Much historical yield-monitor data is from fields where a uniform rate of nitrogen was applied. A new approach is proposed using this data to get site-specific nitrogen recommendations. Bayesian methods are used to estimate a linear plateau model where only the plateau is spatially varying. The model is then illustrated by using it to make site-specific nitrogen recommendations for corn production in Mississippi. The in-sample recommendations generated by this approach return an estimated $9/acre on the example field. The long-term goal is to combine this information with other information such as remote sensing measurements.

This article presents an analysis of factors influencing farm real eatate prices in the southeastern United States. The first step in the analysis is the use of a multivariate criterion to segment the regional market into homogeneous land resource components.

Soybean Trader is a microcomputer simulation of international grain trading. The program uses the format of a graphics-oriented game to teach basic economic principles and to stimulate interest in agricultural trade. Profits from trading serve as a score, and competition is encouraged by ranking top scores in Traders' Hall of Fame. Results of tests with adult and youth audiences indicated that the program is an interesting and effective teaching tool.

When obtaining nitrogen (N), phosphate (P) and potash (K), purchasing decisions concerning the quantity and the form of each plant nutrient must be made. Logit models are estimated for the choice-of-form decision by considering those variables influencing the probability that plant nutrients will be purchased in Tennessee as part of a mixed fertilizer or as direct application materials. Parameter and elasticity estimates can be used by fertilizer manufacturers and distributors to anticipate changes in the composition of demand for plant nutrients in Tennessee.

The after-tax net present value for 27 swine breeding systems composed of Duroc, Hampshire, and Yorkshire breeds were simulated and ordered using stochastic dominance analysis. The concept of the value of information was expanded to develop the concept of the willingness to pay to adopt a new technology. For producers not currently using the dominant system, estimates of the allowable present value cost of adoption are reported and used to explain diverse production practices.

Retail prices of milk in Kentucky and Tennessee are compared following the abolishment of Kentucky's Milk Marketing Law. Data and comparisons are also presented from the six adjacent states having no milk marketing law.

This paper discusses plant location models applied to a honey processing-marketing cooperative firm with emphasis on sensitivity of findings to some alternative objectives and specifications. Though the study was nationwide in scope, the southern regions of the United States played a significant role in the analyses.

The first objective was to determine the number, size, and location of honey processing plants which would minimize total assembly, processing, and product shipment cost. In pursuit of the first objective, two of several questions receiving consideration were: 1. In comparing an optimizing least-cost result to an actual operating cost result, what is a valid specification of “actual” cost? 2. Is there a simple way of checking on the validity of a minimum cost solution?

After three to four decades of substantial increase, yields per acre of major U.S. crops appear to have tapered off. The average annual rate of growth in crop yields decreased markedly from 2.7 percent for the 1950s to 1.8 percent for the 1960s, and finally fell to 0.1 percent for the first half of the 1970s. Scientists commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences to investigate agriculture production efficiency first discovered the problem [6]. Concern about the situation was expressed in the literature early this year by both a plant physiologist and agricultural economists. If a crop yield series has reached and remains on a plateau, it would conform with what is expected in a stationary or trendless series. Therefore, examination of the leveling of crop yields can be accomplished by testing for the presence or absence of a trend in the series.

Historically, the manufacturing milk sector has been treated as the residual segment of the dairy industry. Milk for fluid consumption has always had first claim on Grade A milk production and any excess milk has been available for manufactured products. The pricing system for milk reflects the dependence on manufactured products as the residual outlet for excess milk. On-farm quality standards for production are lower for manufacturing milk and thus the farm price is lower. The proportion of whole milk produced as manufacturing grade milk is declining as producers shift to Grade A production. The decline in supply has been accelerated to some extent also by the upgrading of on-farm quality standards in recent years. Many small producers left the industry rather than make the necessary expenditures to upgrade on-farm facilities. In addition, the movement of Grade A milk into the expanding fluid milk markets in the South has resulted in a declining quantity of excess Grade A milk. Consequently, there is excess processing capacity in the manufacturing milk sector.

Recent legislative initiatives call for studies to evaluate costs associated with cleaning U.S. grains to meet more stringent standards. This paper reports on a study which developed a mixed-integer programming model of the U.S. sorghum sector to (1) determine the least-cost geographic location for new cleaning investment at the country, terminal and port elevator stages of the marketing system and (2) measure additional system marketing costs associated with implementing the proposed standards. Results show the least-cost cleaning location to be at country and terminal elevators in excess supply regions. Implementing the proposed standard would increase system costs about 2 percent.

Range livestock is important to the economy of the state of Texas. Over 4.2 billion lbs. of beef were produced in Texas with a value of over $1.2 billion in 1971, which was the greatest for any of the 50 states. Sheep and lamb production in Texas for 1971 exceeded 200 million lbs. and was valued at $43.4 million which was the highest of all 50 states. Cash receipts from cattle, calves, sheep, and lambs marketed in Texas in 1971 were estimated at $1.6 billion.

