This study uses location-specific data to investigate the role of spatially mediated peer effects in farmers’ adoption of conservation agriculture practices. The literature has shown that farmers trust other farmers and one way to increase conservation practice adoption is through identifying feasible conservation practices in neighboring fields. Estimating this effect can help improve our understanding of what influences the adoption and could play a role in improving federal and local conservation program design. The study finds that although spatial peer effects are important in the adoption of conservation tillage and diverse crop rotation, the scale of peer effects are not substantial.

This paper estimates changes in demand for imported wines by source country and resulting welfare effects due to Section 301 tariffs imposed on certain European wines in October 2019. A two-stage expenditure allocation scheme is used to estimate the import demand for red, white, and other wines in the first stage, and source-differentiated red wine and white wine demand in the second stage. From derived price elasticities measuring first and second stage interactions, welfare measures are simulated capturing effects of the new tariffs on both taxed and non-taxed exporters as well as the US importers of red and white wine.

In 2003, the Nebraska Legislature enacted the Livestock Friendly County designation program to promote the livestock industry in the state. Forty-nine of the state’s 93 counties received the designation at staggered years. Our paper estimates the causal effect of the program on the state’s cattle industry using a fixed effect difference-in-difference model that accounts for self-selection and staggered designation. Results indicate that the program does not appear to have a statewide effect on livestock expansion, but it is effective in some crop reporting districts. We offer some hypotheses on why this may be the case and draw some policy implications.

Small family farms account for 72% of the farms in the world. Most of these farms, in developing countries, face labor productivity gaps. One of the strategies to increase agricultural productivity focuses on implementing technical assistance programs. Using agriculture microdata, we estimate the marginal treatment effect of receiving technical assistance services. We find that technical assistance generates heterogeneous effects. On average, agricultural units receiving technical assistance increased their agricultural production by 50.4%. However, there is important heterogeneity of technical assistance’s effects across the production units’ unobserved and observed characteristics.

The dominant market where information is discovered plays the role of price leader providing substantial market information to other markets. This study investigates the dynamic relationships of 30 cattle markets across regions, cattle types, and cash/futures markets. The comparison of many markets, using an error correction model, is accomplished with the introduction of a tournament with a hierarchical cluster analysis, which allows us to conclude that the leading price for the U.S. cattle markets is discovered in the futures markets for both feeder and fed cattle.

Since 2017, the Japanese government has been phasing out the use of non-native bumblebees as greenhouse tomato pollinators due to their ecological risks. We used an online questionnaire to investigate whether pollination methods affect consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for tomatoes. We found that consumers valued the use of non-native bumblebees more than hormonal treatment and native more than non-native bees. Moreover, we found that informing consumers of the ecological risks increased WTP for native bumblebees and hormonal treatment. These results suggest that pollination method labeling may help protect ecosystems from the threat of non-native species.

This study aims to assess the market potential for organically farmed shrimp. The rank-ordered logit model was employed to investigate consumer perceptions; the findings reveal that consumers prefer organic shrimp from mariculture, and inland-farmed shrimp to the coastal version. The willingness to pay (WTP) for conventional shrimp amongst consumers with low knowledge is less than that for organic shrimp amongst highly knowledgeable ones. In addition, the lower WTP for organic shrimp compared with safe shrimp amongst those with a medium knowledge level shows that the organically farmed shrimp market is lagging behind due to limited knowledge and confusion.

Using a production function approach, we estimate that the economic value of biotic pollination to Georgia’s agriculture increased from $425 million in 2009 to $488 million in 2017 in real terms. We perform spatial analysis to reveal county-level spatial patterns and temporal trends in that value. Using a unique set of pollinator survey data, we also compare the locations of biotic pollinators to the areas they bring the most economic value to, which provides insights on the variation in the dependency of the crop mix to pollination services.

The American Viticultural Area (AVA) allows designated wine regions to be created, marketed, and protected. But many of the now 248 AVAs may be meaningless to consumers. Are AVAs thus meritless? Can AVAs affect consumers despite low recognition? A choice experiment examines three appellations that are applicable to the same wine: New Jersey, USA; Pilesgrove, New Jersey; and Outer Coastal Plain (OCP)—a New Jersey AVA. The results show that consumers prefer OCP wines over the former alternatives, affirming the marketing potential of AVAs that omit state names. Nevertheless, AVA may have exploited consumers’ lack of information.

Increased credit availability facilitates land acquisition, but higher land values also hinder it. We investigate the impact of credit availability on land values, after regulatory changes in the lending system. We build an index of increased credit availability using Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation data. County-level panel fixed effects estimations are performed controlling for land value determinants, credit availability, and county-level macroeconomic factors. We find that estimating the effects of credit availability separately masks its total effect. Results show a 0.1 change in the index for increased credit availability is associated with 1.64–1.96% increase in land values.

Asian countries consume approximately 90% of the world’s rice supply. Between 2007 and 2014, Thailand, Vietnam, and India accounted for 60% of the world’s exports of rice. A nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) econometric model is utilized to estimate the impact of exchange rate fluctuations on rice trade in Southeast Asia. Focusing on the largest importing countries and exporting country by volume, the analysis considers Malaysian, Indonesian, the Philippines, and Chinese rice imports from Thailand. Results show that importing countries’ state trading enterprises (STEs) generally do not follow profit-maximizing behavior in reacting to exchange rate volatility.

