Agricultural Economics Commons^™

Using Precision Agriculture Field Data To Evaluate Combine Harvesting Efficiency, Justin H. Carroll, Don Johnson, Jeff Miller, Kristofor Brye

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

Soybeans must be harvested during a limited time period using expensive combines and associated equipment. Maximizing combine field efficiency, the ratio of the actual harvesting capacity to theoretical harvesting capacity, is an important objective of machinery managers. Spatial and temporal yield data from a 2012 CaseIH 8120 Axial-Flow combine equipped with a 9 meter MacDon D-65 Draper header and the Case-IH Advanced Farming System (AFS) yield monitoring system were used to examine field efficiency when harvesting soybean in three Arkansas Delta irrigated soybean fields during the 2015 season. Time efficiencies (TE) in the three fields ranged from 72.9% to 85.8% …

U.S. Drought Monitor, December 22, 2015, Richard R. Heim Jr.

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of the United States for December 22, 2015 (12/22/15) plus: United States crop areas experiencing drought (map), an approximate percentage of crop located in drought by state (bar graph), and the percentage of crop area located in drought during the past 52 weeks (line graph) for corn, soybeans, hay, cattle, and winter wheat.

Affordable Care Act 2016 Changes, Marilyn R. Schlake

Cornhusker Economics

Since enacted in 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has in some capacity affected nearly all individuals and businesses throughout the United States. With its sweeping legislation, insurance companies, health providers, employers and individuals alike have changed how they operate within the health industry. These changes will continue as more ACA regulations go into effect in 2016 and 2017. Understanding how these changes affect you and your family and business is important to successfully navigate through the evolving ACA regulations.

U.S. Drought Monitor, December 15, 2015, Richard Tinker

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for December 15, 2015 (12/15/15) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

Mobile Broadband In Nebraska, Charlotte Narjes, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cullen Robbins

Cornhusker Economics

Mobile Broadband Coverage in Nebraska

• Is mobile broadband coverage available throughout Nebraska?
• Is there a difference between rural and urban areas with respect to mobile wireless speed?
• Should mobile wireless coverage be classified as broadband?

These are some of the questions that were answered by an August 2015 Nebraska Public Service Commission (PSC) report. The study, which began in October 2013, was part of the Nebraska Broadband Initiative efforts to facilitate the integration of broadband and information technology into state and local economics.

Managing Net Income Risk With Crop Insurance, Farm Bill, And Hedging, Cory Walters

Cornhusker Economics

Managing uncertain yields and prices before planting is a primary concern to producers, especially when financial ruin is at stake. To manage uncertainty, producers are presented with a complex set of financial tools from both public sources (crop insurance and Farm Bill) and private sources (commodity futures markets). Over time these tools and their relation have evolved. Prior to the mid-1990s, before crop insurance expanded, producers relied primarily on privately operated commodity futures markets and publicly funded government programs, such as the disaster assistance program and the loan deficiency program, to reduce income uncertainty. Since this time the U.S. government …

Using Precision Agriculture Field Data To Evaluate Combine Harvesting Efficiency, Justin Carroll

Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology Undergraduate Honors Theses

Soybean crops must be harvested during a limited time period using expensive combines and associated equipment. Maximizing combine field efficiency, the ratio of the actual harvesting capacity to theoretical harvesting capacity, is an important objective of machinery managers. Spatial and temporal yield data from a 2012 CaseIH 8120 Axial-Flow combine equipped with a 30-foot MacDon D-65 Draper header and the Case-IH Advanced Farming System (AFS) yield monitoring system were used to examine field efficiency when harvesting soybean in three Arkansas Delta irrigated soybean fields during the 2015 season. Time efficiencies (TE) in the three fields ranged from 72.9 to 85.8% …

2015–2016 Kentucky Agricultural Economic Situation And Outlook, Kenneth H. Burdine, Todd Davis, Timothy A. Woods, William M. Snell, Lee Meyer, Jeffrey W. Stringer

Agricultural Situation and Outlook

No abstract provided.

A Regional Approach To Analysis Of Food Security Framework And Policies Of The Economic Community Of West African States (Ecowas), Hannah Elizabeth Shear

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Food security is always a concern for consumers, but especially for those in West Africa, where the population of food insecure people has continued to grow over the past decade despite attempts by initiatives such as the World Food Program and the establishment of Millennium Development Goals. The people of West Africa are subject to repetitive natural disasters and are often in political upheaval. Many economic policies have been established to mitigate the impact that production disasters have on the consumers; one of these policies is the utilization of regional food reserves.

