Two questions commonly raised by cow-calf producers are, “What type of beef animal is most profitable?” and “Can profits be increased by maintaining ownership of calves through the stocker and feeding stages?”

These two questions are highly interrelated as performance in cow-calf stage carries over into the Dostweanine staees.

Much of the early 1860s discontent with railroads was centered in agricultural regions, particularly the new regions of the West, where monopolistic price discrimination was most easily practiced by railroads. Because of unavailable or inaccessible forms of competing transportation and numerous small shippers, railroads were able to exploit their monopolistic position (Meyer et al.). Agrarian political action in the 1860s resulted in unsuccessful regulatory efforts by states, but laid the base for the cornerstone of federal transportation regulation, the Act to Regulate Commerce, which was passed in 1887. The Act requires that all rates be “just and reasonable” and provides that “every unjust and unreasonable charge” is unlawful.

The present legal authority for the Food Stamp Program (FSP) is the Food and Agriculture Act of 1977. As adopted, the legislation includes a thorough overhaul of the FSP enacted into law in 1964. The FSP provides direct subsidies in the form of additional food dollars to low-income households to enhance the purchasing of nutritionally adequate diets. The most significant effect both on participating households and the food industry is the elimination of the purchase requirement whereby participants pay for food stamps. Under the new legislation, participants receive food stamps free of charge. The benefits received are roughly equivalent to the value of bonus stamps under the old program (Stucker and Boehm).

This paper examines the issues surrounding the patenting of life forms, specifically the social and private costs and benefits of the Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) (Plant Variety Protection Act, 1970). The PVPA is a current issue, encompassing all the elements of the economic, social, and moral controversy aroused by the broader issue of patenting life forms generally.

The subsequent sections of the paper outline the specific issues surrounding the PVPA, discuss the issue of plant patenting, present the arguments favoring and opposing plant patenting, and, finally, present an analysis of the major issues of the PVPA.

Market hog prices historically have shown great variation and have often followed a cyclical pattern. Franzmann (1979) finds evidence of a four-year and a twenty-eight-year cycle in hog prices. Price cycles imply the possibility of forecasting long-range prices. In turn, forecasting suggests the opportunity to vary the production or marketing process in order to maximize profits.

A long-season (160–180 days) cotton variety with a conventional production system was formerly grown in the Texas Coastal Bend Region. Cotton producers in the region used intensive insecticide applications throughout the growing season and harvested in August or September, and occasionally in October. In general, intensive insecticide applications for boll weevil and fleahopper control destroyed the beneficial insects and spiders. Late-season tobacco budworm infestations were thereby aggravated. These late-season insect infestations were a result of the relatively high rainfall during August and September. Moreover, high rainfall during this time not only interfered with harvest, but also reduced both the yield and quality of cotton (Lacewell et al.).

Food processing accounts for a large part of the total energy consumed in the food and fiber system, second only to household preparation. Havlicek and Capps emphasized that processing and distribution of food and fiber require 12 to 17 percent of the total U.S. energy budget. Thus far, research on energy use by agriculture in the southern region has concentrated on production of raw products at the farm level (Debertin and Pagoulatos) and consumption of food in the home (Lovingood and Goss; Rhee and Drew). The large processing and distribution network has been generally excluded from analysis because of a lack of information on energy used in these industries. Comprehensive data bases on energy use in food processing have been relatively limited because of the imperfectly competitive nature of food processing industries and because of unfavorable costs and benefits of compiling such information. Because of a lack of accurate and reliable data, little is known about the behavioral relationship of energy use in food processing and distribution.

The technological revolution in agriculture has produced a structural transformation in fanning that has changed the face of rural America. With improved technology and long-term U.S. economic growth, one major adjustment has been a reallocation of labor between farm and non-farm labor markets. After 1948, long-term economic forces created prospects of higher incomes in the non-farm sector. As a result, a large proportion of both white and black families ceased farming and took non-farm jobs. However, a number of other farm families have continued to work their farms, but have also taken off-farm jobs to supplement their income. Krasovec describes part-time farming as a regular two-fold occupation of the head of the family. That person may, on the one hand, be working permanently in non-agricultural industries either as an employee or as an independent craftsman, merchant or member of a profession, and on the other, in agriculture on a holding not large enough to justify a full-time occupation.

