Agricultural and Resource Economics Commons^™

Adjusting Farm Custom Rates And Grain Storage Rental Rates For 2011, Doug Jose

Cornhusker Economics

Custom Rates - How much should custom rates be adjusted this year? That’s a question on the minds of a lot of operators as they prepare to go to the field. The economic structure of agriculture has changed dramatically in the past 12 months. Unfortunately, this is the off-year to conduct our biennial Nebraska Custom Rates Survey. The survey was last conducted a year ago, in the January to March time period of 2010.

Women In Agriculture Conference 2011, Cheryl Griffith

Cornhusker Economics

Taking Charge of Our Future was the theme of the 26th Women in Agriculture (WIA) Conference, February 17-18, 2011. Nearly 400 women participated in the event, hosted by the Department of Agricultural Economics, University Extension and the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (IANR).

Attendees were from all corners of Nebraska, with others making the trip from Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota and Indiana. The average attendee has attended the conference six times over the 26 years. For 53 women this was their first experience attending a WIA Conference, and two have attended the conference all 26 years. The College …

Beef Cow Replacement Decisions: Is Keeping Open Cows Possible?, Trenton T. Bohling, Darrell R. Mark

Cornhusker Economics

In the past few years, some cow-calf producers have encountered abnormally large numbers of open, or unbred, cows in their herd. A couple of years ago, trichomoniasis, a venereal cattle disease spread by bulls, contributed to high percentages of open cows. This year, open cows are again showing up in herds, hypothesized to partially be the result of difficult winter conditions last winter and “washy” grass early last summer. In some cases, 40-70 percent of a cow herd has tested open, leaving producers to determine how best to replace these animals. Typically, options considered to replace these open cows are …

Cash Leasing With Integrity, Bruce B. Johnson

Cornhusker Economics

The widow lady was calling from her retirement care facility. Her tenant of over 20 years wanted to finalize the cash rent agreement for 2011, and she was wondering, “What should I do?” With a lease rate that hadn’t seen an increase for several years, her per-acre rent payments in 2010 were not even half the average for the area. Even when her tenant said he could “raise it a few dollars per acre for this year,” the 2011 payments would fall even further behind the area average.

The out-of state land owner was following national media coverage of the …

A Literary Analysis And Case Study Evaluation Of The Environmental, Cultural, And Economic Impacts Of Ecotourism, Ashley M. Driver

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Nebraska Agricultural Land Markets Showing Strong Gains, Bruce B. Johnson, Roger K. Wilson, Sara Van Newkirk, Tyler Rosener

Cornhusker Economics

Riding the wave of high commodity prices and farm income levels, Nebraska’s agricultural land values rose 22 percent in the 12-month period ending February 1, 2011. According to preliminary results from the annual University of Nebraska-Lincoln Nebraska Farm Real Estate Market Developments Survey, the state’s all-land average value is at a historic high of $1,833 per acre (Figure 1 on next page, and Table 1 on page 3). That level is double the state’s all-land average just six years previously in 2005.

While all classes of farmland posted large percentage gains, the cropland categories showed the strongest gains - a …

Growing Conflict: Agriculture, Innovation, And Immigration In San Luis Obispo County, 1837–1937, Douglas P. Jenzen

Master's Theses

The history of San Luis Obispo and its surrounding areas is complex. Agriculture, innovation, and immigration have all contributed to the formation of the region. The Spanish, Mexican, and early American periods established the framework successive waves of immigrants had to live within. Native Americans and immigrants from China, Portugal, Switzerland, Japan, the Philippines, and other regions of the United States have all toiled in the fields and contributed to America’s tables at various points throughout county history. Many contingencies determined the treatment of successive waves of immigrants. Growth and development are taking place at exponential rates on the very …

Corn Pest Risk Survey Results, Scott Fausti, Jonathan Lundgren, Emmanuel Opoku

Economics Commentator (1972- 2016)

No abstract provided.

College Food Systems Comparison, Courtney Fearon

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Long-Term Care For Farmers And Ranchers, David J. Goeller

Cornhusker Economics

The population of the United States is aging. There will be 2.5 million Americans who will have their 65th birthday in 2011, which equates to nearly 7,000 per day. By the end of the year we should have 41 million Americans over the age of 65. The potential cost of long-term care and the impact on the farm business is a significant concern for many Nebraska farmers and ranchers. Many have become increasingly aware of how easily the cost of long-term care can wipe out a lifetime of savings, or hamper the transfer of a family farm, ranch or business …

Economic Outlook, Emmanuel Opoku, Scott W. Fausti

Economics Commentator (1972- 2016)

No abstract provided.

The Economic Impact Of The Sheep Industry In South Dakota; Abs 482 Class Experiences In South America (Brazil And Argentina), Gary Taylor, Martin Beutler

Economics Commentator (1972- 2016)

No abstract provided.

