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The article presents the effects of a waste paper product on soil phosphorus, carbon, and bulk density. Soil test values for phosphorus have increased due to the applications of manures to agricultural fields in the United States. Because of the application, there is a probability that phosphorus will be in the surface water. The effect will be the degradation of water quality. The danger of phosphorus transport to surface water may be lowered through the application of waste paper on soils with high soil test phosphorus. In Booneville, Arizona, a test was conducted to show the effects of adding waste paper product on soil phosphorus, carbon, and bulk density.

Presents several research papers on agricultural economics in the United States.

Copyright of Swiss Political Science Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Presents abstracts of several articles about agriculture. Components of agricultural productivity; Productive and export capacity in world agriculture; Analysis of supply and demand estimates of the United States farm products.

Presents the abstracts of several studies on agriculture. 'Multiple Output Production Decisions within Canadian Prairie Agriculture' by Brian W. Gould; 'Aggregate Milk Supply Response and Investment Behavior of U.S. Dairy Farms' by Richard M. Klemme and Jean-Paul Chavas; 'The Use of Expectations In Agricultural Supply Response' by Suzanne Hazard and J. Scott Shonkwiler.

Presents abstracts of several articles on agriculture. 'Six Alternative Methods for Linking Normative and Positive National Agricultural Models,' by Wen-Yuan Huang, Reuben N. Weisz, Kenneth H. Baum, et al; 'The Preference of Purchases Data Over Sales Data in Primary Data Input-Output Models,' by Edward E. Ives; 'Policy, Concepts and Conflicts,' by Frederick L. Leistritz.

In the United States, truck rates for perishable food, the per‐mile rate charged for trucking services to move perishable food from farms to stores, rose substantially in the post‐COVID‐19 pandemic era. We argue that rising truck rates is a signal of a broader shortage of truckers, but the connection between labor shortages, rising truck rates, and a lack of trucking services has yet to be established empirically. In this paper, we develop an empirical examination based on an equilibrium job search, matching, and bargaining framework in which we estimate the role of labor shortages in accelerating driver‐wage growth, and truck rates for agricultural products. We estimate the model by combining US Bureau of Census Current Population Survey data on truck driver wages with USDA‐Agricultural Marketing Service Service data on truck rates to establish the linkage between trucker supply and the demand for trucking services. We find that the COVID‐19 pandemic was responsible for a rise in for‐hire trucker wages of some 38%$38\%$, a rise in average truck rates of nearly 50%$50\%$ and that the gap between trucker‐job openings and successful matches explains a significant, but small, rise in truck rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To review and synthesise research related to the ageing farming workforce influence on the health and sustainability of agricultural communities. Design: Using the PRISMA framework as a guide, the CINHAL and Medline databases were searched. Search 1 used the key search terms of ageing OR aging, farm*, workforce. Search 2 used health, sustainability and 'agricultural OR farm communit*. Search 3 combined Searches 1 and 2. Search 4 followed journal citations to identify other relevant articles. A process of narrative synthesis was applied to the results through the prism of rural social capital that described the current state of knowledge and understanding under four themes. Result: Database searches and searching of citations identified 16 contemporary articles. Seven of the papers were from Australia, and the balance from five other high‐income countries. The four that themes emerged are: vulnerabilities of ageing farmers; economic and climatic drivers; social capital and sustainability; and integrative strategies, that might offer a way forward. Conclusion: Integrating these forces of nature, economics and sociology to address the ageing farming workforce and the associated health and sustainability of agricultural communities remains a major challenge for researchers, governments, the agricultural sector and rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the voices of tomato industry workers, this paper offers a multi‐sited ethnographic view of largely unrecognized practices in the conventional, field‐grown, fresh‐market wholesale tomato industry in the southeastern United States. Tomato industry workers—including agricultural cooperative extension agents, farmers, labor contractors, marketers, and harvesters—present their distinctive perspectives on production‐exchange relations, shifting political economic identities, and what I call emerging redistributive practices found throughout a southeastern U.S. tomato circuit. I argue that two specific emerging redistributive practices take place while the tomatoes are technically still in the production stage in certain conventional tomato fields: (i) pinhooking and (ii) buying the field. Studying these practices helps us better understand the complexities of the southeastern U.S. tomato industry. By looking at tomato enterprises that plant, cultivate, harvest, transport, and/or market produce, this paper presents a body of evidence that counter‐constructs the racialized stereotype concerning Mexicans and Mexican Americans' contributions to agriculture in the southeastern United States. It shows how an ethnographically informed picture of a regional tomato industry circuit reveals commonly unrecognized features of social change, enterprise, production‐exchange relations, and redistributive practices. It concludes by suggesting that these enterprise arrangements and practices could support the creation of more equitable regional food production systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the abstract of the research papers "Factors Affecting the Decision to Exit Farming: A Maine Industry Study," by Lisa Bragg, et al and "How Structural Change in the Western Canadian Dairy Processing Industry Can Lead to New Game Theory Amongst Industry Players," by Ryan Furtas, published in the December 1, 2003 issue of "American Journal of Agricultural Economics".

