This analysis examines the economic impact of an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and the consequences of regionalization. The results suggest that an outbreak would have serious economic effects. Depending on the regionalization scenario, returns to capital and management in the poultry meat and egg sectors would fall between $602 million and $853 million dollars over 16 quarters. Consumers of poultry meat lose $900 million in consumer surplus in the first four quarters, a decline of 10.7%. Egg consumer surplus falls 17.1%. Regionalization lowers the economic welfare losses for producers because it dampens the export loss.

This study compares an ordered probit model and a Tobit model with selection to take into account both true zero and protest zero bids while estimating the willingness to pay (WTP) for conservation easements in Macon County, NC. By comparing the two models, the ordered/unordered selection issue of the protest responses is analyzed to demonstrate how the treatment of protest responses can significantly influence WTP models. Both models consistently show that income and knowledge are positive and significant factors, while distance to poorer quality streams and duration of residency are negative and significant factors on WTP.

Farm supply cooperatives are an important component of the retail agribusiness industry in the United States. The objective of this research is to identify financial variables that are determinants of return on equity in these cooperatives. Firm effects are important and their effect is the result of managerial decision making and director policy. The estimated coefficient on asset size was not statistically significant, suggesting that return on equity is invariant to size over this time period.

Environmental and consumer groups have called for mandatory labeling ofgenetically engineered (GE) food products in the United States, stating thatconsumers have the “right to know.” Herein, we use a nonhypothetical fieldexperiment to examine the willingness to pay for GE-labeled products, usingthe only second-generation GE product currently on the U.S. market—GEcigarettes. Our results suggest consumers pay less for GE-labeled cigaretteswhen marketing information is absent. But, when presented with marketinginformation on the attributes of the cigarette, we find no evidence thatconsumers pay less for GE-labeled cigarettes.

Models are developed to measure the effect of socioeconomic factors on the probability of consuming fish and shellfish in both the away from home and at home markets. Factors that significantly affect the likelihood of eating fish and shellfish at home include: urbanization, region, race, ethnicity, age, diet status and income. On the other hand, region, employment, diet status, household size, age and income significantly affect the likelihood of eating fish and shellfish away from home.

A choice experiment with real products was used to investigate consumerwillingness to pay (WTP) for several low-input attributes of turfgrasses.The choice scenarios consisted of turfgrass plots, which varied in aestheticquality characteristics and were labeled with differing levels ofmaintenance requirements (irrigation, fertilizer, etc.), shade adaptation,origin, and price. A mixed logit model was used to analyze the choice dataand estimate consumer WTP. Our results suggest that low-input maintenanceattributes significantly influence consumer choice behavior and identify astrong consumer preference for reduced irrigation and mowing requirements.The introduction of low-input turfgrasses could be a viable strategy forreducing the maintenance inputs and costs for residential lawn care.

Capital and credit constraints limit the small farm’s ability to adequately use resources for optimum performance. Farmers’ access to capital is constrained in multiple ways, including price factors, risk factors, and transaction factors, as well as access to and ease of rural agricultural financing. Using a primary survey data of small farms in Tennessee, we analyzed factors influencing credit constraint and its impact on farm performance. Farm operators’ gender, off-farm work, land acreage holdings, farm specialization, and the use of smart phone with Internet significantly influenced credit constraint. We found that the financial performance of credit constrained small farmers was significantly lower than that of unconstrained small farmers—an adverse impact of constrained capacity to credit could result in up to $51,000 lower in gross farm sales. Additionally, our reason-specific results within credit constraint suggested that around $32,000 to $39,000 lower performance in gross sales can be attributable to the constrained borrowing with deficit to obtain agricultural loans at required or desired level.

Consumer-level hedonic models are estimated to determine factors affecting retail pork and beef meat cuts. Results indicate that brand premium and discount varies across private, national, and store brands and that brand premium varies across meat cuts carrying the same brand name. Product size discounts are linear for beef and nonlinear for pork, meat items on sale are significantly discounted to nonsale items, specialty stores typically will not garner higher prices than supermarket/grocery stores, and warehouse stores typically have premium prices relative to supermarket/grocery stores.

Experiments and studies were conducted to investigate the role of social capital. Social capital (relationship to others) is a productive asset which is a substitute for and complement to other productive assets. The productivity of social capital leads to the expectation that firms and individuals invest in relationships. Data were collected to answer the following questions: Does the identity (relationship) of trading partners affect selling and buying prices; the acceptance of catastrophic risk; the choice of share or cash leases in agriculture; loan approval; and banks investment to retain customers? The evidence is in the afffirmative.

The U.S. hog industry has experienced dramatic structural changes and rapid increases in farm productivity. A stochastic frontier analysis is used to measure hog enterprise total factor productivity (TFP) growth between 1992 and 2004 and to decompose this growth into technical change and changes in technical efficiency, scale efficiency, and allocative efficiency. Productivity gains over the 12-year period are found to be explained almost entirely by technical progress and by improvements in scale efficiency. Differences in TFP growth rates in the Southeast and Heartland regions were found to be explained primarily by differences in farm size growth rates.

