This study determines which factors are associated with the use of rotational grazing and the frequency with which Tennessee producers rotate cattle during the summer months. Survey data were used to estimate an ordered response model with sample selection. Most respondents used rotational grazing, and the most frequent rotational schedule was rotating cattle one to two times per month. Factors including labor, capital, knowledge, and water availability influenced the use of rotational grazing and the frequency of rotating cattle. The insights from this study can inform the development of incentives to promote more intensive use of rotational grazing.

Rice is a staple crop in Nigeria. Even with a push to increase domestic production, little is known about the functionality of Nigeria’s open bag markets and the preferences of consumers for specific rice attributes. Our study uses a hedonic price model to identify quality attribute preferences of consumers and potential market failures. Our results indicate that Nigerian consumers prefer rice with homogenous long slender kernels and a low presence of broken rice and are indifferent to chalkiness. The findings are useful as they can inform future strategies for rice breeders, domestic policy makers, and rice exporters.

Most previous studies reject the basic tenet of the Masters Hypothesis that the influx of financial index investments has pressured agricultural futures prices upwards substantially. However, the impact of index investment activities may be more complicated and nuanced than can be detected by the relatively simple linear Granger causality tests used in many previous studies. Our study applies a new cross-quantilogram (CQ) test to weekly index trader positions and returns in four agricultural futures markets. Overall, we find limited support for a significant relationship between extreme index trader position changes and returns, and even less support that increased index trading activities have pushed commodity prices higher.