Evidence on the labor‐market effect of immigration focuses on permanent migrants, though a large share of international labor mobility is temporary and seasonal. This paper estimates the marginal native employment effect of policy restrictions on foreign seasonal farm workers in the United States. It exploits two natural experiments: a legal requirement to give hiring preference to natives, and an exogenous change in natives' next‐best employment options during the Great Recession of 2007–2008. The local elasticity of natives' occupational labor supply is 0.0015, implying a minimal marginal effect of seasonal work visa restrictions on native employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, there is a tremendous amount of interest in community‐supported agriculture (CSA) among farmers, consumers, activists, and policymakers. Despite the attention garnered by CSA and the resurgence of local agriculture, relatively few studies have examined the livelihood opportunities for farmers within local agriculture. This paper evaluates the livelihoods of CSA farmers from the farmers' perspective in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts. Results indicate that although CSA farmers earn more farm income than other farms across the United States on average, they still earn far below the median national income and generally fail to earn a living wage. Despite these findings, CSA farmers stressed the importance of the broader social, ecological, and economic benefits to farming. Although these non‐market benefits are a significant source of well‐being from the CSA farmers' perspective, CSA has largely failed to provide adequate livelihoods for farmers to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the market and welfare effects of the United States Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act enacted in 2001. The act mandates meat packers to report their transactions daily to a government agency and requires the agency to make a summary of those transactions available to the public through the Mandatory Livestock Meat Market News Reports. Considering the case of an imperfect packer cartel that uses trigger price strategies, this paper examines the impact of market information provided by the reports on equilibrium livestock slaughter and the welfare of the groups involved and identifies the determinants of the socially optimal level of information. A key result of the paper is that, even when facilitating collusion among packers, increased market information can be social welfare enhancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Population & Development Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Presents a reply to Jet Yee's criticism of the author's paper on the United States' commitment to agricultural research. Defense of author's assumptions presented in his paper; Overestimation of net benefits of agricultural research; Yee's comments as providing further analysis and sensitivity to the author's views thereby strengthening the same arguments.

This article presents the research papers published in this issue of the journal "Rural Sociology." The first paper by James H. Copp represents a stage in the maturation of research on farm practice acceptance. It is one of the first attempts to compare the results of studies conducted in different agricultural regions. Using data from Wilkening's study in Wisconsin and from his own study in Kansas, he developed comparable measures of certain personal, social, and economic variables. Another paper by Copp and colleagues deals with the informational aspect of the acceptance of new farm practices. They attempt essentially to specify the function of information sources in the adoption process. By asking a series of questions about the sources of information at various times, from the awareness of a new practice until its adoption, they find that institutionalized sources tend to perform a function separate from that of noninstitutionalized sources. The study by Charles R. Hoffer and Dale Stangland is a worthy attempt to take into account the farmer's value orientations as they affect his adoption of practices.

