While it is generally accepted that change in the real value of the dollar is an important determinant of exports, it has not been rigorously demonstrated that this relationship, derivable from theory, holds empirically for agricultural exports and the components of agricultural exports. Starting with a dynamic maximizing framework, this paper estimates the real trade-weighted exchange rate and trade partner income effects on U. S. agricultural exports. For the period 1970–2006, a one percent annual increase in trade partners’ income is found to increase total agricultural exports by about 0. 75 percent, while a one percent appreciation of the dollar relative to trade partner trade-weighted currencies decreases total agricultural exports by about 0. 5 percent. While these effects carry over to 12 commodity subcategories, they are conditioned by differences between bulk and high value commodities, and differences in the export demand from high compared to low income countries. We use a directed acyclic graphs (DAG) technique to identify the inverted fork causal relationships from vector autoregression (VAR) models. We also find that there is an asymmetric exchange rate effect so that the negative effect of exchange rate appreciation on exports sometimes dominates the positive effect of foreign income growth.

Consumers in today's marketplace have seemingly endless choices with regards to produce. Peach growers and retailers in Ontario, Canada, have begun taking steps to increase demand for their products. This study investigates the impact of those strategies on the market. Using conjoint analysis and market simulations, we evaluate the peach market to identify key drivers of peach purchasing. The results indicate that the market is heterogeneous and that price, origin, and quality indicators are the most important drivers of purchases. Our simulations indicate that adoption of new plastic packaging by the industry is a viable strategy for increasing demand for local peaches.

We assess empirically how agricultural lands should be used to produce the highest valued outputs, which include food, energy, and environmental goods and services. We explore efficiency tradeoffs associated with allocating land between food and bioenergy and use a set of market prices and nonmarket environmental values to value the outputs produced by those crops. We also examine the degree to which using marginal land for energy crops is an approximately optimal rule. Our empirical results for an agricultural watershed in Iowa show that planting energy crops on marginal land is not likely to yield the highest valued output.

We investigate effects of corn-based ethanol plants on local land uses using county-level panel data for Iowa for 1997 through 2009 and an Arellano-Bond difference-generalized method-of-moments estimator. Our results show that ethanol plants have statistically significant effects on the proportion of acres planted to corn in the plants’ host counties. Furthermore, ceteris paribus, the land-use-change effect of locally owned plants (owned by local farmers or cooperatives) is about twice as large as the effect of plants with nonlocal owners. We also explore implications for the environment of ethanol plants and the changes in land use that they induce.

Two benefit-transfer approaches are used to estimate welfare losses from closure of Lake Erie beaches. We identify conditions for which the function transfer, which is more time-consuming and data-intensive, is worth the effort relative to a simple value transfer. The function transfer was essential for estimating beach demand (trips) and demand elasticity (change in trips); when evaluating individual beach closures with known trip demand, the two methods yielded similar results. Results produced by the two transfer methods deviated (up to 106 percent) when multiple beaches were closed simultaneously because value transfer did not account for the loss of beach substitutes.

The focus of the current study was on the market potential for grass-fed beef in the Appalachian region, given that these products embody observed, experiential, nutritional, and process attributes that may appeal to a large consumer base. An in-store variant of the Becker-DeGroot-Marschack experimental auction mechanism was employed in the region to determine consumer preferences and willingness to pay. A majority of respondents preferred the grass-fed product over conventional grain-fed samples and were willing to pay a price premium to obtain it. Preferences for grass-fed were rooted largely in the associated superior nutritional content and core observed attributes.

The relationship between complete-feed prices and ingredient prices is estimated in order to analyze the effect of higher commodity prices on feed costs, with particular attention paid to the substitutability of corn distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS). Using the historical price correlation between corn and DDGS, each $1 per ton increase in the price of corn increases feed costs between $0.45 and $0.59 per ton across livestock sectors. Marginal feed costs based on lower forecasted price correlations are reduced between $0.05 to $0.12 per ton across livestock sectors, but only for the dairy ration is the reduction statistically significant. Overall, DDGS cost savings are relatively limited and insufficient to offset the impact of other higher-priced feedstocks.

Contingent valuation is used to measure the benefits of a proposed public program to control black flies. Respondents’ reported values are analyzed from three perspectives: data outliers, consistency between respondents’ reported values and their perceptions of black flies, and the temporal reliability of the values expressed by respondents. The results suggest that the estimated contingent values are plausible even though a majority of respondents expressed a value of zero dollars for the black fly control program.

Experimental markets can be a useful tool to guide and evaluate environmental policy. This paper reviews four experiments to illustrate. Two institutional experiments are considered—Coasian bargaining with positive transaction costs, and a gaming experiment of dynamic choice in a conflict. Two valuation experiments are also discussed—the impact of sequential reduction mechanisms on the value of risk, and experimental auction markets to elicit the value of safer food.

Auction experiments are commonly used to determine consumers’ willingness to pay for various food items. While their non-hypothetical nature is a positive, market substitutes create a probable confounding of bids by field prices. This study examines the influence of field prices on bids for four foods in two versions by conducting auctions before and after large price increases in 2007. Results show that bids were capped at given field prices and were significantly higher in sessions conducted after store prices increased. Percentage premiums, however, were not significantly different across sessions, suggesting that effects of field prices could be reduced. Overall, researchers must be conscious of how field prices affect bids.

