The U.S. Seed Industustustry: An Exploration of Statistics Highlighting the Economic Cctivity of the U.S. Row Crop Seed Industry

This report presents relevant statistics that highlight the economic activity of the U.S. seed industry. The focus of this report is on the four main U.S. crops: corn, soybean, wheat, and cotton. The report contains three sections. The first is related to the U.S. seed market’s size based on seed sales and expenditures. The second section examines industry investment in research and development (R&D) activity in terms of both budget and human resources. The final section illustrates the impact of the seed industry in terms of intellectual property development, improved productivity, and other benefits. This report focuses on using publicly available data to examine these three areas. In addition, the report presents the results of a survey conducted among American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) members that helped fill some gaps in publicly available information. The report ends with identification of deficiencies in the industry data that could be improved with more study and/or reporting from the industry.Seed industry, field crops, biotechnology, herbicide-tolerant crops, Bt crops, corn, soybeans, cotton, wheat.

Risk Sharing and Transactions Costs in Producer-Processor Supply Chains

Industrial Organization,

Restructuring of the Ag Lending Markets: The FCS Dilemma

Agricultural Finance,

the Growth Potential for the Indiana Livestock Industries

Feed, processing capacity, population density versus animal density, and environmental capacities are the four different dimensions of livestock location and growth potential analyzed for Indiana. These four dimensions provide livestock producers, government officials, and livestock associations a valuable perspective on the constraints that could limit Indiana’s livestock growth potential. Comparisons among 21 states on these dimensions indicated that Indiana is a second choice of states for livestock growth; Kansas and Iowa are the only first choices. Indiana’s strength in the state comparison is its ability to assimilate the phosphorus produced by livestock and commercial phosphorus. As environmental regulations continue to tighten and shift from nitrogen to phosphorus based application standards for manure, the ability to assimilate phosphorus will continue to be one of Indiana’s strengths, along with its abundance of feed and swine processing capacity. Population density is the key dimension that is a disadvantage for Indiana. Within the state of Indiana, the West Central district has key advantages compared to other districts of the state. This district has an abundance of feed, the second lowest population density in the state, and excess phosphorus assimilation capacity. This district does not have processing capacity for any species, but the adjoining districts do have adequate processing capacity. Overall, the results show that Indiana has the potential to grow the livestock sector. However, there will be constraints such as population density that require more in-depth study to determine how to address this potential limitation on growth.Livestock Growth, Animal Waste, Feed Capacity, Livestock Processing Capacity, Animal Density, Population Density

U.S. Agriculture: Commercial and Large Producer Concentration and Implications for Agribusiness Segments

This study examines rate of concentration of farms and sales for aggregate farm production and crop and livestock activities during the 1982 to 2002 period. Data from the Census of Agriculture are used to calculate Theil's relative entropy measure as an indicator of concentration. Results indicate that Grain segments are lagging behind cotton, potato and hog segments in terms of concentration of total sales, while concentration in the dairy segment appears to be gaining steam. Agribusiness serving less concentrated industry segments should look to the more concentrated segments as leading indicators for effective marketing strategies as concentration increases.Concentration, Commodities, Entropy, Agribusiness,

U.S. Agriculture: Commercial and Large Producer Concentration and Implications for Agribusiness Segments

This study examines rate of concentration of farms and sales for aggregate farm production and crop and livestock activities during the 1982 to 2002 period. Data from the Census of Agriculture are used to calculate Theil's relative entropy measure as an indicator of concentration. Results indicate that Grain segments are lagging behind cotton, potato and hog segments in terms of concentration of total sales, while concentration in the dairy segment appears to be gaining steam. Agribusiness serving less concentrated industry segments should look to the more concentrated segments as leading indicators for effective marketing strategies as concentration increases.Concentration, Commodities, Entropy, Agribusiness,

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF AGRICULTURE: IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE POLICY

Farming is in the midst of a major transformation—not only in technology and production practices, but also in size of business, resource (land) control and operation, business model and linkages with buyers and suppliers. This paper describes the fundamental drivers of today’s structural change in U.S. agriculture. The impact of the drivers are illustrated by describing some illustrations of the kinds of innovative farming operations that are developing in agriculture, not the typical farms but those who appear to be leading and shaping the new agriculture. Finally, farm policy implications of the transformation of farming to an industrial manufacturing model are discussed.Farm policy, industrialization of agriculture, structural change, biological manufacturing

Finding an identity and meeting a standard : connecting the conflicting in teacher induction

This article has the apparently contradictory aims of describing a discourse of new teachers that is at odds with the policy-derived competence-based discourse of the professional standard for teachers, but of also seeking to find some points of connection that may help start a dialogue between policy and research. The experience of new teachers is conceptualized as personal stories of identity formation with a clear emotional-relational dimension and a sense of self and intrinsic purpose in which others, especially colleagues and children, are central - themes not visible in the standard. The empirical context is that of new teachers in Scotland but the argument is supported through a wider literature that extends beyond the traditional limits of teacher education, drawing on, for example, notions of self-identity, pure relationship and ontological security in the work of Giddens. Whether a more constructive dialogue can begin depends partly on the extent to which the formal standard can be expected to capture the complex, personal nature of the beginner's experience, and partly on the possibility of research identifying particular areas of competence, such as understanding difference, that connect in some way to the standard