Agricultural and Resource Economics Commons^™

Measuring The Energy Required To Dry Rice In Commercial Rice Dryers, Maria Alejandra Billiris

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research was to quantify and assess the energy use and efficiency of commercial cross-flow dryers when drying rice using a range of drying and ambient conditions. First, equations that predict the theoretical energy required to dry rice from any given initial moisture content to a desired final moisture content were developed for several rice cultivars using a semi-theoretical approach to obtain a basis for comparison to calculate energy efficiency. Theoretical energy requirements, expressed as the energy required per unit mass of water removed, increased exponentially as initial moisture content decreased. Additionally, medium-grains required more energy to …

Local Food And Agriculture Awareness: The Literacy Of Local Produce And Agriculture In Northwest Arkansas, Kyle Colton Flynn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that adolescents and children, both male and female, are failing to meet the daily fruit and vegetable consumption requirements (Kim et al., 2011; Upton et al., 2012; Harris et al., 2012). Other studies have shown that with increased exposure and availability of produce, students (K-5) tend to consume more fruits and vegetables (Cullen et al., 2009; Evans et al., 2012). The purpose of this study is to identify whether Northwest Arkansas eleventh grade high school students possess experience and knowledge of local produce and agriculture. Out of 1054 students enrolled at …

Livelihood Decisions “Choosing” Protein Deficiency: Relationship Between Meat Consumption, Livestock Production, And Globalization In The Bangatan Household, Corey Wood

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study examines the protein deficiency in Tanzania from a livelihood, decision based perspective, by looking at household decisions concerning meat protein consumption and production, in the Bangatan village area. More specifically it examines decisions regarding selling livestock rather than consuming it, the purpose of this cash generation, and globalization’s effects on these livelihood decisions. Predictions included: 1) no correlation or possibly a negative correlation between amount of livestock owned and meat protein consumed 2) families with more cash wealth eat more meat and 3) globalization has effected livelihood decisions regarding the direction of cash over the last 10 years …

A Portrait Of A Farm: A Short Film Documenting Small-Scale Livestock Production On Hayters Hill Farm In Byron Bay, Noah Throop

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Over the past two-hundred years, the industrialization and mechanization of agriculture has slowly dissolved the centuries-old bond between human beings, the land and their food. Today, this disconnect threatens to exacerbate wide scale environmental degradation and a wide array of chronic diseases. However small, local farms that sell their produce directly to consumers are in a position to reverse this trend and reconnect consumers with their food. Small-scale farmers are able to see the health of the environment as instrumental to their economic and personal wellbeing and are able to be held accountable for their farming practices by their customers. …

Can Yamhill County Feed Itself?, Katie O'Brien, Katharine Holm, Kourtney Bailey, Suzannah Klaniecki, Zach Lea, Madison Sanchez

Papers from ENVS 485 (Environmental Problem-Solving Seminar)

In this paper, we considered the following question: If Yamhill County in northwest Oregon were to become isolated, would the population be able to survive off the agricultural products grown within its boundaries? We looked at what the farms in Yamhill County grow and how large of a population they could support. Essentially, this looked at the feasibility of a purely local food system within the borders of Yamhill County. We hypothesized that Yamhill County would not be able to feed itself without outsourcing; stemming from this hypothesis, we examined the maximum amount of food that can be produced locally …

Department Of Economics Publication List 2012, Penny Stover

Economics Pamphlet Series (1985-2016)

This compilation lists works authored by Department of Economics faculty members and other staff working on projects funded through the Department of Economics. Publications resulting from their research and academic activities are indexed by author at the end of this pamphlet for easy access by the public. The articles were published between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012, except for those works printed in italics which have been accepted for publication but not actually printed as of December 31, 2012.

