Investigating the Drivers of Farm Diversification Among U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Operations

Diversification of an agricultural operation’s crop mix is considered an environmental and financial management strategy. Environmentally, crop diversification can stabilize the ecosystem via the introduction of biodiversity, allowing for more rapid response to physical and social changes. Economically, crop mix diversification can mitigate risk. Though there are environmental and economic benefits of crop diversification, little economic work has been conducted on crop diversification outside of the row crop industry. This study estimated how internal and external factors affect crop diversification among fruit and vegetable (FV) operations. External factors included access to markets and land; internal factors included farmer beliefs and access to information from extension and network sources. An OLS regression was conducted using data from 1532 farmers across 16 states in the United States. Endogeneity was addressed using an instrumental variable approach and a score endogeneity test indicated that endogeneity was not an issue. OLS results indicate that selling locally increases diversification, while reliance on other farmers for information decreases diversification. A conditional quantile analysis was conducted to reveal factors’ effects across different degrees of diversification. Quantile results indicate that selling locally, season extension technologies, and use of organic practices positively influence crop diversification across all levels of diversification. Receiving information from farmers negatively influences diversification for specialized farms, but positively influences diversification for highly diversified operations

Perceptions and Socioeconomic Status Influence Purchases of Native Plants

Plants native to the United States, defined as those being present before European settlement, have aesthetic and environmental benefits. In 2018, only 10% of plant sales were native plants, a plant category that tends to be underrepresented in many residential and commercial landscapes. Although earlier research indicated that consumers find native plants less aesthetically appealing relative to introduced species, more recent research reported a growing demand for native plants. Thus, a better understanding of consumer perceptions would facilitate their marketing. We used an online survey of 1824 participants representing five geographic regions (West, Southwest, Midwest, Southeast, and Northwest) to classify adopters based on their purchase of native plants. A double-hurdle model was used to estimate factors influencing purchasing native plants among US homeowners, and the factors influencing the amount spent on native plants in 2021. Demographically, metropolitan, college-educated, and younger participants were more likely to be native plant adopters; they also spent 80% more on plants compared with nonnative plant adopters. More native plant adopters agreed that native plants were better for the environment than exotic plants (68%), are readily available in their area (67%), and are better adapted to difficult sites (75%). Marketing efforts should capitalize on the environmental benefits to stimulate purchases

Three essays analyzing the role of social capital on individual and firm decision making

The following dissertation is comprised of three essays that focus on different mechanisms on which social capital influences firm and entrepreneur behavior. All three essays use different econometric techniques to account for endogenous variables. Essay 1: Are Local Market Relationships Trumping Organic Certification? The Case of Small and Medium Fruit and Vegetable Farmers. This article investigates how an organic fruit and vegetable farmer’s choice to use direct-to-consumer market channels impacts his/her decision to be certified organic. First, we model the decision to be certified organic as a conditionally independent decision from the farmer’s chosen market channels. Second, we estimate the probability of certifying organic as an endogenously determined marketing decision to the choice of market channels, and use a bivariate probit specification to model this decision. Empirical evidence indicates that the decision to certify is endogenous to the chosen market channels. We show that farmers selling direct to consumers are less likely to certify organic. Essay 2: The Economic Implications of Social Capital on Hispanic Entrepreneurship. This essay assesses the effect of social capital, defined as the clustering of Hispanics, on the probability of Hispanic business creation. A big issue in xii the social capital literature is identification. We use new econometric procedures to try to address this possible endogeneity and draw causal conclusions on the effect of social interactions on individual economic behavior. This essay provides robust empirical evidence on the role of social capital on Hispanic entrepreneurship. We also tackle the constructs of Hispanic heterogeneity and find that second generation Hispanics may be used as a potential indicator for Hispanic entrepreneurial environment. Essay 3: The Resilience of Small Business: A Post-Katrina Analysis of Social Capital. Small business resilience becomes more relevant as natural disasters become more frequent. Post-disaster business resilience is the product of many complex decisions that result from the interaction of individuals, families, businesses, and communities. Little is known about what it takes for a small business to build resilience after a natural disaster and most studies have focused at a single point in time or look at the community as the unit of analysis. This study enhances the literature by providing empirical evidence on the factors that help small businesses to build post-disaster resilience over time. This article bridges the gap between social capital and post-disaster small business resilience. We answer two main questions. Does social capital explain small business resilience after a natural disaster? And, what type of social capital has the greatest impact for building small business resilience? These questions aim to shed light on the relevance of social networks to help small businesses face post-disaster situations. Incentives and interventions should support the creation and strengthening of community linkages through community participation and leadership development