When Do Fat Taxes Increase Consumer Welfare?, Jayson L. Lusk, Christiane Schroeter

Agribusiness

Previous analyses of fat taxes have generally worked within an empirical framework in which it is difficult to determine whether consumers benefit from the policy. This note outlines on simple means to determine whether consumers benefit from a fat tax by comparing the ratio of expenditures on the taxed good to the weight effect of the tax against the individual’s willingness to pay for a one-pound weight reduction. Our empirical calculations suggest that an individual would have to be willing to pay about $1500 to reduce weight by one pound for a tax on sugary beverages to be welfare enhancing. …

“Enemies Of Life In The Name Of Life”: Seed Patents, Gm Crops, And The Global South, Patricia Arenson

Anthropology Department Honors Papers

In the past few decades agribusiness in the global North has developed a booming industry in genetically modified (GM) crops; industry giants have secured patents and aggressively protected them to maximize profits. This new technology has been exported to the Global south, where its introduction has caused a cascade of horrific problems for farmers and non-­‐farmers alike. GM crops and seed patents have exacerbated poverty, accelerated the loss of indigenous knowledge, and threatened to destroy ecosystems through the loss of biodiversity. This honors thesis explores these issues with a focus on the situation in India, where Vandana Shiva has led …

Paper Fish And Policy Conflict: Catch Shares And Ecosystem-Based Management In Maine’S Groundfishery, Jennifer F. Brewer

Geography

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration professes support for ecosystembased fisheries management, as mandated by Congress in the Fishery Conservation and Management Act, and as endorsed by the Obama Administration’s national ocean policy. Nonetheless, driving agency policies, including catch shares and fishing quotas, focus principally on individual species, diverting attention from ecosystem considerations such as habitat, migratory patterns, trophic relationships, fishing gear, and firmlevel decision making. Environmental non-governmental organization (ENGO) agendas manifest similar inconsistencies. A case study of Maine’s groundfishery demonstrates implications of this policy conflict at the local level. There, multigenerational fishing villages have historically pursued diversified and adaptive …

Gis-Based Estimation Of Housing Amenities: The Case Of High Grounds And Stagnant Streams, Shibashis Mukherjee, Arthur J. Caplan

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

We use GIS and econometric methods to estimate the marginal implicit values of environmental amenities associated with residential land parcels in the mountain town of Logan, Utah. Amenities include proximity to open spaces (such as parks, golf courses and lakes), commercial zones, major roads, streams, and general visibility of surrounding topography in the valley as determined by the elevation of the land parcel. The amenity value estimates are corrected for spatial autocorrelation. We find spatially dependent relationships between (1) a parcel’s value and its elevation, and (2) a parcel’s value and its adjacency to a stagnant stream. To our knowledge, …

Matching Grants, Income Redistribution And Decentralized Leadership, Arthur J. Caplan, C. Emilson, D. Silva

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

We examine the decentralized provision of an impure public good by regional governments in a federation similar in certain respects to both the European Union and the United States. The central authority redistributes income and provides matching grants on a per rate basis after it observes the regions’ contributions to the impure public good. Imperfectly mobile workers react to regional and central governments’ policies by establishing residence in their most preferred region. Despite imperfect labor mobility, we show that the allocation of the impure public good and the interregional income redistribution policy are generally efficient in a federation with decentralized …

Carbon Sequestration And Permit Trading On The Competitive Fringe, Arthur J. Caplan

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

This paper makes two contributions to the carbon-sequestration literature. The first is the development of a theoretical framework in which sequestration and permit trading are analyzed jointly in the context of a competitive fringe model. The second is a numerical analysis demonstrating the role market structure, or market power, might play in the determination of an equilibrium sequestration allocation and carbon price. We present three comparative-static cases, the first two of which assess the impact of relative changes in the cost structures of the dominant firm and competitive fringe. For these two cases we find that the equilibrium allocation of …

Animal Welfare: Perceptions Of Nonmetropolitan Nebraskans: 2011 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Randolph L. Cantrell, Bradley Lubben, Connie Reimers-Hild

Nebraska Rural Poll

Almost all rural Nebraskans recognize the importance of livestock and poultry production to the state’s economy and most rural Nebraskans are familiar with livestock care practices. In fact, many rural Nebraskans have experience raising beef cattle, poultry and swine. They have less experience with dairy production.

Most rural Nebraskans believe animal welfare means providing adequate exercise, space and social activities for the animals in addition to food, water and shelter. However, the vast majority of rural Nebraskans agree that animal welfare means at least providing adequate food, water and shelter to livestock animals.

Most rural Nebraskans trust livestock farmers and …

Quality Of Life In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: 2011 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Randolph L. Cantrell, Bradley D. Lubben, Connie Reimers-Hild

Nebraska Rural Poll

Most rural Nebraskans are positive about their current situation. And, they continue to be generally positive about their future situation. Over one-half (52%) of rural Nebraskans think they are better off than they were five years ago and just under one-half (45%) think they will be better off ten years from now.

Certain groups remain pessimistic about their situation. Persons with lower household incomes, older persons, persons with lower educational levels and persons who are divorced or separated are the groups most likely to be pessimistic about the present and the future.

When asked if they believe people are powerless …