Assessments of the impact of minimum wages on labor market outcomes in Africa are relatively rare. In part this is because the available data do not permit adequate treatment of econometric issues that arise in such assessments. This paper, however, attempts to estimate the impact of introducing a minimum wage law in the agriculture sector in South Africa, based on 15 waves of the biannual Labor Force Survey conducted between September 2000 and September 2007. The chosen sample includes six waves before the legislation's effective date (March 2003) and nine afterwards. To assess whether the changes experienced by farm workers are unique, we identify a control group that has similar characteristics to the treatment group. Our econometric approach involves using two alternative specifications of a difference-in-differences model. We test whether employers reduced employment, and whether they responded at the intensive margin by reducing hours of work. The results suggest a significant employment reduction in agriculture from the minimum wage (and particularly a noticeable move away from employment of part-time workers), an increase in wages on average, and a rise in non-wage benefits compliance. Our analysis also indicates that, firstly, overall average of hours worked fell in the post-law period, suggesting that employers adjusted to some extent on the intensive margin. Secondly, it appears that hours of work increased more in areas where wages were lower in the pre-law period, driven largely by the fall in part-time employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sixty years ago, T.W. Schultz introduced the idea of the productivity "residual" to agricultural economics (1956). Schultz's main message was that growth in conventional inputs accounted for little of the observed growth in agricultural output, and that there was work to be done by agricultural economists to understand and ultimately eliminate this unexplained residual called "productivity." Thus was launched the economics of agricultural productivity as a sub-field within agricultural economics, along with the economics of agricultural R&D and innovation and related government policy. Much progress has been made in the decades since. Still, critical issues remain unresolved. This matters because agricultural innovation and productivity matter, and so do the related policies that rest to some extent on our established understanding of the economic relationships. In this paper I review some unsettled issues related to economic models and measures applied to agricultural R&D and productivity, and some unfinished business in terms of economic and policy questions that are not yet well answered. Before doing that, I present some evidence on agricultural productivity and why it matters. Next, with a nod to "factology," I present available productivity measures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and International Science and Technology Practice and Policy (InSTePP) Center, and compare them in the context of translog cost function models. In subsequent sections I use these and other data to develop new evidence related to two contentious questions: (a) Do farmers benefit from public agricultural R&D? (b) Has U.S. agricultural productivity growth slowed in recent decades? The answers are revealed within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2014 Farm Bill required farmers and landowners to make a set of one-time, irrevocable decisions lasting for the duration of the farm bill. The decisions included the choice between three program alternatives with uncertain payments. To aid in making those decisions, the farm bill funded two key educational efforts: (a) the development of two online decision tools and (b) additional funding to support land grant institutions and extension systems to educate farmers through more traditional extension mediums, particularly in-person meetings. This paper provides an evaluation of both types of farm bill education through two case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Native ecosystem and biodiversity loss from land use conversion into human‐modified landscapes are evident in the United States and globally. In addition to public land conservation, there is an increase in private land conservation through conservation easements (CEs) across exurban landscapes. Not every CE was established strictly for biodiversity protection and permitted land uses can increase human modification. No research of which we are aware has examined the actual tax assessor's land use designations (LUDs) through time. We constructed granular CE datasets (GCED) of CEs and their parcels' tax assessment LUDs for 1997–2008/2009, based on original data from 12 counties in six US states. Using the GCED, we examined patterns in the LUDs, with implications for land uses that could impact CE biological outcomes. We show that LUDs on exurban private conservation lands were predominately residential and agricultural, with increased residential over time. Critically, the LUDs lack a biological conservation exempt designation/category. There is no consistent trend in association between the primary CE reason and its parcel's LUD, suggesting that they coincide in some circumstances but in others, the CE may be a response to contravene the LUD. The majority of the first CE reasons are focused on open space preservation, except in some counties where agricultural land uses and agricultural CEs are associated. The economically and human‐focused LUD is one of many social factors that should be considered in a classification system for private land conservation and CEs more specifically. These results prompt the land conservation, conservation biology, and environmental planning communities to explore assessed land uses' impact on biodiversity conservation objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought is associated with adverse environmental and societal impacts across various regions. Therefore, drought monitoring based on a single variable may lead to unreliable information, especially about the onset and persistence of drought. Previous studies show vapor pressure deficit (VPD) data can detect drought onset earlier than other drought indicators such as precipitation. On the other hand, soil moisture (SM) is a robust indicator for assessing drought persistence. This study introduces a nonparametric multivariate drought index Vapor Pressure Deficit Soil moisture standardized Drought Index (VPDSDI) which is developed by combining VPD with SM information. The performance of the multivariate index in terms of drought onset detection is compared with the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) for six major drought events across the United States including three rapidly developing drought events (this term refers to flash droughts that develop on monthly scales) and three conventional drought events. Additionally, the performance of the proposed index in detecting drought persistence is compared with the Standardized Soil moisture Index (SSI), which is an agricultural drought index. Results indicate the multivariate index detects drought onset always earlier than SPI for conventional events, but VPDSDI detects drought onset earlier than or about the same time as SPEI for rapidly developing droughts. In terms of persistence, VPDSDI detects persistence almost identical to SSI for both rapidly developing and conventional drought events. The results also show that combining VPD with SM reduces the high variability of VPD and produces a smoother index which improves the onset and persistence detection of drought events leveraging VPD and SM information. Plain Language Summary: Drought has significant negative effects on the environment and society. Relying on a single variable for drought monitoring can provide unreliable information, particularly when it comes to determining when droughts begin and end. Previous research has found that vapor pressure deficit (VPD) data can identify the beginning of drought conditions earlier than measures like precipitation. In contrast, soil moisture (SM) has proven to be a reliable indicator for evaluating how long drought conditions last over time. In this study, we introduced a multivariate drought index that combines VPD with SM data, named Vapor Pressure Deficit Soil moisture standardized Drought Index (VPDSDI). We compared the performance of this index in detecting drought onset and persistence with SPEI/SPI and SSI, respectively. The results demonstrate that VPDSDI detects drought onset around the same time or earlier than SPEI/SPI. Moreover, VPDSDI shows similar detection capabilities to SSI for drought persistence. By combining VPD and SM, VPDSDI reduces variability and provides more reliable information for assessing and understanding drought events. Key Points: This study introduces a nonparametric agrometeorological drought index by combining vapor pressure deficit and soil moisture informationWe find this new index detects rapidly developing drought and conventional drought onset earlier or at the same time as Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index and Standardized Precipitation Index in evaluated events, respectivelyResults suggest that the proposed index shows drought persistence similar to Standardized Soil moisture Index in assessed events [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the diversity of both agricultural and forest entomology as reflected in the publication of various agricultural and forest entomology issues in the U.S. One of the most common publication is that of the Royal Entomological Society which won the prize of having the best papers published for two years. Among the papers being awarded include "Agricultural and Forest Entomology," by Dirk Babendreier and "Trichogramma brassicae."