Three essays analyzing the role of social capital on individual and firm decision making

The following dissertation is comprised of three essays that focus on different mechanisms on which social capital influences firm and entrepreneur behavior. All three essays use different econometric techniques to account for endogenous variables. Essay 1: Are Local Market Relationships Trumping Organic Certification? The Case of Small and Medium Fruit and Vegetable Farmers. This article investigates how an organic fruit and vegetable farmer’s choice to use direct-to-consumer market channels impacts his/her decision to be certified organic. First, we model the decision to be certified organic as a conditionally independent decision from the farmer’s chosen market channels. Second, we estimate the probability of certifying organic as an endogenously determined marketing decision to the choice of market channels, and use a bivariate probit specification to model this decision. Empirical evidence indicates that the decision to certify is endogenous to the chosen market channels. We show that farmers selling direct to consumers are less likely to certify organic. Essay 2: The Economic Implications of Social Capital on Hispanic Entrepreneurship. This essay assesses the effect of social capital, defined as the clustering of Hispanics, on the probability of Hispanic business creation. A big issue in xii the social capital literature is identification. We use new econometric procedures to try to address this possible endogeneity and draw causal conclusions on the effect of social interactions on individual economic behavior. This essay provides robust empirical evidence on the role of social capital on Hispanic entrepreneurship. We also tackle the constructs of Hispanic heterogeneity and find that second generation Hispanics may be used as a potential indicator for Hispanic entrepreneurial environment. Essay 3: The Resilience of Small Business: A Post-Katrina Analysis of Social Capital. Small business resilience becomes more relevant as natural disasters become more frequent. Post-disaster business resilience is the product of many complex decisions that result from the interaction of individuals, families, businesses, and communities. Little is known about what it takes for a small business to build resilience after a natural disaster and most studies have focused at a single point in time or look at the community as the unit of analysis. This study enhances the literature by providing empirical evidence on the factors that help small businesses to build post-disaster resilience over time. This article bridges the gap between social capital and post-disaster small business resilience. We answer two main questions. Does social capital explain small business resilience after a natural disaster? And, what type of social capital has the greatest impact for building small business resilience? These questions aim to shed light on the relevance of social networks to help small businesses face post-disaster situations. Incentives and interventions should support the creation and strengthening of community linkages through community participation and leadership development

Efecto de la inclusión de Bio-Mos® y Yea- Sacc® sobre la ganancia diaria de peso de terneros de tres a 90 días de edad