Preconditioning calf programs, while not new, are becoming more prevalent. They provide benefits to cow-calf producers while adding value for feeder cattle buyers. However, questions remain regarding the economic costs and returns of such programs. A model was estimated with data from three consecutive-day sales, to determine the value that buyers place on preconditioning programs and related feeder cattle traits. Our results indicate that price premiums, although evident, appear to be insufficient by themselves to cover the marginal costs of preconditioning.

The economic impacts of recreational visits to state parks on the economies of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee were estimated using the U.S. Forest Service IMPLAN input-output modeling system. Recreational expenditure data associated with state parks were obtained from the Public Area Recreation Visitors Study (PARVS). Results suggest that recreational spending may stimulate a considerable amount of economic activity in the state economies studied. Hence, future research into the economic development potential of outdoor recreation seems warranted.

Climate change is occurring. Deviations from historic temperatures and precipitation plus increased frequency of extreme events are modifying agriculture systems globally. Adapting agricultural management practices offers a way to lessen the effects or exploit opportunities. Herein many aspects of the adaptation issue are discussed, including needs, strategies, observed actions, benefits, economic analysis approaches, role of public/private actors, limits, and project evaluation. We comment on the benefits and shortcomings of analytical methods and suggested economic efforts. Economists need to play a role in such diverse matters as projecting adaptation needs, designing adaptation incentives, and evaluating projects to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.

A sample of U.S. consumers were surveyed in a choice based experiment in the Fall of 2005 and Spring 2006 to elicit Consumers' preferences for quality attributes in beef products. Based on the resulting data, a random coefficients logit model is estimated, and Consumers' willingness to pay for these quality attributes in beef products is obtained. The results indicate that consumers have strong valuation for traceability, grass-fed, and U.S. origin attributes in a standard rib-eye steak and are willing to pay a premium for these attributes.

Using recent advances in the stochastic production frontier framework, this paper presents an empirical analysis of technical, allocative and economic efficiency of a sample of organic and conventional cotton farms located in Greece. The results suggest that both farm types in the sample examined are technically, allocatively and economically inefficient. Farmer's age and education and farm size are important factors in explaining differentials in efficiency estimates. In comparative terms, organic farms exhibit lower efficiency scores vis-à-vis their conventional counterparts in terms of technical and economic efficiency; regarding allocative efficiency both farm types are almost equally inefficient. Low efficiency scores in both types of farming may be attributed to the respective intervention policies of the last 20 years.

We investigate whether social capital in the form of community involvement affects farmers' choice to use sustainable agricultural practices. Using associational memberships as a measure of community involvement we study its effects on agricultural practices among Georgia farmers. Our findings show that, first, community involvement had a positive effect on the decision to adopt sustainable agricultural practices, and, secondly, it also had a positive effect on the extent to which farmers adopt these practices. These findings establish an additional dimension to the benefits that would accrue to policies that promote social interaction and civic engagement in rural areas.

Double-cropping of soybeans and wheat is often promoted by extension personnel. This paper seeks to explain how the decision to adopt double-cropping is made, using a Tobit regression model. Tobit makes use of more of the information in the data set than do logit or probit and explains not only the decision to double-crop but also the rate of adoption. The paper considers factors such as profit and risk perceptions and risk which have not been included in the past models used to explain adoption of technology. The results show that risk perception is important. Contrary to the findings of some other adoption studies, this decision in not influenced by human capital factors. The farmers who double-crop are more highly leveraged and appear to do so both to achieve higher income and as part of a risk diversification strategy. This is consistent with the importance of the location factor, measured as the average number of growing degree days at the farm's location. Growing degree days is a proxy for the actual distribution of returns from double-cropping and is the main factor explaining this decision. Extensive adoption of double-cropping in cooler regions of the Midwest must await technological advances that can increase the profitability of double-cropping by reducing the growing season for wheat and/or beans.

Several studies indicate an integrated global market for salmon. However, there is increasing evidence of market segmentation for various seafood species. A disease crisis in Chile that reduced production by two-thirds provides a strong market shock that can shed light on how strongly integrated the salmon market is. Our results indicate that Chilean producers changed the product mix and export markets as a result of the disease shock. Yet, the relative prices remained constant, indicating a high degree of market integration. Moreover, Chilean prices are endogenous to the Norwegian price, indicating that prices are determined at the global market.

The first difference version of the restricted source-differentiated almost ideal demand system is used to estimate South Korean meat demand. The results of this study indicate that the United States has the most to gain from an increase in the size of the South Korean imported meat market in terms of its beef exports, while South Korea has the most to gain from this expansion in the pork market. Moreover, the results indicate that the United States has a competitive advantage to Australia in the South Korean beef market. Results of this study have implications for U.S. meat exports in this ever-changing policy environment.

In this paper, Chinese consumers' preferences and their willingness to pay (WTP) for non-genetically modified (GM) vegetable oil were elicited by a payment card approach. In addition to the conventional model, spike models, which were originally developed to evaluate public goods, were adopted in this paper. These spike models recognize the possibility of zero WTP and provide opportunities to analyze two correlated decision stages: whether to pay a premium for non-GM oil and how much the premium is. Results show that consumers behaved consistently in the two decision stages and there is a premium associated with non-GM oil.