Texas' production of range livestock is limited by the availability of rangeland. In 1967, over 53 percent of the land area in Texas was classified as rangeland. Undesirable woody plants which compete with favorable grasses for moisture and sunlight have infested 82 percent of the grasslands in the state.

A number of aggregate agricultural labor market studies exist, typically concentrated on data at the national level. The Florida agricultural labor market, however, differs substantially from that of the rest of the nation, excepting California. In Florida, a large portion of the labor force is employed as harvesting labor. This is not only highly seasonal work, but also among the least demanding of skill. Also, over the period 1953-57 to 1967-69, the total number of farm workers declined in 49 states and by 43 percent nationally. During this time, Florida, however, experienced a 53 percent increase in hired labor usage, more than offsetting a 38 percent decline in family labor.

A school system can be visualized as a firm utilizing capital and labor to produce its output. It must compete with other firms in purchasing its inputs. It is broadly concerned with efficient use of resources to produce its product. However, there is no well-defined product nor a price that can be attached to its product, and most of its product is not directly sold. Users (students) exert little pressure to increase efficiency, not only because they lack mature judgment and are unaware of input-output relationships (often inputs as well as outputs are ill-defined and uncertain), but also because efficiency gains are not passed to users. Furthermore, factors outside the school system influence output throughout the long production process. Even if the price mechanism does not work, economic principles can still be used in education to improve decision making.

The United States has for long had the world's premier system of higher education. No other country has anything that comes close to our major research universities (whether they be private or public), and that includes our international competitors, Germany and Japan. Our society expects a lot of our universities, and much more than other countries expect of theirs. For example, we were the only country in the world that turned to our universities (and especially to our land grants) to deliver an important part of our foreign policy in the form of economic and technical assistance to the developing countries.

This article analyzes the economies of capacity use regarding hot water decontamination to reduce postslaughter risk of pathogens in meat, taking interfarm heterogeneities of Salmonella risk and costs of transportation into account, using Denmark as a case study. If risk reduction goals are stated at the processing plant level, then the exploitation of the favorable cost-effectiveness properties of hot water slaughtering requires fairly ambitious risk reduction goals and thus high use of decontamination capacity. If instead risk reduction goals are formulated for the sector as a whole, the cost-effectiveness properties can be exploited even for relatively low-risk reduction goals.

Traditionally, the economics of farm number adjustments have been inferred from the relative positions of firms on a longrun average cost curve. The steep slope of the left portion of the commonly drawn curve suggests demise of the smaller units as fast as off-farm and inter-farm markets can absorb their labor and land resources. On the less steeply declining middle portion of the curve, insufficient volume of output (income) is suggested as a cause of firms quitting. The argument is supported by the fact that most empirical estimates do not show the long-run cost curve rising at large outputs. This places downward pressure on product prices, reducing per unit margins, and creating income problems for the middle group of firms. Adjustments in the farming sector are then viewed as constrained by the limitations of factor and product markets, as well as by values and traditions of farm people.

Recent commodity price volatility and development of new futures contracts has kindled interest in hedging among farmers in many parts of the country. Due to the importance of feeder cattle production in Kentucky and in the South generally, recent development of a feeder cattle contract is of special interest. This paper addresses some potential problems associated with use of feeder cattle futures markets by Kentucky producers. Specifically, it tries to: (1) determine the effect, if any, of location basis variability on ex post hedging results in Kentucky markets versus delivery markets at Omaha and Oklahoma City, (2) assess the ability of hedging to reduce revenue variability as compared to cash marketing and (3) determining the presence of bias in feeder cattle futures prices.

Variations in price occur frequently in the U. S. shell egg industry and, consequently, interest has been widespread among the traders and the producers with regard to such price variations. Quantitative models for the specific purpose of predicting shortrun egg price have so far been conspicuously absent. The basic objectives of this discussion are first, to present an econometric model to predict quarterly shell egg price and, second, to explain the casual factors which appear to affect price in the immediate future. Finally, alternative methods of estimating the predictive model have been compared with regard to their relative predictive ability.

The number of insecticide applications made by an apple grower to control an insect infestation is modeled as a geometric random variable. Insecticide efficacy, rate per application, month of treatment, and method of application all have significant impacts on the expected number of applications. The number of applications to control a given insect population is dependent on the probability of achieving successful control with a given application. Results suggest that northeastern growers have the highest and mid-Atlantic growers the lowest probability of controlling an infestation with a given application. Results also indicate that scales require the least and moths the most number of applications. Growers are not responsive to per unit insecticide prices, but respond negatively to insecticide toxicity, supporting findings from previous pesticide demand analyses.

Discussion of changes taking place in American agriculture followed by a review of the traditional model of extension suggests there is dissonance between what is needed to inform contemporary agriculture and what extension actually does. The paper further suggests that difficulty in packaging the newly needed information in ways that achieve the institutional maintenance objectives of extension explain a part of the system's decadence and reluctance to change. Since the intellectual problems of market failure, even political market failure, are within the domain of economists, diffidence by agricultural economists to those issues within the Land-Grant system can make a difference.