Two double-limit tobit models are used to identify significant risk factors that most affect farm-raised catfish losses from weather-related events and from disease outbreaks. Results of the weather loss model indicate that the variables for operator education level, number of ponds, pond water depth, production management strategy, past experience with severe losses from low oxygen levels from off-farm power outages, past experience with severe losses from diseases, and being in the South are statistically significant. Results of the disease loss model indicate that the variables for operator experience and pond water depth are significant. Development of models explaining weather and disease losses through observable variables provides a better understanding of the interrelation between the loss perils and explanatory variables so management strategies can be developed to mitigate losses from identified risk factors.

Cost-effectiveness is an important consideration in evaluating choices for meeting environmental quality objectives. Estimated crop yield response functions and the associated groundwater-nitrate pollution production functions were used to evaluate the optimal N fertilization and on-farm abatement costs for alternative cropping systems, with management choices at both the intensive and extensive margins. The cost-effective corn production system, which meets the Health Canada standard for nitrates with the highest returns ($278 ha–1) and lowest on-farm abatement cost ($248 ha–1), was a four-year corn-corn-soybean-wheat rotation under conventional tillage. At contaminant limits above the Health Canada standard, the cost-effective wheat cropping system shifted from a soybean-wheat rotation under no-tillage to a corn-soybean-wheat rotation under no-tillage.

Auction experiments were used to examine demand and premium differences between organic, non-OM (genetically modified), and conventional versions for two pairs of fresh and processed foods. Results showed processed foods had greater substitutability among the versions than fresh products. Conventional versions were the least price sensitive, while non-OM versions were the most sensitive. Significant premium differences were found between fresh and processed foods for sweet com and tortilla chips, but not for potatoes and potato chips. Results from random effects models mirrored these findings. In general, the extent of premium differences between fresh and processed versions appears dependent on the food product.

First-degree and second-degree stochastic dominance were used to separate a panel of 112 dairy farms with ten annual observations per farm into successful and less successful groups using four different performance measures. Logit regression using 16 independent variables was then used to determine important farm characteristics leading to farm success. High milk production and controlling hired labor and purchased feed expenses were important. The selective adoption of new technologies was also important. Optimal debt-asset ratios varied over the 10-year period.

This study explores factors driving tract-level heterogeneity in the quality of leases executed by property owners who transfer their mineral rights to firms that drill for and extract natural gas. The data set consists of tract-level aggregates of lease terms, our measures of lease quality, and tract-level census data from the leases. We find that higher-quality leases are negatively correlated with higher concentration of minority households when controlling for census-tract-level characteristics. Based on the findings, we propose policies to reduce observed heterogeneity in the quality of leases and, subsequently, to reduce residents' exposure to negative effects of nearby well sites.

The extent of forage purchasing behavior in milk production and its impact on profitability are analyzed using data from the 2000 and 2005 dairy versions of the Agricultural Resource Management Survey. Forage outsourcing is more common with hay than with silage and haylage, and is more prevalent in the western United States. Though silage and haylage outsourcing is found to impact profitability, the major profitability drivers appear to be farm size and efficiency. Evidence of significant forage contracting is found in the western United States.

Building on existing work evaluating food-attribute labels, we use data collected in 2010 from a national web-based survey of 1,002 households to examine consumer inferences and valuations of food products promoted as “sustainably produced.” A best-worst scale framework was implemented to identify how consumers define “sustainably produced” and their preferences for each of the sustainable farming practices considered. The results suggest that consumers perceive farm size and local production as important elements of sustainable agriculture while economic attributes exhibit a significant amount of heterogeneity, indicating segmentation in the sample and the potential for targeted marketing.

Using yield data for a sample of 123 dryland wheat producers in Montana, the effects of three area yield contracts, including the contract currently offered by the United States Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and two individual yield contracts on individual farm yield variability, are examined. The results indicate that while the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation area yield contract provides all farmers in the sample with some protection against yield variability, a simpler, actuarially equivalent “almost ideal” area yield contract provides substantially larger reductions in yield variability. However, actuarially equivalent individual yield contracts provide levels of protection against yield variability similar to those obtained under the “almost ideal” area yield contract at much lower premiums.

Metropolitan agriculture is economically important, especially in the Northeast. While faced with substantial economic and regulatory obstacles, commercial farming in urban areas is surviving and even prospering. In terms of standard models of agriculture in economic development, this is a puzzle. But more detailed, spatial economic models indicate how labor-intensive production of perishable commodities in urbanized areas can make economic sense, especially when coupled with environmental amenities that farming generates for nonfarm people. At the same time, environmental disamenities of agriculture are larger in densely populated areas. The political economy outcomes have tended to be favorable to continued farming, albeit with increased regulation. Nonetheless, many questions remain about the dynamics of agricultural adjustment to urbanization, and the possible steady-state mix of farm and nonfarm activities.

Conservation tillage offers economic and soil quality benefits, yet conventional tillage remains the prevailing system in some regions. The purpose of this study is to identify the effect of profitability factors, risk attitudes, crop rotations, and other farmer and farm characteristics on farmers’ choices to use no-till (NT), strip-till (ST) and reduced/conventional tillage (RCT) in producing dryland corn, wheat, and soybean in Kansas. The results show that factors such as crop yields, risk aversion, crop insurance, baling and grazing of crop residue, crop acreage, and farmers’ approach to adopting new technologies are significant factors in farmers’ choice of tillage practice.