This paper explores how a relatively successful global environmental treaty, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, is currently undermined by US protectionism. At the “global scale” of environmental governance, powerful nation-states like the US prolong their domination of certain economic sectors with the assistance of neoliberal discourse. Using empirical data gathered while attending Montreal Protocol meetings from 2003 to 2006, I show how US policy undermines the Montreal Protocol's mandate to phase out methyl bromide (MeBr). At the global scale of environmental governance the US uses a discourse of technical and economic infeasibility because, in the current neoliberal milieu, it cannot make a simply protectionist argument. The discourse, in other words, is protectionism by another name. While much of the literature in critical geography on neoliberalism has focused on de-regulation versus re-regulation, this paper illustrates how science, protectionism, and neoliberalism can become articulated uneasily and in sometimes unexpected ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The image of farming in the United States is an individualistic one. The existence of kinship arrangements and their significance in the intergenerational transfer of farms and on farm decisions have received little attention. This paper looks at the characteristics of kinship arrangements in the Palouse area of eastern Washington and northern Idaho and whether relatives who farm together differ in innovativeness from those who do not farm with relatives. Two models are presented, which suggest that kinship arrangements might have either a positive or negative effect on adoption of erosion control practices. We present data to test these two models and discuss the implications of our findings for farmer innovativeness and intergenerational transfer of farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a type of situs analysis into sociological studies of agricultural labor markets. Situs, as it relates to a nonhierarchical differentiation of occupations in the agricultural sector, is operationalized as two or more internally consistent, mutually exclusive, though not necessarily functionally equivalent, occupational families. A three-category situs classification is proposed: (1) production agriculture; (2) agribusiness; and (3) agricultural education/research. Each occupational family (situs) is composed of a series of hierarchically ranked status positions. Taken as a whole, the proposed classification scheme can be viewed as three distinct, but parallel agricultural status ladders. The conceptual and empirical utility of situs analysis is demonstrated using data from the United States Census. Seventy agricultural occupations are grouped according to situs affiliation. Each situs is then examined with respect to modal social and economic characteristics. A simple earnings determination model is also reported for each group of agricultural occupations. Results show that situses differ in their social, economic and demographic make-up and that cultural studies of agricultural labor markets and suggestions for future research projects are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Census of Agriculture is an important source of data for persons interested in studying the structure of agriculture. The census has been used to study agriculture and quality of life in Kansas recently and aggregated state level data was used to describe the relationship between farm size, agriculture and energy consumption. As sociological interest in agriculture, grows, it is likely that the Census of Agriculture will become the source of many more studies. Unfortunately, the units of analysis reported in the Census of Agriculture like-aggregate national, state and county statistics-create problems for those who use them for sociological purposes. This short article will illustrate some of the problems inherent in the use of census materials by reexamining some of the data used on recent papers on energy and agriculture. A serious difficulty posed by the use of census material for sociological research stems from the fact that census data are aggregated on the bases of political units like states and counties.