12 p.Torres, A. 2006. Efecto de la inclusión de Bio-Mos® y Yea-Sacc® sobre la ganancia diaria de peso en terneros de tres a 90 días de edad. Proyecto Especial de Ingeniero Agrónomo. Zamorano, Honduras. 12 p. El desarrollo de los terneros durante los primeros meses de vida es afectado por la absorción de nutrientes que a su vez depende del crecimiento de sus papilas ruminales inducido por los Ácidos Grasos Volátiles producidos por la flora ruminal. Por su capacidad de inducir su crecimiento, crece la demanda de productos biológicos (probióticos y levaduras), los que además aumentan la capacidad inmunológica de los animales y reducen el uso de antibióticos. Entre mayo de 2005 y febrero de 2006 se evaluó el efecto del probiótico Bio-Mos® y la levadura Yea-Sacc® en terneros de razas lecheras de 3 a 90 días de edad. Se utilizaron 82 terneros de las razas Holstein, Jersey y sus cruces. Se adicionaron 10 g de Yea-Sacc®/ternero/día a 20 terneros hasta los 90 días, 4 g de Bio-Mos®/ternero/día a 22 terneros hasta los 50-60 días (dependiendo del consumo de concentrado), a 20 terneros se les proporcionaron el probiótico y la levadura y 20 terneros se usaron como control. Se usó un Diseño Completo al Azar (DCA) con medidas repetidas en el tiempo. Al finalizar la fase de lactancia, durante el tercer mes y en total hasta los 90 días los terneros con Yea-Sacc® tuvieron mayor Ganancia Diaria de Peso (P<0.05) fue mayor la diferencia en el tercer mes que durante los dos primeros meses. No se encontró mayor ganancia de peso al adicionar Bio-Mos® a la dieta de los terneros.1. Índice de cuadros 2. Introducción 3. Materiales y métodos 4. Resultados y discusión 5. Conclusiones 6. Recomendaciones 7. Literatura citad

Does Social Capital Explain Small Business Resilience? A Panel Data Analysis Post-Katrina

