes On Aggregate Meat Demand, Christiane Schroeter, Ken Foster

Agribusiness

Over the past few decades, U.S. meat consumption patterns have changed. Figure 1 shows the U.S. per-capita meat consumption from 1970-1999. Consumers have increased their total meat consumption by 9.3% from 1970 to 1999, however, the composition of the meat consumption changed as well. While beef consumption has consistently decreased since 1985 - that of poultry and fish have increased. Per capita pork consumption has not changed on average from the 1970’s to the 1990’s.

The Impact Of Market Structure On Agricultural Technology Transfer, Charles F. Nicholson

Agribusiness

An agribusiness focus has emerged in public discussions as way to enhance agricultural production in Indonesia and to improve sustainable income for farmers. The focus has led to increased attention on marketing. Marketing agricultural products via processing technologies can indeed address national objectives of rural poverty alleviation. REI-Indonesia observed that limited marketing alternatives are frequently mentioned by farmers as a significant constraint. In Indonesia, a significant amount of institutional support currently exists for the ideas presented in this paper. In particular, one should consider the multifaceted mission of agricultural development in Indonesia, which includes: (a) policies that encourage competition and, …

Cost Of Organic Pork Production: A Seasonal Analysis And Needed Price Premium For Continuous Production, James Kliebenstein, Sean P. Hurley, Ben Larson, Mark Honeyman

Agribusiness

Niche markets of agricultural products are experiencing rapid growth. One such niche market is organic pork. Organic pork production is a relatively new and expanding segment of the pork industry. Similar to some other niche markets, it has also experienced rapid growth (Organic Trade Association). It is well known that the cost of organic pork production is greater than for traditional pork production due to increased feed costs and decreased swine performance. The industry has dealt with this by paying premiums to induce producers to produce the organic product. However, it is not clear on what level or how the …

Household-Level Impacts Of Dairy Cow Ownership In Coastal Kenya, Charles F. Nicholson, Philip K. Thornton, Rahab W. Muinga

Agribusiness

This study uses heteroskedastic Tobit and Censored Least Absolute Deviations models to examine the impacts of dairy cow ownership on selected outcomes for a sample of 184 households in coastal Kenya. The outcomes examined include gross household cash income, gross non-agricultural income, consumption of dairy products, time allocated to cattlerelated tasks, number of labourers hired and total wage payments to hired labourers. The number of dairy cows owned has a large and statistically significant impact on household cash income; each cow owned increased income by at least 53% of the mean total income of households without dairy cows. Dairy cow …

A Cross Comparison Between California And Its Domestic And International Competitors With Respect To Key Labor Issues, Sean P. Hurley

Agribusiness

California had a market value of agricultural products sold of $25.7 billion in the year 2002 ranking it as the top agricultural producing state in the country. Approximately 74% of this market value was attributed to crop sales. California producers spent nearly $20.5 billion on total farm expenses. The largest single expense for agricultural producers in the state was labor at $4.3 billion. Another $1.6 billion was spent on contract labor. Hired and contract labor expenses accounted for nearly 29% of total farm expense. Approximately 34,000 California farms hired over 535,000 laborers. Of these farms, 25% reported hiring migrant labor …

Consumer Knowledge And Acceptance Of Agricultural Biotechnology Vary, Jennifer S. James

Agribusiness

Results from consumer surveys reveal some basic conclusions about consumer attitudes toward agricultural biotechnology. First, consumers do not agree about whether biotech foods are good or bad. Second, a small group of people strongly opposes them. Third, the majority of consumers are uninformed about the technology and how food is produced. Relatively small but vocal anti-biotechnology activist groups are successful at influencing public opinion because of consumers’ lack of knowledge, creating a role for universities and government agencies to provide clear, objective and accessible information.

Levy-Funded Research Choices By Producers And Society, Jennifer S. James, Julian M. Alston, John W. Freebairn

Agribusiness

Commodity levies are used increasingly to fund producer collective goods such as research and promotion. In the present paper we examine theoretical relationships between producer and national benefits from levy-funded research, and consider the implications for the appropriate rates of matching government grants, applied with a view to achieving a closer match between producer and national interests. In many cases the producer and national optima coincide. First, regardless of the form of the supply shift, when product demand is perfectly elastic, or all the product is exported, domestic benefits and costs of levy-funded research all go to producers and they …

Us Dairy Product Trade: Modeling Approaches And The Impact Of New Product Formulations, Charles F. Nicholson, Phillip M. Bishop

