This article has used the method of instrumental variables to evaluate the impact of health services on the productivity of rural households’ farming labor in Burkina Faso. The distance from the household's homestead to the Health and Social Promotion Center (HSPC) was considered as an instrumental variable. The results revealed that resorting to a HSPC in case of an unexpected illness in the rainy season significantly improves the farm labor productivity by FCFA 3170.5880 per person-day. For improving agricultural productivity, we suggest that public decision-makers should focus on the availability and the quality of HSPC services in rural areas.

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) operators are becoming more innovative in their efforts to attract consumers to become CSA shareholders. Therefore, CSA operators must understand which attributes consumers value. Using an online survey of Connecticut consumers in conjunction with a choice experiment, we evaluate consumer preference and willingness to pay for various attributes, including risk mitigation. We find younger consumers are more likely to prefer CSAs with organic products, while a greater diversity of products in the CSA share will increase preference for a CSA for some consumers. Further, we find that consumers with and without CSA experience value the risk-mitigation attribute.

This paper compares three recreation valuation techniques—the travel cost (TC), the hedonic travel cost (HTC), and the household production (HP) techniques—on the basis of their theoretical underpinnings, econometric and data considerations, and policy considerations. The major focus is on how these techniques can be used to evaluate the benefits to recreationists of changes in the quality of recreation sites. Bockstael and McConnell's (1981) formulation of the HP model for sport fishing is used in the following discussion. Other variants, such as the model used by Smith et al. (1983), are only briefly mentioned.

Genetically engineered (GE) soybeans first became available to farmers in 1996. Despite the common questions regarding any new crop technology, the new seeds were rapidly adopted. This study examines the characteristics of adopters, as well as yield and weed control cost changes, using survey results from Delaware farmers at the start of the 2000 season. Duration analysis reveals that earlier-adopting farmers had larger farms and tended to use computers for financial management, while regression analysis shows significantly lower weed control costs and, to a lesser extent, higher yields for GE soybeans.

Factors affecting marketing margins were identified and assessed using a relative price spread technique. Margins were disaggregated into slaughter-to-wholesale and wholesale-to-retail for a more complete understanding. Marketing costs, concentration, demand, and price were used to explain variations within these margins. Results showed that packer concentration had a significant effect on margins. Forces of supply and demand (as represented by production and market price) and changes in marketing costs also explained the variation in margins. A higher degree of price transmission from slaughter-to-wholesale level was observed in comparison to the wholesale-to-retail level.

This study estimates how potential carbon policies targeted at reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions could affect selection of rice cultivars by conducting a life cycle assessment of GHG emissions and estimating the carbon sequestered for fourteen commonly sown rice cultivars across Arkansas. Market-oriented carbon-offset credits based on additionality likely would be insufficient to convince producers to change cultivars; nonetheless, there may be upstream pressure as food retailers strive to lower their overall carbon footprints. Given their higher yield per unit of GHG emission, hybrid rice cultivars appear to be positioned to respond to industry demand.

This article estimates technical and environmental efficiencies using the stochastic frontier analysis with panel data of twenty-two main apple production provinces in China during 1992–2014. Results show that the environmental efficiency for pesticide input alone has lower mean value of 0.337 than environmental efficiency for the two environmentally detrimental inputs, pesticide and chemical fertilizer, which is 0.782. Furthermore, all efficiency scores have decreasing trends over time. Loess Plateau is more environmentally efficient than the Bohai bay region. Results of output elasticities show that chemical fertilizer has a mean value of 0.225, which is higher than for material, labor, and pesticide input. Also, apple production in China experiences decreasing returns to scale. Finally, it is also discovered that labor and chemical fertilizer have a substitute relationship, while material and labor have a complementary relationship, as do chemical fertilizer and pesticide. The results from the study should prove useful for reallocating input resources and improving environmental efficiency.

Asian soybean rust (rust) is an emerging issue in U.S. crop production and was identified in nine states during 2004. Recent farm surveys indicate that many producers are adjusting their management practices to the possibility of a rust infestation. The economic and environmental impacts of such adjustments are not known in the medium run given these new developments. We combine 2005 data on the geographical distribution of the fungal pathogen that causes rust with 2005 information on the availability and material costs of fungicides to analyze three treatment strategies. Our results indicate a higher range of economic impacts than previous research has indicated, but are consistent with earlier findings indicating that rust infestations will likely result in reduced soybean production, reduced exports, and higher prices.

Numerous studies have investigated how farmers should use forward pricing markets, but only limited research exists on how farmers actually use these markets. This study relies on data from a real-time forward pricing game employed by Maryland grain marketing clubs from 1994 through 1998. Hypotheses are tested regarding the consistency of farmer behavior with the research literature on hedging. Findings indicate that farmers do not achieve price enhancement, a result consistent with the efficient market hypothesis. However, pricing behavior does not conform to the implications of efficient market models in a number of respects, suggesting farmers may form different expectations than those conveyed by forward prices.