Chiriquí, Panamá: Una Investigación Del Esfuerzo Multi-Nivel Que Aspira A Mejorar La Alimentación En Escuelas Primarias De Zonas Rurales Y Urbanas, Ni Cole Sofia Smallwood

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study aimed to discover how external organizations, teachers, and parents impact primary student health in rural and urban areas in the Chiriquí Province of Panama. The objectives were to analyze the role of the stated variables in student nutrition and to evaluate the effectiveness of the food programs implemented at the schools. With permission and help from MEDUCA I chose two urban and two rural schools in the David, Chiriquí area. I conducted semi-structured interview with four parents and five teachers in the rural area; three parents and five teachers in the urban area; and one government official. Panama …

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

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

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

El Peso Profundo De 9 Millones De Toneladas: Un Análisis De Los Efectos Del Modelo Sojero Paraguayo En Las Vidas De Mujeres Campesinas = The Heavy Weight Of 9 Million Tons: An Analysis Of The Effects Of The Paraguayan Soy Model On The Lives Of Rural Women, Abigayle Dolmseth

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

A partir de los años 50, Paraguay ha tenido como objetivo una forma de desarrollo basada en la exportación de productos agropecuarios. Históricamente, Paraguay ha estado asociado a la imagen de un país “eminentemente agropecuario,” cuyos cultivos principales han variado con la demanda del mercado externo. En los años más recientes, la producción del monocultivo de soja ha llegado a dominar este modelo “agroexportador,” lo que ha causado y continúa causando, junto con el advenimiento de las políticas neoliberales de los años 90, gran cantidad de problemas climáticos y políticos dentro de las comunidades campesinas. Pero los problemas del modelo …

Production, Culture, And Representation: An Anthropological Exploration Of Food In Kathmandu, Nepal, Blair Brady

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper explores various food-­‐related narratives, including meat production in Kathmandu, organic farming, the separate experiences of American researchers and American missionaries, "haute cuisine" in a luxury hotel, and a nutritional rehabilitation clinic for malnourished children. Accompanying these narratives are my own experiences that are made communicable through making, or watching food being made. The result of these narratives is a growing picture of the various roles food plays within our lives-­‐ generated by what was communicated by the people who source, cook, and eat food, but also infused by my own observations. Included narratives primarily concern food's ability to …

Interactive Displays On Environmental Stewardship For General Agricultural Audiences, Leslie J. Johnson, Charles Shapiro

Nebraska Cooperative Extension: Faculty and Staff Publications

Extension displays are not always easy to develop. Interactive displays for general audiences are even more difficult. Each year, the University of Nebraska – Lincoln develops multiple displays for Husker Harvest Days, a Nebraska-based agricultural trade show. The University’s 2012 theme was “Strengthening the State of Beef”. The Animal Manure Management workgroup, along with others working in environmental stewardship at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln came together to develop a backdrop titled “Nebraska’s beef industry thrives by its stewardship”. Along with the backdrop, multiple interactive displays were used to grab the attention of an agricultural audience not necessarily involved …

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

Undergraduate Economic Review

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

The Role Of Speculators In Recent Price Volatility In Wheat Futures Markets, Jacob Delane Holloway

Student Theses and Dissertations

Investors in the agricultural futures markets have been blamed for the recent price spikes. Consequently, policies have been proposed to curb speculation in these markets. This study evaluates "excessive" speculation or the lack thereof in the US wheat markets using hedging ratios, speculative ratios, Working's speculative `T' index and Granger causality tests to examine the investment activities of commodity index traders. The study results show that there is no "excess" speculation in the US wheat markets over the 2006-2011 periods. Indeed, the speculation levels found in this study are not significantly different from historical results reported in other studies and …

Igrow Soybeans: Best Management Practices For Soybean Production, David E. Clay, Charles Gregg Carlson, Sharon A. Clay, Larry Wagner, Darrell L. Deneke, Christopher H. Hay

Agronomy, Horticulture, and Plant Science Books

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property And Opportunities For Food Security In The Philippines, Jane Payumo, Howard Grimes, Antonio Alfonso, Stanley P. Kowalski, Keith Jones, Karim Maredia, Rodolfo Estigoy