Each year many agricultural commodity groups spend millions of dollars advertising and promoting generic products. Generic advertising of a number of farm commodities occurs under federal authorization, under separate legislation or under marketing orders, or it is funded by producers on a voluntary contribution or mandatory basis.

More than three-fourths of the advertising programs operating under separate federal legislation or marketing order authority have been initiated during the past ten years (Armbruster). In addition to existing advertising programs, several advertising programs authorized under federal legislation were voted down by producers in a referendum: the most recent case was a beef referendum.

Integrated pest management (IPM) programs vary from employing field scouts to planting trap crops, as inputs in production, to control crop losses. Scouts provide pest information, helping to determine the need for pesticide applications. This increased information may indicate a reduction of periodic application, which would diminish the negative external effects that such treatments have on environmental quality.

Recent research in this area has determined the need for pest information (Regev et al.) and the rationale for established information markets (Feder). Currently, such sources exist throughout the United States, and both public and private consultants supply information to agricultural producers.

The marketing system for cattle in the United States has evolved with shifts from delivery to large terminal centers, to more decentralized markets. Because of innovations in transportation and processing technology, these structural changes have created a need for greater vertical coordination between different stages in the cattle marketing channels (Rhodes, p. 174; Sporleder, p. 101). Improved coordination requires appropriate market information about product supplies and the form of cattle preferred by buyers (Purcell, 1973, 1980).

Wood fuel is becoming increasingly more important as an alternate energy source because of price and shortages of fossil fuels. Furthermore, energy prices are expected to continue to rise in future years (U.S. Dept. of Energy, pp. 56–72). As a result, agribusiness firms in the Southeast are investigating the feasibility, of utilizing wood residues or whole tree green chips for their fuel supply. Some industries may continue to rely partially on their present gas- or oil-fired systems and add a wood-fired boiler as a backup system. The availability of wood as an industrial fuel at a competitive price is one of the major concerns of these firms.

Transportation is a vital element in our daily lives. Access to jobs, shopping, and other services depends upon some form of transportation. The principal means of transportation in the United States continues to be the automobile. Census figures show that in 1975, 84.7 percent of all workers in this country and 84.5 percent of the workers in non-metropolitan areas used the automobile to get to work (U.S. Bureau of the Census).

The market for farmland has often been a subject of interest to agricultural economists, as evidenced by numerous studies that have investigated factors determining rural land values (Aines; Reynolds and Timmons; Ruttan; Sco-field). Despite the wealth of literature concerned with land values, little is known about who owns and exercises entrepreneurial control over land resources in the U.S. Consequently, there is a lack of understanding concerning the decision to purchase farmland. Lewis has suggested that better understanding of landowner investment decisions is important in determining and implementing effective land-use policy. Also, Wunderlich has noted the importance of understanding land ownership with regard to land-use decisions. Long et al. (p. 44) have suggested that “if policies are to be designed to influence private landowners’ decisions, then it seems imperative that the factors affecting landowners’ decisions and the decision process be better understood.”

Dynamic, recursive simulation models for the national livestock-feed sector have been designed by agricultural economists for the specific purpose of making long-run projections and evaluating alternative agriculture policies (Reynolds et al.; Yanagida and Conway). While these models are useful for describing the workings of the national grain and livestock sectors, they are incomplete for policy evaluation purposes at a subnational or state level (Knapp et al.; Maki et al.). In these situations, unless state or regional production and marketing patterns are represented as a constant percentage of the national model solution values, the impact of changes in a state's crop or livestock production relative to other states and alternative policy decisions cannot be considered (Ratajczak). Consequently, a state model must be able to reflect the impact of national and international policies and events to be effective and functional (Colyer and Irwin).