There is increasing interest in local foods among consumers in the United States and a rise in offerings of local products in restaurants. We use Zagat survey data and restaurant-specific menu information to estimate factors that influence the availability of New York State (NYS) wine in 1,401 NYS restaurants. We focus on wine because its production region is clearly labeled on menus and there is a burgeoning industry in NYS. Our econometric results indicate that decor ratings, cuisine styles, certain wine list characteristics, and distance to wine regions have statistically significant impacts on the likelihood of NYS restaurants serving local wine.

An imperfect competition model of the U.S. milk market is developed for analyzing the impacts of dairy policy deregulation. Estimated degree-of-competition parameters indicate that the U.S. milk market has become more competitive over time. The usefulness of the model is demonstrated by showing the relative differences of dynamic simulation results of the imperfect competition model with the results of a conventional exogenous fluid differential model.

We estimate a system-of-equations model designed to measure the interaction between intertemporal patterns of changes in population, employment, and agricultural land densities. The model is applied to West Virginia for the 1990–1999 period. Consistent with recent findings on migration patterns, the results show that jobs followed people. New jobs were captured by commuters, while agricultural land losses were occurring in the commuters’ counties of origin or bedroom communities. However, counties with relatively more profitable and concentrated agricultural enterprises were less susceptible to alternative land use pressure than counties with less productive or fragmented agricultural land. Elasticities indicate population change is elastic, whereas employment and agricultural land density changes are inelastic to factors affecting them. Growth management, when combined with agricultural land retention programs, may be most effective at preserving agricultural land in high growth or potential growth areas.

A labor supply model is used to examine the relationship between farm ownership and operators’ participation in the off-farm labor market for the Northeast region. The results indicate that ownership significantly influences operators’ off-farm employment participation. In particular, part-owners significantly allocate labor services to off-farm activities. The results also show that the participation rate among part-owner operators is high partly because the availability of other income sources accelerates the process of acquiring assets to become full-owner operators.

U.S. peanut, sugar, and tobacco tariff rate quotas (TRQs) are allocated to suppliers on an historical market share basis. Once allocated they become difficult to redistribute to accommodate changes in comparative advantage among suppliers. The distribution of trade departs increasingly from the tariff-equivalent distribution advocated by the WTO principle of nondiscrimination. Article ΧIII of the GATT regarding the rules for historical allocation is examined and applied to four cases of historical allocation: domestic tobacco quota and TRQs for peanuts, sugar and tobacco. The difference between the law enforcement objective of the WTO and the Pareto optimization objective assumed by economists is stressed throughout.

State programs promoting their agricultural products have proliferated in response to increased consumer interest in locally grown foods. Tennessee, for example, currently has two state-funded programs promoting its agricultural products. This study examines the factors associated with participation by Tennessee fruit and vegetable farmers in those programs. The results suggest that farmer participation is associated with farm income, use of extension resources, and fresh produce sales. These results should be of interest to anyone attempting to increase producer participation in such programs.

The mix of public and private land ownership within the Adirondack Park often leads to conflict between development and conservation interests. We explore the effects of the Adirondack Park Agency's classifications on property values through hedonic analysis while simultaneously controlling for environmental and recreational amenities. Results show that lands in the park classified for moderate-intensity use sell at a premium of up to 7 percent while lands in more restrictive classes are discounted. There is also evidence that decreasing the impact of humans by one unit increases property values by approximately 2 percent.

Estimates of the marginal internal rate of return to expenditures for research by the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station are presented. Estimates are performed using ridge regression under an array of specifications, including alternative functional forms, lag structures, costs of public funds, and variable specifications. The results are consistent with many previous results that imply an underinvestment in agricultural research.

We analyze risk management behavior (financial savings versus physical savings) of a private forest owner who values amenities in relation to uncertainty about timber growth. In a two-period model, we study the properties of optimal current and future harvesting and risk management decisions. We show that the forest owner chooses the tool with the highest rate of return unless both risk management instruments are perfect substitutes. We prove that future harvesting is greater under physical savings than under financial savings. Comparative static results on amenity preferences, incomes, forest stocks, timber prices, and opportunity costs are investigated.

We collected surveys from 94 greenhouse and nursery growers in three northeastern states to examine factors influencing integrated pest management (IPM] adoption. We constructed three alternative dependent variables describing the extent of IPM adoption and employed discrete choice models to identify factors that affect adoption. We find that operations with more full-time workers are more likely to adopt IPM. Additionally, greenhouse/nursery growers that rank pests as a serious problem are likely to use a wider array of IPM practices. The reliability of IPM practices is critical for adoption. Our analysis highlights differences between self-reported and objective IPM adoption measures.

We focus on rice policy reform required for Taiwan's admission to the WTO, and examine the effects, theoretically and empirically, of the re-instrumentation of domestic policy needed to achieve environmental objectives when both positive and negative environmental externalities exist. Policies that treat non-commodity attributes in agriculture as secondary to existing aims, such as income support, are unlikely to result in the desired supplies of environmental goods. Those supplies can be achieved at lower government and social costs using policy instruments to achieve environmental goals directly. Results are relatively insensitive to the social values assigned to environmental goods.