Wildlife recreation—hunting, fishing, and wildlife watching—appears to be an increasingly important pastime for many Americans. From 1991 to 2001, U.S. wildlife recreation expenditures surged from $77 billion to $108 billion in 2001 dollars. Land lease and ownership expenditures by wildlife recreation participants are also rising and appear to be capitalized into farmland values. This paper analyzes the impact of hunting lease rates on farmland values in Texas. The results indicate that counties with higher wildlife recreation income streams have higher land values.

Takayama and Judge introduced the price endogenous mathematical programming model as an alternative to the traditional econometric approach to sector-level policy analysis. McCarl and Spreen provided a review of price endogenous mathematical programming models. In that paper, they showed how price endogeneity can be introduced into a standard firm-level linear programming model. The introduction of price endogeneity allows expansion of the firm-level specification to a market-level analysis. At the time of publication of McCarl and Spreen, however, the application of price endogenous mathematical programming models was limited by the availability of software packages that could directly solve such models. The typical application used linear supply and/or demand relationships, which resulted in a quadratic programming (QP) specification. The advent of MINOS in the 1980s and then its incorporation into GAMS has lifted the computation constraint. In the present day, numerous price endogenous models have been developed. I can lay claim to six such models.

The influence product markets, agglomeration, labor, infrastructure, and government fiscal attributes had on manufacturing investment flows in Indiana between 2000 and 2004 were estimated using Poisson regression, geographically weighted regression, and a spatial general linear model. Counties with access to urbanization economies, product markets, available labor, a high-quality workforce, and transport infrastructure were more likely to attract manufacturing investment. These effects were magnified to some extent when inter-county spatial effects were modeled. The distributional assumptions of the spatial models are different, but both methods are useful for understanding the spatial context of the factors influencing manufacturing investment flows.

Rice production in Arkansas usually involves intensive tillage. No-till rice has been studied, but the focus has been limited to impacts on yields and per acre returns. This study uses mixed integer programming to model optimal machinery selection and evaluate whole-farm profitability of no-till management for rice-soybean farms. Results indicate that lower machinery ownership expenses combined with lower fuel and labor expenses do enhance the profitability of no-till management, but the monetary gains appear to be modest, implying that other incentives may be necessary to entice producers to use the practice.

Human resource management in agriculture and associated risks are under-researched topics. To identify the sources of human resource management risks confronting dairy farms, gain insights into how dairy farmers perceive the impacts of these risks, and identify control strategies, four focus group discussions were held with dairy farm managers. Managers' perceptions served to develop a framework for the analysis of human resource management risks in agriculture and derive recommendations for reducing these risks. Results of this study have been used to tailor educational programs for farmers and suggest strategies for future research.

If adoption of herbicide-resistant seed and adoption of conservation-tillage practices are determined simultaneously, adoption of herbicide-resistant seed could indirectly reduce soil erosion and adoption of conservation-tillage practices could indirectly reduce residual herbicide use and increase farm profits. Our objective was to evaluate the relationship between these two technologies for Tennessee cotton production. Evidence from Bayes' theorem and a two-equation logit model suggested a simultaneous relationship. Mean elasticities for acres in herbicide-resistant seed with respect to the probability of adopting conservation-tillage practices and acres in conservation-tillage practices with respect to the probability of adopting herbicide-resistant seed were 1.74 and 0.24, respectively.

I develop a two-country theoretical trade model to show that Canadian subsidies increase lumber supplies and exports to the United States, and the U.S. retaliatory tariff raises U.S. prices and safeguards producers, but hurts consumers. These results underscore the shortsightedness of policy decisions in a bilateral trade dispute, as empirical results from the multiregional spatial equilibrium trade model highlight that both countries pursue myopic policies without taking into account the reactions of other exporters and importers. For instance, after the imposition of U.S. tariffs, other exporters grab the market share lost by Canada in the United States, while Canada augments its exports to other importers.

Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify approaches to farm management based on a list of management questions posed to a sample of U.S. cash-grain farmers. Three approaches were identified by the factor analysis: price negotiation, long-term cost control, and input adjustment. Estimated factor scores regressed against farm and operator characteristics indicate a profile of producers using each approach that is closely related to stage-of-life of the farm operator and farm business. In addition to operator age and planning horizon, operator risk preference and farm organization and location were other important determinants of the approach to management.

A risk-averse irrigated corn producer would be better off choosing the more expensive subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) over center-pivot sprinkler (CPS), given limited aquifer life and swine effluent and urea fertilization. A stochastic optimization using EPIC data maximized expected utility of 100 years' worth of net revenues for a quarter section. Phosphorus accumulation was more likely with the CPS than with the SDI but soil nitrogen was constant under both systems. SDI conserves more water than CPS per acre but depletes the aquifer faster because a greater area is irrigated. These results were invariant in the sensitivity analysis.

This study analyzes the value of agricultural research to Florida by examining the effect of research spending on agricultural productivity, as measured by a total factor productivity index, and profitability, as measured by net farm income. Results suggest that research expenditures do increase agricultural productivity in the state. However, agricultural productivity does not affect net cash income. Further, the economic rents to the productivity gains do not accrue to land values. Instead, the economic value of research innovations accrues more to consumers than to producers. Thus, consumers are the ultimate beneficiaries of agricultural research in Florida, thereby justifying public funding for agricultural research.

Although opportunities and challenges for the Cooperative Extension Service have been addressed in the agricultural economics literature, little attention has been paid to the extension scholar. This article relates Boyer's scholarship concepts and subsequent scholarship assessment articles to agricultural economics extension and describes some unique features of the extension scholar's operating environment. Organizational framework, leadership, staffing, funding, accountability, and evaluation are addressed. Data from a survey of agricultural economics department heads are used to supplement personal experience in describing the current operating environment and constraints for extension scholars.

This study examines the relationship between urban forests and household income and population density in the 149 cities with populations over 40,000 in nine southeastern states. Our empirical results show that urban forest percentage across the cities has characteristics of the environmental Kuznets curve. We find that household income around $39,000 is a threshold that changes the relationship between income and urban forest coverage from negative to positive, whereas the impact of population density on urban forests is just the opposite, from positive to negative when population density is around 180 persons per square kilometer.

This article examines the economics of groundwater irrigation and shallow tubewell (STW) ownership decision making, using farm-level data collected from 324 households in Nepal. STW irrigation generated a significant positive effect on rice yield and farmers' incomes. Based on a probit model, the farm size, land fragmentation, access to electricity, and access to credit were found to significantly influence farmers' decisions to own STWs. Although the water market benefited poor farmers, it is too small and monopolistic. Policy reforms needed to make groundwater accessible to the poor majority include effective credit programs, investments in rural electrification, and public sector support for promoting suitable pumping technologies.

The contingent valuation method was used to elicit Japanese consumers' willingness-to-pay for genetically modified organism (GMO) segregation programs. The results revealed that most consumers pay nonnegligible premiums for products produced under strict GMO-segregation programs. However, we found that the premium did not vary by the threshold level of GMO content in the product. We further found that a government certification did not increase the premium for GMO-segregation programs. Therefore, an additional mandatory regulation to reduce GMO contaminations would not be worthwhile because such a regulation would incur substantial enforcement costs.