Law Faculty Scholarship

By 2050, the Philippine population is projected to increase by as much as 41 percent, from 99.9 million to nearly 153 million people. Producing enough food for such an expanding population and achieving food security remain a challenge for the Philippine government. This paper argued that intellectual property rights (IPR) can play a key role in achieving the nation’s current goal to be food-secure and provided examples to illustrate that the presence of sound intellectual property (IP) helps foster research, development, and deployment of agricultural innovations. This paper also offered key recommendations about how the IP system can be further …

Measurement Of The Effect Of Policy Changes On Volatility In Dairy Markets1, Eoin Kelly, Declan O'Connor, Michael Keane

Irish Business Journal

Volatility in dairy commodity markets has become a major concern for many in the dairy supply chain and is likely to remain so in the future. Changes to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) over the past decade have more closely aligned EU and World prices and their associated volatilities. The aim of this paper is to measure volatility at farm level in Ireland over time, identify possible reasons for the increased volatility and identify ways of reducing volatility. Statistical measures such as coefficient of variation (CV) and annualised standard deviation are used to provide measures of past volatility and its …

Accounting For Product Substitution In The Analysis Of Food Taxes Targeting Obesity, Zhen Miao, John C. Beghin, Helen H. Jensen

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

We extend the existing literature on food taxes targeting obesity. We systematically incorporate the implicit substitution between added sugars and solid fats into a comprehensive food demand system and evaluate the effect of taxes on sugars and fats. The approach conditions how food and obesity taxes affect total calorie intake. The proposed methodology accounts for the ability of consumers to substitute leaner low-fat and low-sugar items for rich food items within the same food group. This substitution is integrated into a calibrated demand system in addition to the substitution among food groups, using recent food intake data and existing demand …

Critical Research Needs For Successful Food Systems Adaptation To Climate Change, Michelle Miller, Molly Anderson, Charles A. Francis, Chad Kruger, Carol Barford, Jacob Park, Brent H. Mccown

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

There is a growing sense of the fragility of agricultural production in the Global North and South and of increasing risks to food security, as scientific observations confirm significant changes in the Gulf Stream, polar ice, atmospheric CO₂, methane release, and other measures of climate change. This sense is heightened as each of us experiences extreme weather, such as the increasing frequency of droughts, floods, unseasonal temperatures, and erratic seasonality. The central research challenge before us is how global, national, regional, and local food systems may adapt to accelerating climate change stresses and uncertainties to ensure the availability, …

Energy In The Corn Belt: Is Maize Production Sustainable?, Matthew Bernau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Technological and scientific innovation has transformed agricultural production. Corn production methods changed from a sustainable, nutrient recycling production system to one reliant on imported fossil energy inputs. Located in the Western Corn Belt, Union County, South Dakota was chosen as the study area. Changes in production methods are represented by four technological epochs: 1) The Draft Horse Epoch, 1890-1920; 2) The Tractor Epoch, 1920-1950; 3) The Fertilizer Epoch, 1950-1980; and 4) The Biotechnology and Precision Agriculture Epoch, 1980-2010. The energy budget method was used to measure the energy sustainability of corn production. The findings show that the volume of corn …

Economic Optimization And Precision Agriculture: A Carbon Footprint Story, Rachael M. Brown

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This thesis examines the economic and environmental impacts that precision agriculture technologies (PATs) can have on the carbon footprint of a grain farm. An analysis is offered using two manuscripts. The first examines the impacts of three PATs and compares the findings to a conventional farming method. It was found that all three PATs investigated showed a potential Pareto improvement over conventional farming. The second manuscript expanded the model used previously to in order to develop a process to construct a carbon efficient frontier (CEF). The model employed examined uniform and variable rate technologies. In addition to the CEF, a …

Agroforestry And Smallholder Farmers: Climate Change Adaptation Through Sustainable Land Use, Colin Mccabe

