The North Carolina Agriculture Survey was designed to estimate the willingness to pay for agricultural research and extension programs. We find that North Carolina households are willing to pay between $218 and $401 million for food production programs and between $251 and $698 million for water quality programs annually. We find evidence of divergent validity and differences in the willingness to pay estimates from the single-bound and multiple-bound data.

The effect on housing prices of proximity to different types of parks is estimated using a unique data set of single-family homes sold between 1990 and 1999 in Greenville, South Carolina. While the value of park proximity is found to vary with respect to park size and amenities, the estimates from this study are larger than previous studies. The greatest impact on housing values was found with proximity to small neighborhood parks, with the positive impact of proximity to both small and medium-size parks extending to homes as far as 1500 feet from the park.

This paper contributes to the debate on whether pre-harvest pricing strategies can improve returns over cash sales at harvest. It also examines cash flow needs of such strategies. The analysis is conducted for Ohio corn produced from 1986 through 1999. The pre-harvest strategies evaluated (short futures, long put, synthetic long put, put-call fence) did not statistically improve returns over cash sales at harvest. However, if implemented during or before planting, these naïve strategies reduced the standard deviation of annual gross income. Substantial cash flow may be incurred, either to establish the strategy or meet margin calls. Therefore, assessments of pre-harvest pricing strategies should include cash flow needs, along with return and risk.

A model to value Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (Farmer Mac) agricultural mortgage-backed securities (AMBS) is developed and numerically solved. The results suggest prepayment penalties currently being used by Farmer Mac reduce yields on AMBS considerably. Even with prepayment penalties, it can be advantageous for profit maximizing mortgagors to optimally prepay or even default on agricultural mortgages. The model is used to quantify prepayment and default risk by valuing the embedded options in the mortgages. Monte Carlo simulation is also used to determine the probability of optimal prepayment given the term structure assumption used to develop the model.

If agricultural output results from non-separable multiproduct technologies, environmental regulation can change the set of possible output combinations. This will be important when regulation affects the quality composition of a crop. As a result, market and welfare changes have to be assessed in technology-related markets. We present a model that serves to estimate the economic impacts in such instances and use it in the assessment of pesticide regulation in the U.S. apple industry. Impacts for four pesticide cancellation scenarios are assessed. It is shown that changes in the quality of a crop lead to significant market reallocation effects.

Use of the Tobit model for estimation of adult equivalent scale (AES) parameters and expenditure equations presupposes that zero observations represent exclusively corner solutions. This paper tests for the underlying causes of zero observations and estimates accordingly the AES parameters, the household size in adult equivalents and the resulting expenditure equations and consumption profiles. The empirical application concerns Greek household “soft” and “hard” cheese consumption. The statistical results indicate that for the examined cheese categories the “double hurdle participation” model adjusted for non-normality and heteroskedasticity is the appropriate model for the estimation of AES parameters and expenditure equations.

In this paper we seek to characterize the robustness of the ENSO/soybean price relationship and to determine whether it has practical economic content. If such a meaningful relationship exists, the implications could be profound for commodity traders and for public sector investments in climate forecasting capabilities. Also, the validity of economic evaluations of climate impacts and climate forecasts based on ENSO-price independence would come into question. Our findings suggest a relationship between interannual climate and soybean prices, although we are not able to attribute the relationship to ENSO or to say that ENSO is economically important.

Firm characteristics and managers' attitudes and opinions about pesticide safety were used to classify lawn care and landscape management firms into four categories and compare them using the logit procedure. Survey data obtained from 223 firms was used in the empirical investigation of the adoption of the IPM techniques. Results showed the need for continued transfer of new technology to independently owned firms, multidisciplinary assessment of IPM methods before their transfer to ascertain the economic viability of proposed methods, public investment in programs training workers in knowledge-based pesticide applications, possible assistance in obtaining capital, and investment in consumer education.

Economists and others need estimates of future cash price volatility to use in risk management evaluation and education programs. This paper evaluates the performance of alternative volatility forecasts for fed cattle, feeder cattle, and corn cash price returns. Forecasts include time series (e.g. GARCH), implied volatility from options on futures contracts, and composite specifications. The overriding finding from this research, consistent with the existing volatility forecasting literature, is that no single method of volatility forecasting provides superior accuracy across alternative data sets and horizons. However, evidence is provided suggesting that risk managers and extension educators use composite methods when both time series and implied volatilities are available.

Interest in mandatory county-of-origin labeling of fresh meats exists at both the state and national levels. A sample of beef handling firms in Louisiana (processors, retailers and restaurants) was surveyed by telephone to identify the characteristics of these firms that would help explain their decision to support or reject the law. A factor supporting the label use was a belief that the label is valuable to buyers. Negative factors were that the firm is a restaurant, is part of a chain or franchise, or has experience handling imported beef, and the belief that labeling merely reflects more government interference in free trade.

How relatively painless it was to agree 18 months ago to be nominated for the position of President-Elect of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association (SAEA). Preparing for this address, the most daunting task faced by holders of this office, has been anything but painless. At the same time I can say unequivocally that it has been a productive exercise for me. I hope that something I say will make your time spent listening worthwhile as well.

Woody plant encroachment restricts forage production and capacity to produce grazing livestock. Biophysical plant growth simulation and economic simulation were used to evaluate a prescribed burning range management technique. Modeling systems incorporated management practices and costs, historical climate data, vegetation and soil inventories, livestock production data, and historical regional livestock prices. The process compared baseline non-treatment return estimates to expected change in livestock returns resulting from prescribed burning. Stochastic analyses of production and price variability produced estimates of greater net returns resulting from use of prescribed burning relative to the baseline.

Whether the next farm bill is a slightly modified extension of the 1996 Farm Bill or is significantly different from the current bill will hinge on how the 1996 Farm Bill is perceived to have performed. With no supply management provisions in the 1996 Farm Bill, the crop markets have not shown a capacity to self-correct by reducing the quantity supplied and increasing the quantity demanded in response to relatively large declines in crop prices.

The effects of cropland slope, distance to surface water, farmers' risk attitudes, and farmers' nitrogen (N) fertilizer applications on potential N delivery to streams and costs of reducing N delivery were evaluated for a representative Virginia peanut-cotton farm. Target MOTAD and generalized stochastic dominance were used to select preferred plans for different levels of risk aversion. Costs of reducing N delivery were lower on farms where fields were located close to surface water, where N was overapplied relative to extension fertilizer recommendations, and where the operator was risk averse. Cropland slope had less effect on cost of reducing N delivery relative to other factors.

Farmers are interested in knowing whether applying inputs at variable rates across a field is economically viable. The answer depends on the crop, the input, their prices, the cost of variable rate technology (VRT) versus uniform rate technology (URT), and the spatial and yield response variability within each field. Methods were investigated for determining the range of spatial variability over which the return to VRT covers its additional cost compared with URT in fields with multiple management zones. Models developed in this article, or variants thereof, could be used to help farmers make the VRT adoption decision.

Profitability of using alternative protein sources in broiler feed is investigated through the development of a two-stage mathematical program that optimizes broiler production. A case study of peanut meal vs. soybean meal is examined. Value of marginal product concepts incorporated in this model permit analysis of demand adjustments before decisions on the production process occur. Given reported input and output prices, results indicate that soybean meal is generally more profitable than peanut meal. Peanut meal can be more profitable at higher dietary protein levels fed to broilers processed into whole carcass or at relatively higher prices for soybean meal.