Agribusiness

Several domestic and international developments increased interest among the US dairy industry in world markets during the 1990s. One development was the passage of the NAFTA and Uruguay Round (URA) trade agreements in the mid-decade, and their successors, the current “Doha Round” of international trade negotiations now underway. Another development during the 1990s was additional (positive) experience gained by the US dairy industry in export markets. Much of this experience came about because increases in world market prices for butter and powder in 1995-96 made US exports more competitive. The Dairy Export Incentive Program (DEIP) is also credited with improving …

Livestock, Land Use Change, And Environmental Outcomes In The Developing World, R. W. Blake, C. F. Nicholson

Agribusiness

No Abstract

Maine Food Trader, New England Environmental Finance Center, University Of Southern Maine

Local Food Systems

A free website for buying, selling, trading and donating local food. Keep food from going to waste and help make food production a good way to make a living in Maine.

Interpreting Bids From A Vickrey Auction When There Are Public Good Attributes, Sean P. Hurley, James B. Kliebenstein

Agribusiness

This paper provides a model that allows for interpreting bids in a Vickrey auction when the good has public good attributes. It also examines information obtained from a Vickrey auction, which collected consumer’s willingness-to-pay for pork products that had embedded environmental attributes, and applies the new interpretation to the bids.

Dairy Cow Ownership And Child Nutritional Status In Kenya, Charles F. Nicholson, Lucy Mwangi, Steven J. Staal, Philip K. Thornton

Agribusiness

This study examines the hypothesis that dairy cow ownership improves child nutritional status. Using household data from coastal and highland Kenya, three econometric model formulations are estimated. Positive impacts on chronic malnutrition are observed for coastal Kenya. No negative effects on acute or chronic malnutrition are found for either region.

A Tale Of Two Premiums—Examining Bids From A Multiple Round Vickrey Auction With Differing Information Sets, Sean P. Hurley, James B. Kliebenstein

Agribusiness

Two definitions of willingness-to-pay derived from a Vickrey auction with multi-product and multiple rounds with different information sets are examined. These definitions are examined in the context of valuing pork products with embedded environmental attributes and we show how information can have adverse effects on a base product of comparison.

Dairy Policy And Price Volatility, Charles F. Nicholson, Thomas Fiddaman

Agribusiness

The US dairy industry is shaped by a patchwork of regulations accumulated over a long history of intervention to achieve various, sometimes conflicting, policy goals. Price supports have long been a central feature of dairy markets, but were largely withdrawn beginning in 1988. Since that time, there has been a dramatic increase in the variability of farm milk and milk product prices. The origins and desirability of volatility has been the subject of much debate; unfortunately models in existence to date have shed little light on the question due to their adoption of essentially non-dynamic methods. This article introduces a …

Model State Land Use Legislation For New England, New England Environmental Finance Center, Muskie School Of Public Service

Legislation

Sprawl is neither the ordained nor the inevitable outcome upon the New England landscape. A coordinated response to sprawl by the public and private sectors is possible, and could dramatically improve land use patterns and reduce the cost of local government. For the New England states, such a response would include, among other elements, legislation to eliminate existing gaps in the land use laws of each state – gaps that presently encourage or sanction sprawling development. It would also include incentives for municipalities to think beyond their borders and to act with greater efficiency and effect. It is the purpose …

Predicting Nutritional Requirements And Lactation Performance Of Dual-Purpose Cows Using A Dynamic Model, O. Reynoso-Campos, D. G. Fox, R. W. Blake, M. C. Barry, L. O. Tedeschi, C. F. Nicholson, H. M. Kaiser, P. A. Oltenacu

Agribusiness

A dynamic application of the Cornell Net Carbohydrate and Protein System (CNCPS) model was developed to predict annual cycles in animal nutrient requirements and performance of dual-purpose (milk and beef) cows. Interactions from mobilisation and repletion of body tissue reserves and feed biological values are accounted with a time step of one day, which considers physiological status of the animal, variation in dietary composition, and other environmental factors. This outcome was achieved by modifying the input and output structure of the CNCPS version 4.0 to compute body weight and changes in body reserves based on predicted milk production, intake of …

Smart Growth And Land Acquisition Priorities: A Cursory Review, New England Environmental Finance Center

Smart Growth

It is well-known and generally accepted that all undeveloped land in New England cannot forever be protected from development; nor would this be a desirable goal, as continued economic development and population growth are near certainties. For these and other reasons, private land trusts and government agencies generally use explicit criteria to prioritize their land acquisition activities and prospects.