Capstone Collection

Agriculture in the developing world will be extremely hard hit by climate change, and smallholder farmers in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are among the most vulnerable to its impacts. There is a range of agricultural adaptations to climate change, and each context demands a unique appraisal of impacts and adaptations based on specific geography, local climate variability and expected change, and social conditions. The term “climate-smart agriculture” (CSA) has come to embody a set of practices in crop and livestock cultivation that 1) reduce greenhouse gas emissions (climate change mitigation), 2) build resilience to the impacts of climate change for …

How Population Density Influences Agricultural Intensification And Productivity: Evidence From Ethiopia, Anna Leigh Josephson

Open Access Theses

We use household-level panel data to estimate how population density impacts agricultural intensification and farm income in Ethiopia. We hypothesize that increases in population density affect agricultural intensification and farm income directly through information flows, institutional development, and reduction in transactions costs. Increases in population density also affect agricultural intensification and farm income indirectly through farm size, agricultural wage rates, and staple crop prices. We find that increases in population density lead to lower farm sizes, which has major implications for agricultural intensification and household well-being. Our analysis indicates that increases in population density cause farmers to purchase more inorganic …

Food Webs And Food Sovereignty: Research Agenda For Sustainability, Charles A. Francis, Michelle Miller, Molly Anderson, Nancy Creamer, Michelle Wander, Jacob Park, Thomas Green, Brent Mccown

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Future food production will be constrained by the scarcity of fossil fuel and fresh water as well as increasing intensity and unpredictability of weather events and climate changes. The assurance of food security and equity for many consumers is complicated by concentration of ownership of land and other production resources, as well as a global corporate food systems model that is driven by profit at the expense of people and the environment. To assess potential alternatives to the contemporary global food chain, well focused research is needed on local food production and food webs where small- and midscale family farms …

Carbon Storage And Sequestration By Trees In Urban And Community Areas Of The United States, David J. Nowak, Eric J. Greenfield, Robert E. Hoehn, Elizabeth Lapoint

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Carbon storage and sequestration by urban trees in the United States was quantified to assess the magnitude and role of urban forests in relation to climate change. Urban tree field data from 28 cities and 6 states were used to determine the average carbon density per unit of tree cover. These data were applied to statewide urban tree cover measurements to determine total urban forest carbon storage and annual sequestration by state and nationally. Urban whole tree carbon storage densities average 7.69 kg C m^‒2 of tree cover and sequestration densities average 0.28 kg C m^‒2 of tree …

Evaluating Population Connectivity For Species Of Conservation Concern In The American Great Plains, Samuel A. Cushman, Erin L. Landguth, Curtis H. Flather

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Habitat loss and fragmentation are widely recognized as among the most important threats to global biodiversity. New analytical approaches are providing an improved ability to predict the effects of landscape change on population connectivity at vast spatial extents. This paper presents an analysis of population connectivity for three species of conservation concern [swift fox (Vulpes velox); lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus); massasuaga (Sistrurus catenatus)] across the American Great Plains region. We used factorial least-cost path and resistant kernel analyses to predict effects of landscape conditions on corridor network connectivity. Our predictions of population connectivity provide …

Sustainable Production Of Swine: Putting Lipstick On A Pig?, Michelle B. Nowlin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Bse) On World Protein Supply, Jarrod Kersey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As world population, per capita income and urbanization increase, consumption of meat, poultry, milk and eggs will continue to rise to meet the needs of approximately nine billion people in 2050. Global beef, pig and chicken production and per capita consumption increased between 2000 and 2010, with growth in broiler production and consumption outpacing both beef and swine. The increased production and consumption requires readily available feed ingredients in regions where animal production is rapidly developing. Animal-based protein feed ingredients are often difficult to move from country to country due to real or perceived risk of animal disease. Zoosanitary standards …

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

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

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

This study reaches further than …

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

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

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

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

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

Student Publications

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