Crop revenue insurance is unique, because it involves a guarantee subsuming yield risk and highly systematic price risk. This study examines whether crop insurers could use options instead of, or in addition to, assigning policies to the Commercial Funds of the USDA Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) as per the Standard Reinsurance Agreement (SRA) to hedge the price risk of revenue insurance policies. The behavioral model examines the optimal hedge ratio for a crop insurer with a book of business consisting of corn Revenue Protection (RP) policies. Results show that a mix of put and call options can hedge the price risk of the RP policies. The higher optimal hedge ratios of call options as compared to put options imply that the risk of increased liability due to upside price risk can be hedged using options better than downside price risk. This study also analyzed the combination of options with the SRA at 35, 50, and 75% retention levels. The zero optimal hedge ratios at each retention level and the negative correlation between RP indemnities and the option returns when the crop insurer mixed options and SRA suggest that the purchasing of options provides no additional risk protection to crop insurers beyond what is provided by the SRA despite retention limits.

This study explores the effects of consumers’ beliefs about labels on chicken. We elicit beliefs associated with seven different labels. By varying the presence/absence of labels in a choice experiment, we are able to determine the effects of labels on consumer choices and decompose the value of labels into beliefs and base utility. Health perceptions have the largest positive effect, and impacts of animal welfare vary by information treatment. We explore the convergent validity of our approach by comparing individual’s beliefs to responses to a best-worst scaling question, which were weakly correlated, suggesting the two approaches are measuring different constructs.

Pesticide handling is a critical component of many food supply chains yet labor markets for pesticide handlers are little studied. This study uses data from the U.S. national survey to show that relative to other farmworkers, pesticide handlers get paid 15% more. To understand this premium, matching techniques are used to identify workers who are observationally equivalent in every way except pesticide handling. Using these methods, approximately half of the wage premium can be related back to observable characteristics, including crop type, geographic location, legal work authorization, education, experience, and other personal characteristics.

We used choice experiment data collected from 542 farmers in Nigeria to assess smallholders’ preferences for shifting to Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). Results suggest that the higher the size of the incentive, the more the likelihood of farmers’ willingness to invest in CSA schemes. Similarly, the farmers were in favor of community development associations and non-governmental organizations-managed schemes over other project managements and also prefer government-based institutions as opposed to the private sector. Willingness to accept results suggest that an average farmer is willing to accept $540/ha/year and $386/ha/year to embrace good agricultural practices (GAPs) with and without manure application.

The relative importance of key state-level outcomes upon U.S. national corn and soybean production was examined using correlated component regression, a recently developed regression technique for application to multicollinear and sparse data sets. Standardized coefficients were used to rank the states’ relative importance. A Herfindahl-Hirschman Index was used to measure the degree of concentration among the top ranked states. The empirical analysis looked at two time periods: a pre-Genetic Modification (1975–1995) and a post-Genetic Modification (1996–2017) period. The results indicate that U.S. corn production is becoming less geographically concentrated in terms of state-level importance while the opposite holds true for soybean production.

A hedonic model was employed to examine factors impacting feeder cattle prices at a monthly video auction in Tennessee. Home-raised cattle were estimated to have a $2 per cwt. premium and cattle that have been tested for PI-BVDV (persistent infections with bovine viral diarrhea virus) sold for a premium of $1.19 per cwt. We also show how price varies across sale months for steers and heifers, suggesting opportune times to market gender-specific lots. Corn price was interacted with an average weight per head of the lot to show that lighter cattle were negatively affected, while heavier cattle prices were positively affected by increasing corn prices.

We examine the relationship credit access has had with the U.S. agricultural productivity and residual returns to resources. Our theoretical analysis suggests that limited credit access can be sufficient to prevent a representative farmer from maximizing both short- and long-run profits. Empirical results show that increased credit access is positively associated with both productivity and residual returns to resources. Our findings imply that one way to stimulate the U.S. agricultural productivity growth is to increase credit access. They also provide strong empirical support for the productivity-stimulating value of programs such as the Farm Service Agency’s Farm Loan Program.

The dairy industries in California, Idaho, and New Mexico expanded rapidly during the early 2000s. This study focuses on the expansion effects on milk-to-hay price responsiveness. Dairy industry expansion makes hay markets tighter, with less available marketable supply in most periods. The empirical models account for the expansion effect as well as those from hay exports and low stocks-to-use ratios that also cause changes in hay market demand characteristics. The results show that hay-to-milk price responsiveness increased after dairy expansion in all analyzed states. Low stocks-to-use and high exports dampened the responsiveness, but were not statistically significant for all analyzed states.

Firm operators continually manage multiple sources of risk. In an application to cattle feedlot operations, our objective is to determine if producers view output price and animal health risks separately or jointly. We conduct a survey with a choice experiment placing operators in forward looking, decision-making scenarios, and capture information on past risk management approaches. Evidence regarding a relationship between animal health and output price risk mitigation is mixed and depends on the decision being made. Combined, these results provide new insight into how managers approach multiple risks when facing resource constraints.