Cost, returns, and economies of scale for small, medium and large catfish farms with recirculating ponds are presented for the upper Texas coast. Internal rates of return are 0.150, 0.183 and 0.219, respectively. Total investment is higher than farms with static ponds but investment per unit production capacity is 7 percent to 16 percent lower. Average total cost per pound is between $0,565 and $0,541, (11 percent-20 percent lower than farms using current technology). These results have implications for regional comparative advantage of catfish production as well as incentive for adoption of new technology in conventional ponds.

In recent years, considerable national attention has focused on the use of chemicals by the agriculture sector. Recent descriptive analyses have addressed the problem.of attempting to determine, or to describe, some of the social “costs” of chemicals used in agriculture which later move to non-agricultural areas. The primary effect of the attention on chemical use in agriculture has been legislative action relative to specific pesticides such as DDT and 2,4,5-T. These actions have made national news along with reports of measured residues of these pesticides in wildlife, fish and other forms of foodstuffs.

Farmers are interested in knowing whether applying inputs at variable rates across a field is economically viable. The answer depends on the crop, the input, their prices, the cost of variable rate technology (VRT) versus uniform rate technology (URT), and the spatial and yield response variability within each field. Methods were investigated for determining the range of spatial variability over which the return to VRT covers its additional cost compared with URT in fields with multiple management zones. Models developed in this article, or variants thereof, could be used to help farmers make the VRT adoption decision.

Conditional efficiency or forecast encompassing is tested among alternative pork production forecasts using the method proposed by Harvey and Newbold. One-, two-, and three-quarter ahead pork production forecasts made by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the University of Illinois and Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service, and those produced by a univariate time series model are evaluated. The encompassing tests provide considerably more information about forecast performance than a simple pair-wise test for equality of mean squared errors. The results suggest that at a one-quarter horizon, the Extension service forecasts encompass the competitors, but at longer horizons, a composite forecast may provide greater accuracy.

Survey data of 2,538 dairy farmers located in 12 southern states were used to analyze the factors influencing farmers' choice of milk handlers. Results from a qualitative response model indicate that a combination of price and non-price factors contribute to dairy farmers' attitudes toward their milk handlers. Specifically, the decision to change milk handlers was significantly influenced by prices paid and deductions charged. However, non-price factors including field services, friendly personnel, and loyalty to a handler contributed to the longer term affiliation of dairy farmers with their milk handlers.

During recent years we have begun to expect increases in prices that farmers pay for inputs. Rising costs of production have adversely affected the profits of many farming operations. The greatest relative change in prices has been in interest rates, but since 1972, and particularly since 1978, energy costs have exhibited a steep climb, as shown in Figure 1 (USDA, p. 427). Energy inputs such as LP gas, which is used heavily by the poultry industry, have shown particularly larger increases. The LP gas price paid by farmers nationwide rose from 38.9 cents per gallon in 1977 to 69.7 cents per gallon in 1981, a 79 percent increase (USDA, p. 422).

Changes to commodity programs in the 2002 Farm Bill increased the value of crop base acreages on which decoupled payments are received. The bill also expanded the availability of key conservation programs. This paper compares the value of payments from commodity programs (along with continued crop production) to the easement payment (and recreational lease revenue) available under the Wetland Reserve Program. A net present value model using risk-adjusted returns is employed in the analysis for Mississippi delta cropland containing rice, cotton, and soybean base. Sensitivity analysis is conducted on some of the key variables affecting the decision.

The demand for and supply of U.S. wheat, corn, and soybean exports is specified in a dynamic framework. Obtained results indicate differences in the export behavior of each product. U.S. corn exports are elastic, while U.S. soybean exports exhibit an inelastic response. For wheat, the derived elasticity of export demand had a positive sign. Hypothesis testing validated the dynamic structure of the estimated models in all markets. Stability properties were confirmed in export markets of corn and soybeans, but results were inconclusive for the wheat market. Adjustment coefficients indicate that exports and export prices do not adjust immediately to their equilibrium levels. Multiplier impacts indicate a stable path of convergence for all markets, with minimal impact of exogenous shocks on wheat and corn exports and export prices. Soybean export prices exhibit a significant response to changes in domestic export capacity, but minimal response to other exogenous shocks.

The application of manure phosphorus at rates above crop uptake has resulted in water pollution for some regions. In response, new manure management standards will require some farms to match manure phosphorus application rates with crop uptake. For some regions, this will lead to more crop acres and a shift toward crops with greater nutrient uptake, both of which will increase nitrogen runoff. The greater nitrogen runoff could offset the lower phosphorus runoff to result in greater water pollution. This demonstrates the law of unintended consequences, which results when policy does not consider how economic agents respond to incentives.

