We use a combination of primary and secondary data to investigate and quantify the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the California specialty crop sector. We demonstrate that the specialty crop sector was highly resilient during the pandemic and aftermath in terms of output. For many crops, production fell somewhat between 2019 and 2021, but not to an extent that is outside of normal annual variation for fruits and vegetables. However, prices increased dramatically for many commodities. Contrary to conventional wisdom, most input costs did not surge during the pandemic, and some fell. But both the primary and secondary data identify labor and truck transportation as the major issues facing producers and driving up prices. Trade associations played a vital role in disseminating solutions to growers throughout the pandemic.

Safflower grown in the western U.S. is often produced for birdseed mixes. Increasing demand for birdseed products, combined with regional drought, has shrunk western safflower availability. To satisfy the growing demand, processors may look to contracting strategies to incentivize production. We compare expected risk and corresponding certainty equivalents both from the processor and producer viewpoints under various contracting mechanisms and risk aversion levels. Results suggest that contracts containing a combination of lump sum acreage payments and fixed price performance payments would incentivize producer adoption of safflower while maintaining processor profitability and limiting the risk exposure of both parties.

From 2011 onward, a European agribusiness progressively purchased about 38,000 hectares of land in Zambia. Although operations have commenced on the ground, only part of the land has been developed. Salverda and Nkonde look at the reasons for and implications of this partial development, focusing particularly on how, in such a context, Zambia’s slow-moving land administration, lack of financing, and the presence of rural residents on the purchased land have become self-reinforcing challenges. Their aim is to provide insights about why (very large) land deals often fail to achieve their projected capacity, leaving both investors and local residents in limbo.

There is a shift in livestock auction sales in consolidation of live markets and movement toward virtual marketplaces. We examine buyer preferences for nonracing stock-type horses sold through virtual auctions to better understand how animals are sold and their valuation. A shift towards online sales of equine has impacted the number of potential buyers through increased exposure to sale horses. Using data collected from online auctions, we estimate factors influencing propensity to sell as well as price determinants in this market platform. We find many factors contribute to the likelihood of a horse selling and to the final sale price.

Observers have increasingly described the drug-related violence and corruption affecting Central America as the region's ‘Colombianisation’. This narrative is not just confused and misleading; it is dangerous. The Colombianisation discourse perpetuates ineffective and destructive anti-drug policies. It also obscures the circulations and connections that make the drug trade, the drug war and their associated economies of violence possible. We do, however, recognise one form of Colombianisation that actually is under way, but it is not the one imagined by security pundits. The real Colombianisation is a convergence of geopolitical and economic interests that have seized upon the geographical realignments of the drug trade to expand the same agroindustrial-military nexus in Central America that proved so ‘successful’ in Colombia.

The article analyzes how Brazil has become an increasingly active voice for liberalization within global spheres of agricultural governance. With the focus on domestic institutional developments, we identify the gradual materialization of an agro-export policy network consisting of public and private actors. We conduct a periodization of the overarching phases of the policy network's development, from its incipient formation during the Uruguay Round to a high degree of organizational refinement in the new millennium. Through analysis of its external linkages, internal structure, and the distribution of resources, we examine how this network became an absolutely central factor in spurring the offensive orientation and assertive engagement of Brazil within the global agricultural policy arena. We thereby provide a domestically rooted explanation for the rise of Brazil as a central agricultural ‘player’, with the focus on the collective agency capacity of public and private stakeholders.

Agricultural economics and agribusiness (AEAB) programs offer their graduates unique exposure to agricultural markets, policy, and production systems, which differentiates them from business programs. Despite the advantages associated with AEAB degrees, a significant challenge universities and AEAB graduates face is a general lack of recognition of what agricultural economics is and what an agricultural economist does. Using data collected from U.S. 1862 and 1890 land grant universities, we stress the importance of designing effective AEAB curricula based on enrollment trends, the desired attributes of graduates, and the current structure of AEAB undergraduate programs.

