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Organic produce in general is perceived as environmentally superior to conventional produce. This perception is what partially drives some consumers to pay a price premium for organic food. To understand the environmental impact across various categories of both production systems, we performed a life cycle analysis on organic and conventionally produced strawberries in California, following input estimates from extension reports. This study found that organic strawberries performed worse than conventional strawberries in almost all environmental impact categories by unit of land and unit of production. Organic strawberries generate 46% more carbon footprint than conventional strawberries. One of the main environmental impact contributors of organic production is the effect of transportation of compost, manure, and other organic inputs, which are required in large volumes per ha. The contribution of input delivery to total carbon footprint per ha of organic strawberry production is 33%, and for conventional strawberry production the contribution is 8%. Post-harvest processing of strawberries is the activity in both production systems that contributes the most to total GWP per ha of production, up to 40% for organic and 60% for conventional strawberries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a reply to comments made by Muramoto and Bolda on a previous study about the production of conventional and organic strawberries in California. The authors thank Muramoto and Bolda for their comments and have made revisions to the paper based on their suggestions. The revised version now includes the fumigation process in conventional production, which uses chloropicrin and a Totally Impermeable Film (TIF). The authors also addressed comments on the organic production process by eliminating manure and including compost. The revised results reflect the environmental and health effects of the fumigant used in conventional production, but do not assess the complete human health benefits of organic compared to conventional strawberry production. The authors acknowledge that the negative health impact of fumigants may be greater than reported and should be considered in understanding the health effects of food production. [Extracted from the article]

Preconditioning cattle, a management practice of preparing cattle for feedlots as well as following a vaccination protocol for common diseases, has been shown to add value to cattle by reducing disease incidence and severity, yet it is not universally adopted. We estimated the benefits to a beef system of preconditioning weaned calves versus not preconditioning under stochastic returns. Purchasing preconditioned calves makes economic sense, but market efficiency requires complete information of the health status of the cattle, feedlot performance, along with the right market mechanisms, which may not be available in all markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the pricing efficiency of a livestock auction market using a two‐tier stochastic frontier model. This model captures pricing inefficiency of a hedonic pricing model for livestock via exponential error terms above and below the hedonic model specification. The direction of pricing inefficiencies, whether above or below the hedonic pricing model, represent surplus transfer from buyers to sellers or from sellers to buyers, respectively. Using data from a 7‐year period in a livestock auction market, we found that on average livestock buyers extract about 6% of surplus from sellers. That is, on average, livestock auction market underprices by about 6% below its full information price. Buyer concentration also affects the degree of surplus transfer. At low levels of buyer concentration, when the top four‐buyer market concentration is <30%, there is an overpricing of only 1.23% over the full information price, extracting surplus from buyers to sellers. At higher buyer concentrations, buyers can extract up to 7% of surplus from sellers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 lockdown in the US, many businesses were shut down temporarily. Essential businesses, most prominently grocery stores, remained open to ensure access to food and household essentials. Grocery shopping presents increased potential for COVID-19 infection because customers and store employees are in proximity to each other. This study investigated shoppers' perceptions of COVID-19 infection risks and put them in context by comparing grocery shopping to other activities outside home, and examined whether a proactive preventive action by grocery stores influence shoppers' perceived risk of COVID-19 infection. Our data were obtained via an anonymous online survey distributed between April 2 and 10, 2020 to grocery shoppers in New York State (the most affected by the pandemic at the time of the study) and Washington State (the first affected by the pandemic). We found significant factors associated with high levels of risk perception on grocery shoppers. We identified some effective preventive actions that grocery stores implement to alleviate anxiety and risk perception. We found that people are generally more concerned about in-store grocery shopping relative to other out-of-home activities. Findings suggest that a strict policy requiring grocery store employees to use facemasks and gloves greatly reduced shoppers' perceived risk rating of infection of themselves by 37.5% and store employees by 51.2%. Preventive actions by customers and businesses are critical to reducing the unwitting transmission of COVID-19 as state governments prepare to reopen the economy and relax restrictions on activities outside home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Welfare costs of a potential food shock were estimated by disseminating information to milk drinkers on the prevalence of Mycobacterium avium sub. paratuberculosis (MAP) in the U.S. milk supply, its potential linkage to Crohn's disease in humans, and subsequent government intervention to minimize MAP in the milk supply. We found that 19.6% of milk consumers exposed to MAP information would stop milk consumption at current market prices, and that only 5% of those would return to their original milk consumption levels after the government intervention. Societal costs of the food shock after the intervention were estimated at $18.2 billion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits and efficacy of control programs for herds infected with Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) have been investigated under various contexts. However, most previous research investigated paratuberculosis control programs in isolation, without modeling the potential association with other dairy diseases. This