Agricultural economists at land-grant universities were surveyed to evaluate the use and assessment of professional journals. Faculty rankings of journals are reported along with faculty perceptions of changes in the quality of selected journals. Of 25 journals used by agricultural economics faculties, the Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics ranked first among regional agricultural economics journals in personal usefulness, subscriptions held, papers submitted, papers published, and participation in the editorial and review processes. The SJAE was also ranked as the second most improved journal among all journals evaluated.

The production process of transforming a 600–700 pound feeder steer into a slaughter animal typically requires four to six months. Conceptually, there should exist some relationship between the prices of feeder calves and slaughter cattle prices. In one view, since the feeder calf constitutes the costliest input in the production of the slaughter animal, the prices of fed cattle should be temporally connected to the cost of the feeder animals. This view suggests that feeder calf prices should lead slaughter prices by the length of the production process (Trierweiler and Hassler). In another view, the price of feeder calves is determined by the interaction of the supply of and derived demand for feeder cattle by feedlot operators. It is presumed that the derived demand for feeder cattle is related to feedlot operators' expectations of future fed cattle prices. If their expectations are strongly influenced by current fed cattle prices, then a relationship is suggested whereby slaughter and feeder prices vary concomitantly.

Restrictions on the ownership of farmland by nonresidents of Saskatchewan were imposed by the Farmland Security Act (FSA) in 1974. The FSA has been blamed by some observers for depressed provincial land values. An adaptive expectations present value model is developed to estimate the effects of the FSA, with the province of Alberta included as a control. Results of seemingly unrelated regressions and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity estimates find no statistically significant effect of the FSA on the value of land in Saskatchewan. This may indicate that the effect of the regulatory change is too small to be measured accurately.

Nielsen ScanTrack data were used to study how income and prices influenced consumer juice beverage demand in the United States during the period from 1988-89 through 1991-92. Alternative differential demand models combining the features of the Rotterdam model and the almost ideal demand system (AIDS) were tested. Results indicate the CBS type demand responses describe consumer behavior better than the other specifications for this particular data set.

Production timing is an essential element in fresh vegetable growers'efforts to maximize profitability and reduce income risks. The present studyuses biophysical simulation modeling coupled with a dual crop (tomatoes,sweet corn) whole-farm economic formulation to analyze the effects ofgrowers' risk aversion levels and price consideration (seasonal or annualprice consideration) in expected net returns and production practices. Thefindings indicate that consideration of seasonal price trends results inhigher expected net returns and greater opportunities to mitigate risk.Furthermore, risk aversion levels substantially influence production timingwhen seasonal price trends are considered.

This paper presents the capabilities and limitations of a microcomputer linear programming package. The solution algorithm is a version of the revised simplex. Rapid problem entry, user ease of operation, sensitivity analyses on objective function and right hand sides are advantages. A problem size of 150 activities and 64 constraints can be solved in present form. Due to problem size, limitations and lack of parametric and integer programming routines, this package is thought to have the most value in teaching applications and research problems in the smaller size categories.

Cumulative probability distributions of income for management scenarios involving four preharvest marketing strategies are subjected to stochastic dominance analysis to determine risk-efficient sets of strategies for different groups of farmers in North Florida. Results indicate that farmers should behave differently in their choice of marketing strategies according to their risk attitudes. Highly risk-averse farmers should prefer some forward contracting while low risk-averse and risk-loving farmers should prefer cash sales at harvest. Use of the futures markets leads to both higher income and greater risk than forward contracting but lower income and risk than cash sales.

Total money income typically is used to indicate the relative economic status of people. A family with total money income below some commonly recognized standard may be deemed to be poor. For example, the official low-income standard is the benchmark used by most analysts to indicate persons in poverty [15]. Historically, the proportion of farm people with low incomes has been greater than that for nonfarm people. In the 1960's, however, the income gap between farm and nonfarm people narrowed due primarily to increased off-farm income [2]. Growth in off-farm income in recent years ranks among several major changes affecting families in the farming sector [3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16].

We recognize that the concept of economic status is multi-dimensional including elements other than current money income. Some of these include aspects of permanent income [4], net worth [18], and the general quality of life [1, 6].

If all feeder cattle were identical and if all relative prices were constant the feedlot manager would still have an important and difficult decision to make. The decision involves selecting the time at which to replace a pen of cattle on feed with a new pen of feeder cattle such that profit is maximized, over time, to the feeding operation as a whole. Of course, all cattle are far from identical and prices, even relative prices, are never constant. The decision that is not simple with identical cattle and constant prices becomes most difficult with consideration of different types of replacement cattle and varying prices.

This article presents a model of the Florida watermelon industry that quantifies aggregate entry and exit decisions and the effect of interregional competition on prices received by Florida growers. The model development is presented first and is followed by estimation of the model's parameters. Policy implications from the model are then developed.