Part-time farming in Maryland and the Northeast with full-time off-farm employment of one or more of the farm operators is competitive income-wise with many types and sizes of commercial farms. Individuals, families, and society in general will benefit in the future from the encouragement of fuller utilization of underutilized or unemployed rural resources to produce marketable agricultural output and subsistence types of food for household and local charitable purposes. Labor extensive types of crop and animal production activities have increased relatively and absolutely during the past decade on Maryland and Northeastern part-time farms. Average characteristics of a sample of 80 part-time farmers showed 1) age of male operator – 44 years, 2) education of operator − 12 years, 3) number of children on the farm − 3 children, 4) years of experience in farming − 15 years, 5) days of off-farm employment − 225 days, 6) proximity of off-farm job to a major metropolitan center − 20 miles and 7) distance to off-farm job − 29 miles.

The declining importance of tobacco production in Connecticut and Massachusetts, the likely reduction in the acreage needed to support a shrinking dairy industry, and the growing concern with agricultural land preservation have brought about considerable interest in expanding vegetable production in Southern New England. Furthermore, the proximity to major metropolitan areas gives the cited region a major advantage in the production of vegetables for the fresh market (Swackhamer).

University teaching at an undergraduate level has always involved opportunity costs, especially in the trade-off of the individual's time between teaching and research. However, recent external forces, as we move into the ‘80's could very well force major changes in the Agricultural Economic's teaching profession. This paper examines the conventional wisdom that teaching and research are mutually reinforcing. It further examines conflict of goals and several of the economic principles that we teach but seem to ignore in addressing our personal trade-off between teaching and research. A framework is presented for resolving this conflict.

The role of the economist is to identify and solve puzzles. Unsolved puzzles seem to crop up more frequently these days or perhaps my ability to solve them has diminished. The purpose of this paper is to set forth selected enigmas in hope that someone (perhaps a bright, young mind who fails to appreciate the intractability of the problem) will find solutions. I begin with national macroeconomic policy, then turn to international economics. After looking at past trends in supply and demand for farm output, I conclude with sections on farm investment behavior and the role of the agricultural economist in an affluent farming economy.

During the farm crisis of the 1980s we began to better understand the inherent faults of an industrialized food system. Despite large gains in productivity, efficiency, and economies of size, thousands of farms were in foreclosure. Many farmers were overly extended in debt. Others were in trouble because of a combination of factors such as drought, low crop prices, high input prices, and the lack of competition in the marketplace. The end result was the loss of thousands of farmers and a subsequent decline in many rural communities.

At the same time, a new vision of an enduring agriculture emerged. It was called sustainable agriculture. This new paradigm became attractive because it focused on solutions to the problems of the day. Sustainable agriculture offered hope to farmers that were willing to differentiate their product and add value to it, deal with ecological costs by using sustainable best management practices, and work to create equity in food system employment. Forming new links with consumers is enabling farmers to set their prices, and consumers are willing to pay to know more about their food.

During the period of transition that culminated in our professional organization being renamed the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association (formerly the Northeastern Agricultural Economics Council), discussion centered upon such issues as the composition of the executive committee, the election procedures for officers, financial stability, and membership involvement. As a result of such discussions, a questionnaire was designed to ascertain Association members’ attitudes towards the organization in three areas of interest: members’ professional background, members’ evaluation of the annual meeting, and attitudes towards our Journal. The objective of this survey was to establish attitudinal data for background information for future discussions concerning our Association.

An analysis of Conservation Reserve Program contracts obtained during the 1986 sign-up periods indicates commodity program participants enrolled more acreage at higher costs than farmers not participating in other commodity programs. Significant differences also occurred between the various commodity program crops, reflecting the difference in benefits available for these crops.

This paper uses Theil's (1979) entropy-based measure of inequality and farm-level data to examine changes in farm business wealth (farm equity) of farm households. The farms associated with farm households are grouped by state into ten regions of the United States. The Theil entropy measure is then calculated and used to decompose total inequality of farm wealth into within-state and across-states (between states) inequalities for each region. Results show that since the enactment of the 1996 Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act, inequality in farm wealth among farms within a state has decreased relative to the number of farms per state, across all regions. Further, most of the reduction in farm wealth inequality is attributed to increased equality in the distribution of real estate assets of the farm households, a major component of farm wealth.

An interregional transportation model was constructed using ordinary least squares and reactive programming to evaluate the short-run economic impact of changing transportation rate on the U.S. interregional equilibrium and, in particular, the Northeast's competitive position for fresh peaches. Using fixed regional supplies, uniquely determined regional per capita consumption and existing transportation rates the reactive programming algorithm obtains solutions to the spatial equilibrium problem including: overall regional quantities supplied and demanded, prices, consumers’ outlays, producers’ revenues and opportunity, transfer and shipping costs. Transportation rates were varied 20 percent above and below the current rates to examine the short-run economic impact on the prevailing equilibrium. The East Coast was a relatively isolated market and therefore was not significantly affected by changes in transportation rates. The most significant changes in producers’ revenues and trade flow patterns occurred in the remaining regions that traded mostly amongst themselves.