How small businesses fare after a natural disaster and what it takes for them to survive is very important to the economy because they employ approximately half of America’s private workforce (SBA, 2013) and are a critical component of and major contributor to the vitality of cities, states, and the country (Cochrane, 1992; Robbins, 2001). It is widely known that small businesses tend to feel greater economic repercussions after natural disasters when compared to larger businesses (Schrank et al., 2013). Following a disaster, a business can be closed or remain operating, but this status varies with time and depends on the business’ vulnerability or its level of resilience (Alesch, 2003; Cutter, 2008), especially after considering that small business owners are hit twice by disasters: as business owners and as local citizens (Runyan, 2006). Post-disaster resilience is a multidimensional and complex process that takes place over time, is related to the rebuilding of the life of individuals, businesses, communities, and institutions, and is strongly influenced by the interaction of the agents that are affected by a disaster (Chang, 2010; Olshansky, 2005). Aldrich (2012) illustrated how social capital—networks that formally or informally offer resources—explains the ability to withstand a disaster and build resilience by quickly disseminating information and financial and physical assistance within a community. This study takes a step further and aims to understand how social capital explains the resilience of small businesses after Hurricane Katrina. Most studies have focused mainly on the macroeconomic impacts of disasters using aggregated data and have lightly addressed small business resilience using the business as the unit of analysis (Zhang et al., 2008; Aldrich, 2012). Although the aggregated analysis is useful to understand the effects of disasters on the recovery of businesses, it does not shed light on the how and why of the resilience process. This study uses the Small Business Disaster Recovery Framework (SBDRF) to assess how social capital explains the resilience of small businesses hit by Hurricane Katrina (Marshall and Schrank, 2014). Based on the SBDRF, post-disaster operating businesses were categorized as closed, survived, recovered, and resilient depending on the comparison between pre- and post-disaster indicators (Marshall and Schrank, 2014). After a disaster, a business can be closed or open, and for those businesses that are can be classified as survived, recover, or resilient. The SBDRF categorizes operating business as survived as those that have not reached pre-event levels, a recovered business has return to its pre-disaster state, and a resilient business has exceeded the baseline performance pre-disaster (Bruneau et al., 2003; Marshall and Schrank, 2014). A panel regression was used with the level of gross revenues pre- and post-Katrina as dependent variables (2004, 2011, and 2013). To assess the level of post-disaster business resilience this study used quantitative (e.g. gross revenues comparisons) and qualitative indicators (owner’s perceptions of success). The methodology addresses the assumptions that 1) simultaneity between resilience, recovery, and survival can create possible endogeneity, and 2) the status of the business as open or closed may involve a non-random sample selection. Business owner’s perceptions are key for studies on small businesses and these tend to be ignored if research and conclusions are drawn only from simulation models or aggregated data. This study addresses the lack of a finer measurement of social capital in economic and social studies by incorporating multiple categories of the key independent variable, social capital, such as bonding (support received from similar individuals such as family and friends), bridging (support received from dissimilar individuals such as communities), and linking (support received from institutions) (Aldrich, 2012; Hawkins and Maurer, 2010). This study incorporated several control variables at the community, family, and small business level often included in small and family business studies. For instance, this study included control variables for human capital, financial capital, location, a county socioeconomic vulnerability index, a rurality index, and demographic variables of the business and business’ owner that can affect the operation of the business after disaster. The data for this study comes from the first and second wave of the Small Business Survival and Demise after a Natural Disaster Project (SBSD). This data set is unique because it includes information about both open and closed businesses at different points in time and allows us to determine the differences to those that remained operating. The primary sampling unit within the model is the small business, which was defined as those that had 0-200 employees and were headquartered in the state of Mississippi. Of the 2,610 business owners reached, the cooperation rate was 19.12% providing a random sample size of 499 businesses. Preliminary results show that from the 420 small business used in this study, 11.90% of the business are closed and 88.10% are operating. From those operating, the majority have survived and only 18.81% have recovered and 25.00% are resilient. The results suggest that few business are resilient or even recovered. Small business that received social capital were significantly more likely to be operating after Katrina and the probability of being resilient significantly increases with the level of social capital. For instance, small businesses are 23.95%, 28.57%, and 21.35% (at P<0.001) more likely to be resilient when they received support from family and friends, the community, or institutions, respectively. In addition, the results suggest that linking is the most effective type of social capital to build small business resilience. This study bridges the gap existing between the impact of natural disaster and small businesses to analyze how social capital explains business resilience. Two main questions were answered. First, does social capital explain small business resilience after Hurricane Katrina? Second, what is the most effective type of social capital for building small business resilience? The results illustrate how small business owners, especially those who lack physical and financial resources, connected to their communities and forming part of tighter local networks can overcome disaster and build resilience. The more links business owners have to the community, families, friends, and institutions (i.e. the more social capital they have), the better off they will be when they go through a crisis; therefore, self-reliance only cannot assure post-disaster recovery. This study shows that social capital, sources of information and assistance during crisis, should be taken into account as another tangible asset for mitigation and recovery. Finally, scholars, planners, and government agencies can use these results to advocate for increasing social capital by incorporating incentives and interventions to support the creation and strengthening of bonds between citizens and local social networks through community participation and leadership development

Investigating the Drivers of Farm Diversification Among U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Operations

Diversification of an agricultural operation&rsquo;s crop mix is considered an environmental and financial management strategy. Environmentally, crop diversification can stabilize the ecosystem via the introduction of biodiversity, allowing for more rapid response to physical and social changes. Economically, crop mix diversification can mitigate risk. Though there are environmental and economic benefits of crop diversification, little economic work has been conducted on crop diversification outside of the row crop industry. This study estimated how internal and external factors affect crop diversification among fruit and vegetable (FV) operations. External factors included access to markets and land; internal factors included farmer beliefs and access to information from extension and network sources. An OLS regression was conducted using data from 1532 farmers across 16 states in the United States. Endogeneity was addressed using an instrumental variable approach and a score endogeneity test indicated that endogeneity was not an issue. OLS results indicate that selling locally increases diversification, while reliance on other farmers for information decreases diversification. A conditional quantile analysis was conducted to reveal factors&rsquo; effects across different degrees of diversification. Quantile results indicate that selling locally, season extension technologies, and use of organic practices positively influence crop diversification across all levels of diversification. Receiving information from farmers negatively influences diversification for specialized farms, but positively influences diversification for highly diversified operations