The market impacts of generic dairy advertising are assessed using an industry model which encompasses supply and demand conditions at the retail, wholesale, and farm levels, and government intervention under the dairy price support program. The estimated model is used to simulate price and quantity values for four advertising scenarios: (1) no advertising, (2) historical fluid advertising, (3) historical manufactured advertising, and (4) historical fluid and manufactured advertising. Compared to previous studies, the dairy-industry model provides additional insights into the way generic dairy advertising influences prices and quantities at the retail, wholesale, and farm levels.

Over the past three decades or so, emissions trading has evolved from an idea that was little more than an academic curiosity to its current role as the centerpiece of the U.S. program to control acid rain and international programs to control greenhouse gases. This essay identifies some of the key milestones of this evolution, describes how that evolution was shaped by economic analysis, elicits some of the lessons about the design and effectiveness of emissions trading that have emerged from analysis of that evolution, and points out a few of the barriers that lie in the path of achieving a truly global carbon market.

The objective of this study was to test for the effect of consequentiality on the probability of a respondent opting out of voting in a stated preference survey. We find that respondents who believe that the survey is inconsequential are more likely to opt out than to vote yes in both binomial-choice and multinomial-choice formats and are more likely to vote no than to opt out in the multinomial-choice format. We also find that respondents who are uncertain about consequentiality are more likely to opt out than to choose yes or no under both choice formats.

Virginia's growing agritourism industry provides additional income to farms and mitigates risk. This study empirically analyzes the effect of demographic, operational, and financial factors on the profitability of agritourism operations using a primary data set collected from a survey of more than 500 agritourism operations. Results show that greater profitability is associated with operators who are motivated by additional income and have more education, larger operations with a greater percentage of income from agritourism, and visitors who spent more on average. Characteristics having a negative effect on profitability are wineries, locations farther from interstates, and difficulty accessing capital.

A multiyear regional risk programming model was used in evaluating the impacts of different environmental policies on cropping systems, input use, nonpoint source pollution, farm income, and risk. A direct expected utility maximizing problem (DEMP) objective with a Von Neuman Morgenstern utility function was used in deriving optimal cropping systems. A biophysical simulation model provided input for the optimization. Three types of policies—taxing, regulating the aggregate, and regulating the per acre level—were studied for two farm inputs—nitrogen and atrazine. It was observed that policies had varied and multiple cross-effects on pollutant loads, farm income, and risk. This information is crucial in developing successful policies toward improving water quality. If an appropriate input policy is chosen, both targeted and nontargeted pollutant loads can be managed. The three policies varied in their effects on pollutant loads and involved tradeoffs in water quality and economic attributes.

This study identifies several socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of individuals who visited farmer-to-consumer direct markets in New Jersey. The analysis was performed for each type of direct marketing facility: pick-your-own farms, roadside stands, farmers’ markets, and direct farm markets. Logit analysis results indicate that various factors affect visitation to each type of facility. Factors examined include consumer's consumption and variety of fruits and vegetables, price expectation, purpose of buying, age, sex, education, race, income, urbanization, and presence of home garden.

Policymakers in the Brazilian Amazon face the challenge of meeting environmental and developmental goals as cities and towns within these tropical forests continue to face migration pressure. Alternative government planning strategies have been implemented to address forest clearing in conjunction with meeting social agendas. This paper uses panel estimation methods to investigate the impact of settlement design on land use. Results indicate that new settlement designs developed to further social interaction have had a negative impact on land cover and land use transformation. Thus, while new settlement designs appear to positively impact stated social goals, including greater contact between families and access to water and services, these social advances have come at the expense of environmental goals.

This paper addresses the possibility that competitive rural manufacturing is increasingly driven by quality-of-life factors required to attract highly skilled and creative workers. Recent findings that highly creative workers are drawn to amenity-rich rural areas provide the empirical leverage for testing anecdotal claims that these areas tend to contain small manufacturing bases that are more reliant on innovation. This contrasts with the cost advantage rationale of traditional rural manufacturing, an advantage that is eroding with increased globalization. The analysis provides the first empirical evidence that the start of entrepreneurial manufacturing plants and the adoption of advanced technologies and management practices are strongly associated with the local employment share in highly creative occupations.

We investigate what farmland preservation programs reveal about the importance of protecting different rural amenities. An extensive content analysis of the enabling legislation of various farmland protection programs suggests wide variation exists in the protection of amenities. An analysis of 27 individual Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) programs’ selection criteria suggests these programs favor preserving amenities that are jointly provided by cropland and livestock operations. These PDR selection criteria also reveal unique preferences regarding the spatial patterns of preserved agricultural lands. Variation in relative weights given to protecting most parcel characteristics in PDR programs is not easily explained by factors that characterize areas experiencing farmland losses.

The prevention of invasive species is modeled as a “weaker link” public good. Under the weaker link aggregation technology, individual contributions beyond the lowest level will provide benefits, but these benefits progressively decline as contributions exceed the minimum. A two-region model is constructed, assuming incomplete information concerning costs of provision. This framework allows us to explain why we observe underinvestment in prevention, how information facilitates efficiency, and under what conditions information is most relevant. Specific implications regarding improved invasive species prevention policy are extracted and discussed.