The U.S. broiler industry is highly vertically integrated and increasingly concentrated in the number of firms and production areas. These structural elements could have implications for performance and the functioning of the law of one price (LOP) across regions. This article investigates this using data on four regional markets. Cointegration results indicate that regional prices are spatially linked in the long run, but pairwise cointegration was not found, suggesting that the LOP does not hold. Causality tests confirm the relative importance of price shocks from the South. This finding is reflective of price coordination by firms with production in multiple regions.

The effects of the exchange rate and the income and money supply of the United States and its major trading partners on the U.S. agricultural trade balance are examined using an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. Results suggest that the exchange rate is the key determinant of the short- and long-run behavior of the trade balance. It is also found that the income and money supply in both the United States and the trading partners have significant impacts on U.S. agricultural trade in both the short and long run.

Farm Service Agency (FSA) direct loans are intended to provide transitory credit to creditworthy borrowers unable to obtain conventional credit at reasonable terms. Farm loan program (FLP) effectiveness is measured in part by how readily direct loan borrowers graduate to conventional credit. A survey of FSA borrowers originating direct loans during fiscal years 1994-1996 is used to estimate graduation rates. A majority of 1994-1996 loan originators did exit the direct FLP by November 2004. A multinomial logit model indicates financial strength at origination resulted in greater likelihood of farming without direct loans approximately 9 years after loan origination.

Using a model of farm household resource allocation and data from the USDA-ERS Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), this study compares the effects of various categories of farm program payments on time allocation by farm operators and spouses. Results suggest that agricultural market transition payments (AMTA) increase leisure hours of both farm operators and spouses. Loan deficiency payments (LDP) and payments that combine market loan assistance (MLA) and disaster payments are shown to reduce leisure. The study also finds that AMTA payments exhibit a much higher degree of income transfer efficiency than the LDP and MLA payments.

This research evaluates whether the introduction of countercyclical payments creates an incentive for program crop producers to hedge the expected government payment using futures and/or options. Results indicate that some level of countercyclical payment hedging is optimal for risk-averse decision makers. However, optimal hedge ratios depend on planting time expectations of marketing year average price as well as on what crop, if any, has been planted on countercyclical payment base acres. These results suggest that the ability to hedge may make these payments more decoupled but also illustrate the distortion of producer behavior induced by farm programs.

This article undertakes an empirical investigation of the determinants of voluntary adoption of the ISO 14001 environmental management system by French farmers. The adoption model incorporates the expected profitability of implementing the standard and investigates the impact of prior knowledge on the probability of adopting. Two information measures are considered: a “reported information” indicator and an “estimated knowledge” score. The probit parameter estimates reveal that, while the expected profitability of implementing the standard is a significant determinant of adoption, real and perceived prior knowledge measures play a significant but potentially counterintuitive role.

Since the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops, the commodity grain system has been under pressure to segregate GM and non-GM crops. Starting at the level of the grain handler, members of the grain supply chain have successfully used quality assurance and identity preservation programs to segregate non GM crops. Producers delivering high-value, identity-preserved crops have become interested in implementing these quality management systems at the farm level. We conduct a cost-benefit analysis that shows that quality assurance program may be profitable for producers, depending on their farm size and equipment management strategy.

Determining appropriate topics and target audiences is essential to design effective educational outreach programs. Based on landowner responses to a mail survey, we determined both the importance and the availability of wildlife and forest management information topics to Mississippi landowners. Combining this information clearly identified the appropriate subject matter for outreach programs—topics important to landowners and for which information was relatively unavailable. The importance of wildlife and forest management information relative to its availability depended on the region, land use patterns, and landowner characteristics, thus demonstrating which segments of the population should be targeted to maximize program impact.

Aggregate data are commonly used to determine returns to storage. However, recent studies have shown that aggregating data may lead to underestimated returns. This article compares aggregate and elevator data from Oklahoma to determine if aggregate data underestimate returns. We find no difference between the mean returns estimated with aggregate data and the mean returns estimated with transaction level data from grain elevators in Oklahoma.

Typical supermarket chickens are produced with novel or controversial attributes. This continues despite contrasting growth in consumer interest in organic and natural foods. This study surveyed Delaware consumers' likelihood to purchase chicken given different attributes: free range, given antibiotics, irradiated, fed genetically modified (GM) feed, GM chicken, and price. Examining conjoint analysis data with a heteroskedastic two-limit tobit model, GM chicken and other novel attributes were found to lower purchase likelihood significantly. Understanding these results should help the industry meet consumer preferences while aiding its continued expansion to benefit workers and growers across the South.