This paper examines grass-fed beef producer preferences for cattle traits using data from a mail survey of 384 U.S. grass-fed beef producers. Conjoint analysis and Likert scale questions were used to determine preferences. Generally, results indicated that producers preferred easy-to-handle, heavy, black, and relatively lower-priced feeders raised from their own cows. The Kernel density figures for source, color, and temperament confirm the mixed logit standard deviation estimates that suggest heterogeneity in producer preferences.

Farm diversification is mainly driven by risk mitigation effects and economic gains related to complementarities between production activities. By combining these two aspects, we investigate diversification economies in a sample of French mixed sheep farming systems and rank these systems using stochastic dominance criteria. Partially diversified systems (Sheep-Grass, Sheep-Crop, Sheep-Landless) and fully diversified systems (Sheep-Grass-Crop-Landless) were evaluated. We find a high degree of diversification diseconomies in the sheep farming systems considered. The results also indicate that the fully diversified system is driven by its risk-reducing effects (including downside risk exposure) and that Sheep-Crop is the dominant system in terms of risk-adjusted returns.

A theoretically consistent structural model facilitates definition and measurement of use and non-use benefits of ecosystem services. Unlike many previous approaches that utilize multiple stated choice situations, we apply this conceptual framework to a travel cost random utility model and a consequential single referendum contingent valuation research design for simultaneously estimating use and non-use willingness to pay for environmental quality improvement. We employ Monte Carlo generated data to evaluate properties of key parameters and examine the robustness of this method of measuring use and non-use values associated with quality change. The simulation study confirms that this new method, combined with simulated revealed and stated preference data can generally, but not always, be applied to successfully identify use and non-use values of various ecosystems while consistency is ensured.

This study develops and uses a survey to gather information on demographics, production and management practices, and perceptions on using cover crops as a conservation practice from citrus growers and utilizes the double-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation method to measure their willingness to pay (WTP) for adopting cover crops in citrus production. The survey is conducted for citrus producers in Florida and Texas. The study finds that, on average, growers from Florida are willing to pay $509.48/acre per year for adopting cover crops. This is substantially less than the WTP for growers in Texas, who are willing to pay more than $1,000/acre per year for cover crops. The study analyzes the factors that have significant impacts on growers’ WTP for cover crops and discusses the heterogeneity in the grower perceptions on the benefits and drawbacks of using this conservation practice by state. Although using cover crops has not been a popular conservation practice in perennial fruit production systems, its potential to improve soil quality is particularly important for citrus production in Florida where soils are sandy and have low organic matter.

Effective irrigation management is critical for future food supplies and the prosperity of producers engaged in irrigation production. Through a deficit irrigation field experiment, we determine the financial impact on producers caused by changing irrigation costs, corn prices, extreme weather events, and restricting irrigation levels. Results suggest that the optimal economic strategy within our constrained optimization model is to fully irrigate, with the economic impact highly dependent on commodity prices, restriction level, and irrigation costs. The greatest economic losses caused by irrigation restrictions come from decreases in yield. Some simulations resulted in negative profits, indicating that a switch to alternative crops requiring less irrigation may be warranted.

Super-premium fruit and vegetable juices and drinks are a rapidly emerging product subcategory. We use retail-level scanner data to analyze trends in sales of and demand for super-premium and other fruit and vegetable beverages. We find that super-premium beverages represent a small share—about 6 percent in terms of dollar sales in 2012—of the overall fruit and vegetable juice and drink market and are priced considerably higher. Total sales more than doubled between 2007 and 2012 with 16 percent annual growth, and the beverages were more responsive to changes in price than other fruit and vegetable juices and drinks.

Green rooftops, also known as vegetated roofs, will play a critical role in enhancing the resilience of urban areas in the face of climate change and other contemporary environmental and social challenges. To ensure the optimal design and implementation of these green technologies, it is vital to understand the public’s preferences, values, and attitudes toward the government support for green rooftops. This study employs contingent valuation methods, specifically utilizing a payment card and a choice experiment, to investigate these topics that have received inadequate exploration within the current body of literature. Our findings indicate that 45% of the public is aware of green rooftops, and the most desired features on an extensive green rooftop, ranked by importance, are: flowers, grass, trees, and walking paths. The majority (79%) of the public supports a federally proposed legislation currently under review (the Public School Green Rooftop Program) and has a mean willingness to pay of approximately $176 per household as a one-time payment. Additionally, the results show that individuals place a higher value on green rooftops that incorporate solar energy technology compared to those without. Furthermore, there is a perceived, loss of value when access to a green rooftop is limited, as opposed to having open access.