This paper reports a study of the use of information sources by farm operation in the farm practice adoption process and develops a model to account for the differential use of sources as farmers progress toward adoption. Utilizing a less-structured interviewing technique, the findings from this study of 175 Pennsylvania dairy farmers lend support to previous investigations of the use of information sources in the various stages of the adoption process. The model constructed to account for the differential use of information sources as farmers progress toward adoption involves five considerations: (1) institutionalization of information sources, (2) the temporal sequence of sources, (3) the possibility of negative recommendations, (4) scheduling limitations, and (5) the need for local legitimation. A reasonably good fit was obtained between model and data. A prediction derived from the model, that farmers citing peer influences as sources in the early stages of the adoption process would make less progress toward adoption than farmers citing other sources, was also supported by the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of a study of the discriminatory characteristics of accepters and non-accepters of an approved farm practice in two Iowa turban communities. Evidence is presented in support of the hypothesis of a trait typology among farm operators in their acceptance of approved technological practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated a subject directory in the US Agriculture Department- Economic Research Service portal. Parent-child relationships, related connections among the categories, and related connections among the subcategories in the subject directory were optimized using social network analysis. The optimization results were assessed by both density analysis and edge strength analysis methods. In addition, the results were evaluated by domain experts. From this study, it is recommended that four subcategories be switched from their original four categories into two different categories as a result of the parent-child relationship optimization. It is also recommended that 132 subcategories be moved to 40 subcategories and that eight categories be moved to two categories as a result of the related connection optimization. The findings show that optimization boosted the densities of the optimized categories, and the recommended connections of both the related categories and subcategories were stronger than the existing connections of the related categories and subcategories. This paper provides visual displays of the optimization analysis as well as suggestions to enhance the subject directory of this portal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How much has food abundance, attributable to U.S. public agricultural R&D, contributed to high and rising U.S. obesity rates? In this paper we investigate the effects of public investment in agricultural R&D on food prices, per capita calorie consumption, adult body weight, obesity, public healthcare expenditures related to obesity, and consumer welfare. We find that a 10% increase in the stream of annual U.S. public investment in agricultural R&D in the latter half of the twentieth century would have caused a modest increase in the average daily calorie consumption of American adults, resulting in small increases in public healthcare expenditures related to obesity. On the other hand, such an increase in spending would have generated very substantial consumer benefits, and net national benefits, given the very large benefit-cost ratios for agricultural R&D. This implies that current policy objectives of revising agricultural R&D priorities to pursue obesity objectives are likely to be comparatively unproductive and socially wasteful. Moreover, R&D lags of decades mean that such an approach would be totally ineffective in the immediate horizon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multilateral trade reforms, such as may eventually emerge from the WTO's Doha Development Agenda ( DDA), tend to be phased in over a decade or so after agreement is reached. Given the DDA's slow progress, that implementation may not be completed before the end of the next decade. Ex-ante analysis of the DDA's possible effects thus requires first modelling the world economy to 2030 and, in that process, projecting what trade-related policies might be by then without a DDA. Typically, modellers assume the counterfactual policy regime to be a 'business-as-usual' projection assuming the status quo. Yet we know developing country governments tend to switch from taxing to assisting farmers in the course of economic development. This paper shows the difference made by including political economy-determined agricultural protection growth endogenously in the baseline projection. We reveal that difference by projecting the world economy to 2030 using the Global Trade Analysis Project ( GTAP) model with those two alternative policy regimes and then simulating a move to global free trade (the maximum benefit from a multilateral trade reform) in each of those two cases. The welfare effects of removing the counterfactual price distortions in 2030 are shown to be much larger in the case where agricultural protection grows endogenously than in the case assuming no policy changes over the projection period. This suggests the traditional way of estimating effects of a multilateral agricultural trade agreement may considerably understate the potential welfare gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper 'Climate and agricultural land use change impacts on streamflow in the upper midwestern United States' by Satish C. Gupta, Andrew C. Kessler, Melinda K. Brown, and Francis Zvomuya (hereafter referred to as Gupta et al.) purports to evaluate 'the relative importance of changes in precipitation and LULC (land use, land cover) on streamflow in 29 Hydrologic Unit Code 008 watersheds in the Upper Midwestern United States.' However, as we report here, the approach used by Gupta et al. is wholly inadequate for making such an evaluation. Gupta et al. use strong language to criticize other studies and imply a level of certainty that goes well beyond, and in some cases is entirely unsupported by, the results they have presented. We take this opportunity to point out several critical flaws in their study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land transformation from grassland to cropland in the