Fruit is an important component of the food industry in the United States, and “fresh-cut” products are an increasing portion of that consumption. We found that packaging and juice content played a significant role in the choices Indiana consumers made when purchasing fresh-cut melon products. Brand was not as important as the other fresh-cut melon attributes. Indiana consumers had a clear dislike for cup-shaped transparent packages compared with tamper-proof, bowl, and squared packages. However, they were willing to pay a premium for packages that have no fruit juices on the bottom.

Exporting northwest Arkansas excess turkey and broiler litter to partially fertilize nutrient-deficient cropland in eastern Arkansas can be more cost effective than to supply all crop nutrients with chemical fertilizer only, given current high fertilizer prices. Cost savings are greater if litter is baled in ultraviolet resistant plastic and transported via truck, since backhaul opportunities reduce truck rates, or alternatively, if raw litter is shipped via a truck-barge combination. Rice is the crop that allows for greater savings according to a mathematical programming model implemented in General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS).

After controlling a variety of feeder cattle characteristics and market and sale conditions in Iowa feeder auctions, the price premiums for preconditioning claims (vaccinations and minimum 30 days of weaning) with and without third-party certification (TPC) are estimated as $6.12/cwt and $3.35/cwt, respectively. These premiums differ statistically (p < 0.0001), and their difference exceeds the average participation cost of TPC ($l/cwt). This indicates that TPC is valued in the market to credibly signal preconditioning investment under asymmetric information.

Southeast drought conditions have accentuated the demand for irrigation in the face of restricted water supply. For allocating this supply, Georgia held an auction for withdrawing irrigated acreage. This auction withdrew 33,000 acres from irrigation, resulting in a physical estimate of a 399 acre-feet daily increase in water flow. The actual reduction is driven by crop distributional changes on the basis of economic substitution and expansion effects. In contrast to the physical estimates, an econometric model that considers these effects is developed. The differences between the physical and econometric models result in an increase in the estimate of water savings of around 19% to 24%.

Producers' preferences for cottonseed with respect to price, seed type, yield, and fiber quality are examined by a willingness-to-pay approach via mail surveys. Results indicate a positive willingness to pay (WTP) for technology relative to conventional cottonseed, and WTP increases with the level of technology. Yield and quality also show a positive WTP. Larger farms have a higher WTP for technology, and farms with more farm labor have a lower WTP for technology. These results suggest economies of size in technology adoption (biotechnology is not size-neutral) and that labor and biotechnology are direct substitutes.

Hog producers in Indiana and Nebraska were surveyed about sources of risk, effectiveness of risk management strategies, and prior participation in and desire for additional risk management education. Ownership of hogs by the producer, size of the operation, and age did have significant effects on ratings of both sources of risk and effectiveness of risk management strategies. Probit analysis found age, prior attendance, knowledge and prior use of the tool, level of integration, and concern about price and performance risk have significant effects on interest in further education about production contracts, futures and options, packer marketing contracts, and financial management.

This study estimates the contribution of both urban-rural fringe location and lake proximity on residential property values in three upstate counties of South Carolina through estimation of spatial hedonic housing price models. Location in the urban fringe and the urban–rural interface are found to have a positive impact on residential housing values relative to either urban or more rural locations. Lakes in the upstate contribute positively to housing values to the extent that the house has a view of a lake, lake access, or lake frontage.

The impact of an urban growth boundary (UGB) on land development in Knox County, TN is estimated via two-stage probit and neural-network models. The insignificance of UGB variable in the two-stage probit model and more visible development patterns in the western part of Knoxville and the neighboring town of Farragut during the post-UGB period in both models suggest that the UGB has not curtailed urban sprawl. Although the network model is found to be a viable alternative to more conventional discrete choice approach for improving the predictability of land development, it is at the cost of evaluating marginal effects.

A stochastic production frontier model was estimated to provide standard measurement of technical efficiency of the dual-purpose cattle system located in Zulia State, Venezuela. This system is based on local and low-cost inputs, but has been considered to be inefficient because of its low partial productivity indices when compared with those used in developed countries. Results indicate that the efficiency of this system is reasonably high, downplaying the general idea of inefficiency. Likewise, the efficiency of this system has the potential for improvement through public policies and managerial decisions based on the determinants of technical efficiency.

Increased environmental regulations and a milk quota that restricts growth have increased the interest in immigration to the United States by Dutch dairy farmers. A risk-based economic analysis of 23 representative U.S. dairy farms versus a representative Dutch farm shows that risk-averse Dutch dairy farmers would prefer to liquidate their dairy farms and invest in a large dairy in Idaho or north Texas. The risk ranking suggested that continuing to farm in the Netherlands rather than immigrating to the United States is preferred over only two of the 23 U.S. representative farms analyzed.