In 2010, the Economic Community of West African …

Economic Feasibility Of Aquaponics In Arkansas, Leah Ashley English

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Concerns regarding population growth and resource scarcity have led to a recent renaissance of food production research. Over the past few decades, scientists have discovered new and innovative methods for growing food that, cumulatively, may hold the key to efficiently and sustainably feeding an ever-increasing world population. One method, known as aquaponics, has shown promise as being a sustainable solution for producing food locally in all parts of the world. Although many studies have shown aquaponic food production to be technically feasible, there are relatively few studies concerning the economic feasibility of aquaponics in various regions. To determine whether aquaponics …

Modifying A Cow-Calf Biophysical Simulation Model For Analyses Of Alternative Enterprises, Jennifer L. Lutes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cow-calf producers in the United States, tasked with providing beef calves for the beef industry, have had a multitude of difficulties to overcome in recent years. Producers in northwest Arkansas were negatively impacted by high hay prices coupled with low beef cattle market prices due to severe drought experienced in portions of 2010, 2011, and 2012. During this time they also faced high grain prices, due to a record low harvest, combined with portions of the corn harvest diverted from human and animal feed to ethanol production. Tight lending policies of this time, reminiscent of the housing market crash in …

Evaluating The Impacts Of Respondent Errors In Arms: A Case Of Farm Service Agency Loans, Louise Nicole Mcminn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many studies have used the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) to research various aspects involving the agricultural sector in the United States. Since nonresponse and inaccurate reporting may cause significant bias in statistical analysis, research was conducted to determine the magnitude of response error on the farm debt section of the ARMS Phase III. A multinomial logit model identified demographic, structural, and financial characteristics of FSA Farm Loan Program (FLP) borrowers who refused to indicate if they had end of year farm debt, or who accurately or inaccurately classified their farm operations as having end …

Soybean Planting And Risk-Return Tradeoffs In The Mid-Southern United States, Weston Weeks

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is comprised of two studies on the effects of soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) planting date (PD) and maturity group (MG) selection on producer expected returns. Having to replant soybean after early-season planting because of poor stand establishment is costly for producers. Replanting costs have increased in the last ten years as seed and other input costs for soybean have increased. Using five years of field trial results from two locations in Arkansas, the yield response to early and late season plant population density has been estimated to determine yield and future revenue potential for the purpose of …

Neural Correlates Of Decision-Making Under Ambiguity And Conflict, Helen Pushkarskaya, Michael Smithson, Jane E. Joseph, Christine R. Corbly, Ifat Levy

Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

HIGHLIGHTS

• We use a simple gambles design in an fMRI study to compare two conditions: ambiguity and conflict.

• Participants were more conflict averse than ambiguity averse.

• Ambiguity aversion did not correlate with conflict aversion.

• Activation in the medial prefrontal cortex correlated with ambiguity level and ambiguity aversion.

• Activation in the ventral striatum correlated with conflict level and conflict aversion.

Studies of decision making under uncertainty generally focus on imprecise information about outcome probabilities (“ambiguity”). It is not clear, however, whether conflicting information about outcome probabilities affects decision making in the same manner as ambiguity does. …

U.S. Drought Monitor, November 24, 2015, Richard R. Heim Jr.

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of the United States for November 24, 2015 (11/24/15) plus: United States crop areas experiencing drought (map), an approximate percentage of crop located in drought by state (bar graph), and the percentage of crop area located in drought during the past 52 weeks (line graph) for corn, soybeans, hay, cattle, and winter wheat.

Farmland Use Decisions In The Dakota's: Key Results From The 2015 Producer Survey, Larry Janssen, Moses Luri, Md. Chowdhury, Hongli Feng, David Hennessy

Economics Commentator (1972- 2016)

This newsletter is written to summarize the major findings from the 2015 survey on farmland use decisions in the Dakotas which was completed by 1,026 producers located across 57 counties in South Dakota and North Dakota. We wish to thank each person that completed this survey in March or April of 2015. We are sending this newsletter to their household as our “thank you” for participating. The key findings should be of general interest to a wider audience and the following content is written for this purpose.

The Future Of Farming In Capable And Small Hands: The Young Farmer’S Movement In Waterloo Region 1907-1924, Morgan Williams

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Rental Agreements For Cover Crop Grazing, Jay Parsons, Mary Drewnoski

Cornhusker Economics

Cover crops are becoming increasing popular throughout Nebraska and the surrounding region. As their name implies, cover crops cover the ground helping prevent soil erosion outside of the growing season for the primary crop. Below ground, cover crops also contribute to soil organic matter. Increasingly, people are looking at the above ground biomass produced by cover crops as a potential source of feed for cattle or other ruminant livestock. Technically, this would make them double cropped forages instead of cover crops but that is a topic for another day. For now, let's consider the fact that many of the crop …

U.S. Drought Monitor, November 17, 2015, Richard R. Heim Jr.

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of the United States for November 17, 2015 (11/17/15) plus: United States crop areas experiencing drought (map), an approximate percentage of crop located in drought by state (bar graph), and the percentage of crop area located in drought during thepast 52 weeks (line graph) for corn, soybeans, hay, cattle, and winter wheat.

Using Behavioral Economic Insights To Improve Program Design, Christopher Gustafson, Mazbahul Ahamad

Cornhusker Economics

The field of behavioral economics has added important tools and insights to economics that can be used to increase the effectiveness of interventions or research in diverse settings ranging from the United States to East Africa. In this article, we briefly contrast traditional economic tools and newer behavioral economic approaches before providing examples of how insights from behavioral economics into individual behavior can be used to improve the design of programs.