Since publication of Popkin's work on price determination by state of processing, cost-push models of “inflation” have provided the theoretical structure underlying much of the empirical analysis of food price behavior. The general premise of such models is that the price (usually a component of the Consumer Price Index) of a commodity can be expressed as the summation of that commodity's price in a less processed form, plus the cost of all resources expended in the physical transformation of the commodity to its current form. Then, if the costs of raw farm produce or other factors of production used by food processing firms increase, cost-push models predict that retail food prices will increase at some future date. It is argued that price increases at the retail level occur because market power of processing and retail firms permits them to “pass through” increased costs of production by increasing the prices of their output. Or, “because of their oligopolistic structure, these [food manufacturing] firms are able to select the prices at which they sell” (Lamm, p. 119). Similarly, Heien (p. 11) states that “an operationally more realistic theory is one where store managers apply a markup over costs for each product in order to arrive at a price.”

Recent trends in the southeastern states toward increased use of irrigation in agriculture may be attributed to risk aversion management by farmers in response to recent drought periods. Despite ample annual average rainfall in the Southeast during the growing season, the vicissitudes of rainfall patterns provide sufficient reason to consider irrigation for field crops as well as for vegetables and fruit (Ganguly). Increased use of irrigation additionally results in new demands for water in rural areas.

It is also well documented that nonmetropolitan areas are experiencing substantial rates of positive net immigration (Wardell and Gilchrist). In the Southeast, there is a trend for new manufacturing plants to locate in rural areas where wages, taxes, and union activity are at low levels. As growth occurs in these nonmetropolitan regions, industrial, residential, and commercial activities require additional supplies of water.

An important objective of Japanese agricultural policy since the early 1960s has been to increase farm incomes by raising the farm price of rice, the country's principal agricultural crop (Hayami). This objective was accomplished through a two-tiered pricing scheme administered by the Japanese Food Agency, the country's principal purchaser and seller of rice, which maintained producer support prices at levels higher than the consumer equivalent. However, in recent years, the accumulation of excess rice stocks has forced Japan's policymakers to implement major changes in rice policy to reduce persistent overproduction. These policies include diversion payment programs that provide incentives to divert paddy land to production of priority crops such as wheat, barley, and soybeans, as well as surplus disposal programs that subsidize the disposal of accumulated rice stocks for export, industrial, and feed use. Other policy changes include adjustments in the wholesale (resale) prices of rice and wheat to favor rice consumption, and adjustments in producer support prices to promote production of competing crops. This study analyzes the impact on trade of recent changes in Japanese rice and wheat policy.

Rapid fuel price increases in 1979 and early 1980, along with concern about further rises, have led to speculation that Florida, a net calf exporter but net importer of finished cattle and beef, will be increasingly competitive in finishing cattle to slaughter weight. This hypothesis is strengthened by recognition of significant structural changes in the Florida cattle feeding industry since the late 1960s, as large-scale feedlots were developed and smaller-scale feeders declined in importance (Simpson and Baker). Furthermore, yield improvements and new techniques, such as the use of bagasse for silage and feeding of high-moisture corn, have been adopted in the production of Florida feedstuff s. There is no crucial evidence showing differences in investment or operating costs between Florida and the major cattle feeding areas because of the relatively large size feedlots in Florida that allow them to take advantage of substantial economies of size (Simpson, et al.). This paper evaluates the potential effect that increased transportation costs, as a result of higher fuel prices, might have on Florida's competitive cattle feeding position.

Public concern has been expressed in most states over the adequacy of present allocative mechanisms to guide land and water use effectively. Private land and water use decisions are seen to have effects far beyond those intended by the decision makers. People intuitively recognize that society's natural resources are not being used to the greatest good when these “spillovers” occur. Ervin et al. (p. 4) have described the situation: “… given our (society's) broader viewpoint where impacts are taken into account which do not enter a firm's profit calculations (or a consumer's), the decision may well be socially inefficient.” The concern about these “spillovers” has led to calls for increased government intervention by way of regulation (Healy and Rosenberg). The implicit assumption is that government action can improve the efficiency of land and water use.