paper evaluated the benefits of MAP control programs when the herd is also affected by mastitis, a common disease causing the largest losses in dairy production. The effect of typically suggested MAP controls were estimated under the assumption that MAP infection increased the rate of clinical mastitis. We evaluated one hundred twenty three control strategies comprising various combinations of testing, culling, and hygiene, and found that the association of paratuberculosis with mastitis alters the ranking of specific MAP control programs, but only slightly alters the cost-benefit difference of particular MAP control components, as measured by the distribution of net present value of a representative U.S. dairy operation. In particular, although testing and culling for MAP resulted in a reduction in MAP incidence, that control led to lower net present value (NPV) per cow. When testing was used, ELISA was more economically beneficial than alternative testing regimes, especially if mastitis was explicitly modeled as more likely in MAP-infected animals, but ELISA testing was only significantly associated with higher NPV if mastitis was not included in the model at all. Additional hygiene was associated with a lower NPV per cow, although it lowered MAP prevalence. Overall, the addition of an increased risk of mastitis in MAP-infected animals did not change model recommendations as much as failing to consider. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we analyzed the performance of the USDA's bovine tuberculosis (bTB) elimination protocol in a 1,000-cow closed dairy herd using an agent-based simulation model under different levels of initial bTB infection. We followed the bTB test sensitivity and specificity values used by the USDA in its model assessment. We estimated the net present value over a 20-yr horizon for a bTB-free milking herd and for bTB-infected herds following the USDA protocol. We estimated the expected time to identify the infection in the herd once it is introduced, its elimination time, the reproductive number (R0), and effective reproduction number (Re) under the USDA protocol. The optimal number of consecutive negative whole-herd tests (WHT) needed to declare a herd bTB-free with a 95% confidence under different bTB prevalence levels was derived. Our results support the minimum number of consecutive negative WHT required by the USDA protocol to declare a herd bTB-free; however, the number of consecutive negative WHT needed to eliminate bTB in a herd depends on the sensitivity and specificity of the tests. The robustness of the protocol was analyzed under conservative bTB test parameters from the literature. The cost of implementing the USDA protocol when 1 infected heifer is introduced in a 1,000-cow dairy herd is about $1,523,161. The average time until detection and the time required to eliminate bTB-infected animals from the herd, after 1 occult animal is introduced in the herd, were 735 and 119 d, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses an agent-based simulation model to estimate the costs associated with Mycobacterium avium ssp. paratuberculosis (MAP), or Johne's disease, in a milking herd, and to determine the net benefits of implementing various control strategies. The net present value (NPV) of a 1,000-cow milking herd is calculated over 20 yr, parametrized to a representative US commercial herd. The revenues of the herd are generated from sales of milk and culled animals. The costs include all variable and fixed costs necessary to operate a representative 1,000-cow milking herd. We estimate the NPV of the herd with no MAP infection, under an expected endemic infection distribution with no controls, and under an expected endemic infection distribution with various controls. The initial number of cows in a herd with an endemic MAP infection is distributed as 75% susceptible, 13% latent, 9% low MAP shedding, and 3% high MAP shedding. Control strategies include testing using ELISA and fecal culture tests and culling of cows that test positive, and culling based on observable milk production decrease. Results show that culling cows based on test results does not increase the herd's NPV and in most cases decreases NPV due to test costs as well as false positives and negatives with their associated costs (e.g., culling healthy cows and keeping infected cows). Culling consistently low producing cows when MAP is believed to be present in the herd produces higher NPV over the strategy of testing and culling MAP infected animals, and over the case of no MAP control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Contemporaneous observations on expected supply and on prices of post‐harvest futures contracts for corn are used to estimate expected demand relationships. These equations are used to estimate the prices of the post‐harvest contracts based on new supply estimates. Each estimate can be compared with a corresponding futures price, i.e. the market forecast. The differences help discern the market expectations about the expected demand for the new crop relative to historical experience, which can help support outlook analyses. We find that in recent years, a 100 million bushel change in the expected supply of corn results in about a 6 cent per bushel negative change in the price of December corn. The discussion also deepens understanding of the term ‘anticipatory prices’ as defined by Holbrook Working in his 1958 work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The motivation to pay a premium for socially responsible products is partly an expression of consumer concern for the well-being of those involved in the production process. Buying a product with a socially responsible label, and donating to a charity are similarly motivated actions. While there is an extensive literature on the economics of charitable giving that examines motivations to donate as well as on the impacts of labelling on consumer demand, there is little overlap between the two literatures. We bridge these two literatures by investigating whether consumers have heterogeneous motivations for paying a premium. Through a laboratory experiment that auctions coffee with hypothetical socially responsible labels that put different weights on in-kind versus cash transfers, we find that those consumers who prefer an in-kind transfer (paternalistic altruists) are willing to pay a 52.5% price premium over standard coffee. Those who prefer that most of the premium is paid as cash (strong altruists) are willing to pay a 42.5% premium. Finally, those who are indifferent to how the premium is spent by the recipient (warmglow givers) are willing to pay only a 19.2% premium. We discuss the implications of our results and future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]