Northern Great Plains (NGP) has become a growing concern among many stakeholders. A growing body of work has sought to determine the amount and rate of land use change with less emphasis on the systemic structures or feedback processes of land use decisions. This paper presents the development of a system dynamics simulation model to integrate ecological, economic, and social components influencing land use decisions, including cattle ranching, cropland production, rural communities, land quality, and public policies. Evaluation indicated that the model satisfactorily predicted historical land, agricultural commodity, and rural community data from the model structure. Reference modes for key variables, including the farmland area, were characterized by a bias correction of 0.999, root mean squared error of prediction of 0.053, R2 of 0.921, and concordance correlation coefficient of 0.0959. The model was robust under extreme and varying sensitivity tests, as well as adequately predicting land use under changing system context. The model's major contributions were the inclusion of decision-making feedbacks from economic and social signals with connectivity to land quality and elasticity values that drive land transformation. Limitations include lack of spatial input and output capabilities useful for visual interfacing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately 75% of all tomatoes in the United States are consumed as processed and 25% as fresh. One of the first steps during processing involves removal of the peel and, unfortunately, more than 25% of the fruits (as measured by total weight) can be lost due to overpeeling. Additionally, conventional peeling applications have a negative environmental impact. Given the great potential economic benefits, many scientists have conducted research to attempt optimizing or predicting peeling performance when processing tomatoes. The literature regarding tomato peelability is contradictory in many cases; and several topics have been subject to ample debate over the years. Divergent conclusions are probably not due to faulty investigations, but rather to the extreme variability found among tomato cultivars, the effect of growing seasons, and maybe even the effect of climatic conditions on the day of harvest or during transportation to the processing plants. This review provides an in-depth background needed for a better understanding of tomato physiology, maturation, and composition, as these could possibly influence the ease of peeling or 'peelability.' The research studies directly involved with peeling tomatoes and predicting peelability are discussed in this paper as well. Different peeling methods, peeling grading scales, and fruit tagging procedures are presented, as well as experiments evaluating the effect that fruit defects, maturity, growing conditions, and other factors can have on the ease of peeling. Novel approaches for peelability prediction by means of spectroscopic and magnetic resonance technology are also discussed in this review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contracts between farmers and intermediaries and crop insurers are important means for farmers to mitigate risks in modern U.S. agriculture. In this paper, we investigate the effect of crop insurance enrollment on contract terms and farmers' participation in marketing contracts. Following Ligon (2003), we set up a mechanism design framework to demonstrate an intermediary's contract design problem, where farmers are assumed to be utility maximizing agents. We depict farmers' optimal choices of insurance coverage using the specification developed by Babcock (2012). Our model shows that improved terms of crop insurance (lower premiums, higher subsidies) make contracts less appealing tofarmers as mechanisms for mitigating risk. Therefore, intermediaries may revise their contract offers so that they are more attractive. However, improvements in contract terms are limited by their cost to the intermediaries and will not lead to expanded participation in contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade plays an increasingly important role in the global food system, which is projected to be strained by population growth, economic development, and climate change. For this reason, there has been a surge of interest in the water resources embodied in international trade, referred to as 'global virtual water trade.' In this paper, we present a comprehensive assessment of virtual water flows within the United States (U.S.), a country with global importance as a major agricultural producer and trade power. This is the first study of domestic virtual water flows based upon intranational food transfer empirical data and it provides insight into how the properties of virtual water transfers vary across scales. We find that the volume of virtual water flows within the U.S. is equivalent to 51% of international flows, which is slightly higher than the U.S. food value and mass shares, due to the fact that water-intensive meat commodities comprise a much larger fraction of food transfers within the U.S.. The U.S. virtual water flow network is more social, homogeneous, and equitable than the global virtual water trade network, although it is still not perfectly equitable. Importantly, a core group of U.S. States is central to the network structure, indicating that both domestic and international trade may be vulnerable to disruptive climate or economic shocks in these U.S. States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes undergraduate students' enrollment intentions and preferences for alternate teaching modalities during the pandemic under a range of reopening scenarios and flexible teaching modalities to investigate the value of flexible learning options and campus life offerings for students. Using primary survey data from six land‐grant universities, our findings suggest that there is no one‐size‐fits‐all policy for tackling significant shocks like the pandemic. Business‐as‐usual was the most divisive, with wide differences in preferences both within and across universities. These results have important implications for future responses to major disruptions in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Atrazine and other triazine herbicides are widely used in US maize and sorghum production, yet the most recent market-level assessment of the economic benefits of atrazine is for market conditions prevalent in the