Recent studies examine the impact of the built environment on health outcomes such as obesity. Several studies find for certain populations that access to unhealthy food has a positive effect on obesity, whereas access to healthy choices has a negative effect. Given the growth and popularity of locally grown food, we examine how individual weight outcomes are affected by access to direct-to-consumer local food. After controlling for potential endogeneity, we find that greater access to local food has a negative association with individual weight outcomes. We also find a negative association with greater weight loss over a one-year period. These results provide evidence that local food access can have potential indirect benefits.

This study uses field experiments to investigate consumer preferences for oysters. In total, 486 adult participants completed a series of revealed-preference dichotomous-choice tasks and a demographic survey. Using a random effects logit model, we investigate factors that influence participants’ decisions to purchase oysters. As expected, price had a significant negative effect, while income had a positive effect. Older individuals and those who were relatively selective regarding shell color or smell are less likely to buy oysters, but consumers who valued size, oyster species, and harvest location were willing to pay more.

This study spatially quantifies hydrological ecosystem services and the production of ecosystem services at the watershed scale. We also investigate the effects of stressors such as land use change, climate change, and choices in land management practices on production of ecosystem services and their values. We demonstrate the approach in the Beaver River watershed in Rhode Island. Our key finding is that choices in land use and land management practices create tradeoffs across multiple ecosystem services and the extent of these tradeoffs depends considerably on the scenarios and ecosystem services being compared.

This paper uses the concept of the Gini Coefficient and data from the 1991 Farm Costs and Returns Survey (FCRS) to measure the role of off-farm income and that of other income sources in the size distribution of farm operator households' total personal income. Disaggregated FCRS data by region and by level of participation in off-farm employment show that nonparticipating farm operator households have, as a group, higher income inequality than participating households. The results also indicate that, irrespective of the off-farm work status of the farm operator household, the distribution of income among households in the North Central region is least unequal and that in the West is most unequal.

One commonly discussed benefit of broadband access in rural America is the potential for telemedicine visits that allow rural residents to take advantage of urbanized medical services. While the primary benefit of telemedicine is often viewed as improved health care access, the availability of these services also offers significant economic contributions to the local community. Site visits to 24 rural hospitals of varying size over a four-state area in the Midwest provide information to develop a methodology for estimating telemedicine's economic impact. Using this technique, telemedicine services contribute between $20,000 and $1.3M annually to these local economies, with an average of $522,000.

Seafood futures contracts are a novelty in the derivative markets, having shrimp as their only exponent. Unfortunately, shrimp futures contracts have suffered a disappointing start. The analyses focus on testing whether premiums/discounts for non-par deliverable shrimp size categories can eliminate cash price differentials, and whether the shrimp futures market can predict cash prices without bias. Results indicate ineffective premiums/discounts and predictive bias. These results and the momentous changes taking place in the seafood industry are contrasted to discuss the viability of seafood futures contracts.

This study models the effects of variability in farm income and off-farm wages on farm operators' labor allocation decisions. A simple theoretical model is employed to develop hypotheses, which are then tested empirically. Variability in farm income and off-farm wages is predicted to have a positive and negative effect, respectively, on off-farm hours worked. The empirical results confirm these predictions.

E-commerce represents both threats to and opportunities for rural communities. This study addresses one element of the issue: farmers’ willingness to substitute online merchants or national farm input stores for local businesses. Results of a conjoint analysis of contingent choice experiments suggest that farmers are willing to purchase from online or national stores outside their communities if compensated with lower prices or greater services. Results also demonstrate that the context of the input purchase, such as time constraints, was very important not only in valuing these services, but, more broadly, in terms of the farmer's loyalty to a local merchant.

Ongoing farmland loss has led county planners to ask “is there a critical mass of farmland needed?” to retain a viable agricultural sector. This study examines whether counties lost farmland at a faster rate if the number of agricultural acres fell below a critical threshold. Results from six Mid-Atlantic states over the period 1949 to 1997 indicate that counties with fewer agricultural acres lost farmland at a faster rate. However, after splitting the study period into two time segments (1949–1978 and 1978–1997) and modeling separately, this result was not found for the later time period, suggesting a uniform critical mass level may not exist. Population growth in a county accelerated farmland loss over all time periods.

This paper explores the relationship between income and eating behavior. To do this we examine choice in two food categories: milk and soft drinks. These categories have varieties differing in health qualities but either no differences in cost or lower cost for the healthier types. By examining food choices when there are no measurable cost differences but clear health differences, we are able to isolate the association between income and healthy eating behavior. We find a negative association between income and dietary intake of higher-calorie types of milk and soft drinks. Our estimates are consistent across the five sets of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals data that we study. For 2005 we estimate that an income increase of $10,000 is linked to a reduction in 377 calories from milk and 2,555 calories from soft drinks per year. Our results suggest that the cost of food may not be the only reason why low income people have less healthy diets.