The market for agribusiness extension activities and programming is diverse, intensely competitive, and national or international in scope. It is a market that agricultural economists cannot serve alone. Despite these complexities, a strong agribusiness extension effort is critical to the success of agribusiness research and teaching programs. Agribusiness extension opportunities include extending traditional agricultural economics research, small business management programs, economic/technical education programs, and management education. Keys for conducting successful agribusiness extension programs include understanding client needs, locating and employing the best instructional talent available, and flawless execution of the activity. Stimulating faculty interest in agribusiness extension is a major challenge. Most schools will have the opportunity to focus their traditional extension education efforts on the non-traditional agribusiness audience. A few schools will be successful in developing a new extension program emphasis in agribusiness management education. Both types of contributions are important for the long-run viability of the profession.

Despite high employment rates and starting salaries for qualified graduates of agribusiness, agricultural, and applied economics (AAAE) programs, several AAAE departments have experienced years of low enrollment. This study offers insight into how AAAE programs can more effectively market themselves and recruit undergraduate students through analysis of a nationwide survey of college and department personnel and a statewide survey of high school students. Findings reveal important differences between students’ preferred information and message sources and those currently used. Gaps in understanding of AAAE across administrative units are also identified. Specific program awareness, marketing, and student recruitment recommendations are offered.

Major changes affecting Agricultural Economics include: level and sources of funding, increased accountability, a renewed emphasis on teaching, increasing university and college linkages, an evolving student base, and the continuing adoption of educational technology. Major implications include: broader faculty teaching involvement, agribusiness program development, expanding multidisciplinary majors, Ph.D. program modifications for teacher preparation, expanding professional M.S. degrees, graduate program size and specialization reductions, alternative financing of graduate education, and faculty training in teaching methods. Teaching represents a major growth opportunity for Agricultural Economics, but it remains to be seen whether the discipline takes advantage of this opportunity.

Mathematical programming-based systems analysis is used to examine the consequences of alternative operation configuration for the agricultural operations within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Continuation versus elimination of the total operation as well as individual operating departments are considered. Methodology includes a firm systems operation model combined with capital budgeting and an integer programming based investment model. Results indicate the resources realize a positive return as a whole, but some enterprises are not using resources profitably. The integer investment model is found to be superior for investigating whether to continue multiple interrelated enterprises.

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) takes cropland out of production for 10 years, reducing grain supplies available to elevators. Results suggest that the program has negatively impacted elevator merchandising margins, but that elevators adjusted rather quickly to CRP changes, making most of the adjustment within 1 year. The reduction in margins reflects an element of pressure on agribusinesses that has not been measured in previous studies.

This paper describes four agribusiness simulators which can be processed on a microcomputer for use in undergraduate and extension teaching. The simulators model the environment in which supermarket chains, farm supply centers, and cooperative and proprietary grain elevators compete for business. Instruction manuals, user's manuals, and a diskette are distributed for each simulator. Each diskette contains programs to enter and edit team decisions, to process decisions and print reports, and to create graphs of team performance. The simulators can be used to teach financial management concepts and techniques, as well as economic principles.

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.

Value-added centers have been established in many states. These centers vary greatly in objectives, operational structures, staffing, and funding. This paper uses examples of several centers and programs, with a specific emphasis on three centers, to provide a better understanding of value-added centers and their operations.

Efforts to stabilize employment and output in the agricultural sector of Yugoslavia through monetization contributed to inflationary pressures. Granger causality tests suggest that increases in the rate of growth in the supply of money to subsidize state-owned agribusinesses were insufficient to maintain purchases of wheat and corn, but did cause purchases of cattle and swine. This result may be explained by producers having more flexibility in grain marketing (i.e., storage options and private buyers) and the perishability issues related to livestock marketing. The policy to maintain employment through monetization is shown to have been ineffective.

Agribusiness firms face substantial market risk associated with variations in farm production, output and input prices, exchange rates, and other factors. Some of the risk faced by agribusiness is passed through to the employees of the firm and to the communities where the firms are located, as employment levels are changed in response to these variations. An econometric analysis of the transmission of sales changes into payroll changes was performed for a sample of Georgia agribusiness firms. Transmission elasticities were found to be affected by firm type, size, age, and by the degree of use of part-time employees.