early 1990s, before commercialization of transgenic crops. Grain markets have changed substantially since that time; for example, the size of the US maize market increased by 170% from 1990-1992 to 2007-2009. This paper reports a current assessment of the economic benefits of atrazine. RESULTS Yield increases and cost changes implied by triazine herbicides are projected to reduce maize prices by 7-8% and sorghum prices by 19-20%. Projected consumer benefits from lower prices range from $ US 3.6 to 4.4 × 109 annually, with the net projected economic benefit for triazine herbicides to the US economy ranging from $ US 2.9 to 3.4 × 109 annually because lower prices imply reduced producer income. Productivity gains from triazine herbicides maintain an estimated 270 000-390 000 ha of land in non-crop uses that generate environmental benefits not accounted for in this analysis. CONCLUSION Even in the current era, with transgenic varieties dominating crop production, atrazine and the other triazine herbicides continue to be a key part of maize and sorghum production and generate substantial economic benefits. © 2013 The Authors. PestManagement Science published by JohnWiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmland prices have risen dramatically in recent years, which has attracted interest from the broader investment community. At the same time, concern is being expressed regarding another bubble in farmland prices. This paper studies and compares the farmland price to cash rent ratio (P/rent) with the price to earnings (P/E) ratio of stocks. We find that the farmland P/rent ratio has reached historical highs and is currently at the level of the P/E ratio of the S&P 500 during the tech bubble. Data from 1911 to 2012 are used to estimate the beta of farmland, a measure of the risk that farmland adds to a diversified portfolio. The beta is found to be very low over this period. Farmland returns are also regressed against expected and unexpected inflation, and we find that farmland moves relatively close to one-to-one with inflation. We also report 10- and 20-year holding period returns for farmland and find that the relationship between return and the cyclically adjusted P/rent ratio is strongly negative. Moreover, the current cyclically adjusted P/rent ratio is extremely high, indicating a reason for caution when investors are considering farmland purchases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opinion. Focuses on the effects of agriculture on the economy of the United States. Role of the transnational corporation in the world; Importance of deficit reduction to the restructuring of economies; Examination of the federal system.

This paper uses statistics on agricultural productivity compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service to test the productivity slowdown hypothesis. The indexes of productivity growth span the years 1948 to 2009. In our analysis, we apply econometric techniques that allow for multiple structural breaks at unknown points in time and in various forms. The tests identify a break in trend in 1974 and an intercept shift in 1985. These results point to slower productivity growth in agriculture beginning in 1974. Prior to 1974, productivity grew at an annual rate ofl.71%, but this slowed to 1.56% after 1974. This slower rate of productivity growth persisted after the intercept shift in 1985 but from a higher absolute level of productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND This paper discusses U.S. agricultural pesticide use trends from 1964 to 2010 based on estimates developed from USDA surveys, and the influence of economic factors, agricultural policy, and pesticide regulation on aggregate quantities and mix of pesticides used. RESULTS Synthetic organic pesticide use grew dramatically from the 1960s to the early 1980s, as farmers treated more and more acreage. Use then stabilized, with herbicides applied to about 95% of corn, cotton, and soybean acres, annually. Subsequently, major factors affecting trends were: (1) changes in crop acreage and other economic factors, (2) use of new pesticides that reduced per-acre application rates and/or met more rigorous health and environmental standards, and (3) adoption of genetically engineered insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant crops. CONCLUSION The use of pesticides and other control practices responded to economic factors such as input and output markets and agricultural policies. Changing societal values toward pesticide risks and benefits profoundly affected pesticide policy, influencing the pesticides available for use, but only indirectly affecting aggregate quantities used. While the current pesticide regulatory process might have economic inefficiencies, it might be consistent with policy preferences held by much of the public-to reduce pesticide hazards rather than minimize regulatory costs. Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our goal in this paper is to identify how recent escalations in immigration enforcement and changes in migration practices affect the ability of the state to continue to serve two of its key 'productive' functions: protecting capital accumulation within industry and ensuring the state's own political legitimacy in the eyes of the public. We draw on our ethnographic research on Latino migrant dairy farm workers in Wisconsin to examine the ways in which a group of migrant workers experiences the process of being enforced as 'illegal' bodies. We find that migrant dairy workers' palpable sense of 'deportability' articulates with the specific structure of dairy work in ways that make the economically and politically 'ideal' migrant: compliant at work and invisible otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption and diffusion of contract farming and vertical integration in modern agriculture has varied widely across regions, commodities, or farm types. This paper lays out a framework for understanding the evolution of organizational practices in U.S. agriculture by drawing on theories of the diffusion of technology and organizational complementarities. Using recent trends as stylized facts, with case studies from various agricultural industries, we argue that research identifying complementarities within specific sectors of the agrifood system will greatly improve our understanding of the organizational structure of agricultural production, and we identify several specific lines of inquiry. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim The assembly of a forest flora on sites abandoned from agriculture is potentially limited by the physical and chemical suitability of soils. This paper describes the post-agricultural development of soil in deciduous forest sites to gauge its importance in limiting a second-growth forest flora. Location Northern Delaware and south-eastern Pennsylvania, USA. Methods A chronosequence of 99 second-growth forest sites was assembled in the Piedmont region. Stand age ranged from 0–20 to > 100 years since canopy closure, as determined from historical aerial photographs. Seventy-four sites are likely to have experienced cultivation before regeneration of forest. The presence of large rocks or pit-and-mound microtopography suggests that the remaining 25 sites were not cultivated, although they were probably used as pasture and/or woodlot. Soil organic content, moisture, pH, and concentrations of extractable potassium, phosphorous, calcium, magnesium and sulphur were measured in samples from each site. Coarse woody debris, size of the largest tree, canopy openness and several microtopographic features were also recorded. Results Most soil variables fell into two separate but internally correlated groups: the first group including organic matter, moisture and sulphur; the second including pH, calcium, potassium and magnesium. In formerly cultivated sites, organic matter, moisture and sulphur increased gradually through the chronosequence, approaching values recorded in uncultivated sites at 81–100 years. Calcium, potassium, magnesium and pH declined sharply between the 21–40- and 41–60-year classes – probably an indirect effect related to geographic location and selective abandonment. Phosphorous also declined with time, but the decline was not as clearly defined. Main conclusions The progress of soil recovery observed here is faster than rates implied in other studies, possibly because these sites experienced a period as pasture before reversion to forest. Sites appear to have returned to undisturbed-forest levels as fast as or faster than the predicted accumulation of a forest flora, suggesting that assembly of second-growth forest communities is not limited by the rate of soil development in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses water scarcity issues in the American West and examines the allocation of water through the appropriative rights system and the extent markets are used to reallocate water from low- to high-valued uses. The unique physical properties of water make it difficult to bound and measure, which makes defining property rights difficult. Markets are also impeded by disputes over third-party effects due to the interdependencies of water users and complex institutional arrangements that dilute decision-making authority. Analysis of water trading in the western United States indicates that the rate of permanent transfers is increasing over time and urban users are paying higher prices relative to agricultural users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to evaluate and analyse technical efficiency (TE) levels for hillside farmers under different levels of adoption of soil conservation in El Salvador and Honduras. A switching regression model is implemented to examine potential selectivity bias for high and low level adopters, and separate stochastic production frontiers, corrected for selectivity bias, are estimated for each group. The main results indicate that households with above-average adoption show statistically higher average TE than those with lower adoption. Households with higher adoption have smaller farms and display the highest partial output elasticity for land. Constraints in the land and credit markets are likely explanations for these differences. In addition, all estimated models show that TE has a positive and significant association with education and extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful regional products, such as Florida oranges, Idaho potatoes and Parma ham, often have to compete against products passing themselves off as the authentic product using the exact same name. This unfair competition misleads consumers, discourages small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from marketing products based on their region of origin, and may end up hurting rural economies. To protect consumers, and support SMEs and rural economies, many countries around the world have introduced regulations enabling SMEs to legally protect the names of their regional products. The success of these regulations largely depends on consumers’ appreciation of regional certification labels that inform consumers that the name of the regional product is protected and that it denotes the authentic product. To gain an understanding about consumers’ appreciation of regional certification labels, this paper investigates consumers’ image of these labels and proposes a model that relates this image to consumers’ willingness to buy and pay for protected regional products. The model is tested based on Regulation No. 2081/92 that was introduced by the EEC allowing European SMEs to protect their regional products and market their products with a protected-designation-of-origin (PDO) label. Structural equation modelling results suggest that consumers’ image of regional certification labels consists of a quality warranty dimension and an economic support dimension, which positively relate to consumers’ willingness to buy and pay for the protected regional product. Protecting regional products and marketing them with regional certification labels may be beneficial for SMEs producing and marketing regional products. Policy and managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine more closely some of the forces that underlie economic growth at the county level. In an effort to describe a much more comprehensive regional economic growth model, we address a variety of different hypotheses by introducing a large number of growth-related variables. When formulating our hypotheses and specifying our growth model, we make liberal use of geographic mapping software to describe the data so as to “paint” a picture of where growth spots exist. Our empirical estimation indicates amenities, state and local tax burdens, population density, amount of primary agriculture activity, and demographics have important impacts on economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]