Atrazine: Environmental Characteristics and Economics of Management

Restricting or eliminating the use of atrazine in the Midwest would have important economic consequences for farmers and consumers. Atrazine is an important herbicide in the production of corn and other crops in the United States. Since atrazine is such an important herbicide, mandatory changes in application strategies are likely to generate sizable costs for producers and consumers. However, recent findings indicate that elevated amounts of atrazine are running off fields and entering surface water resources. This report presents the costs and benefits of an atrazine ban, a ban on pre-plant and pre-emergent applications, and a targeted ban to achieve a surface water standard. A complete atrazine ban is hypothesized to be the costliest strategy, while the targeted strategy is the least costly.Crop Production/Industries,

A Stochastic Linear Programming Model for Corn Residue Supply

This paper presents the results of a stochastic linear program for estimating the supply of corn residue for use as raw material in an ethanol plant. The model is based on the production capacity of an average Illinois farm, and considers the feasibility of three mutually exclusive residue harvesting alternatives. Since the potential for residue use in animal feed may be even more promising, these results are directly useful for the feed industry. They also indicate the profitability of investing in residue harvesting equipment. From a methodological point of view, the paper contrasts the results of three OR approaches. Because of the stochastic nature of the problem both Monte Carlo simulation and chance-constrained programming are found to be computationally viable, even though they differ in the way they incorporate risk information

MULTI-PRODUCT DRY MILLING YIELDS PREDICTION WHEN PRODUCTS ARE NOT INDEPENDENT

The yield of products in the dry milling industry is largely determined by the physical properties of the corn kernel. The main objective of this paper is to investigate several statistical models of dry milling yield prediction based on physical characteristics of corn. Data consisting of one hundred corn samples representing a range of genetic traits and quality differences are used. For each corn sample, sixteen physical and chemical properties together with six dry milling product yields were measured, in a controlled laboratory environment . For each corn sample, we consider a vector of dry milling product yields, and a vector of physical corn characteristics. Several single product models are investigated, two of which implicitly take into account the simplex sample space of product yields. A multivariate model is considered which consists of mapping the sample space from a simplex to unrestricted Euclidean space. Comparisons are performed using a jack-knife like approach

Long-Term Economic Consequences of Alternative Carbon Reducing Conservation and Wetlands Reserve Programs: A BLS Analysis

Three alternative Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) scenarios and a targeted Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) scenario were analyzed using the Basic Linked System (BLS) of applied general equilibrium models to project their likely economic impacts on the agriculture sector of the United States. The programs are proposed as means of reducing carbon emissions from agriculture. The CRP scenarios each reflect different assumptions about the size of future programs and alternative uses of CRP land. Specifically, two alternative proposals--a 40 million acre CRP and a 50 million acre CRP--are compared with a baseline scenario consisting of a 17.5 million acre CRP, considered a likely outcome after current contracts expire. The results of the model give the economic impacts of the two larger CRP proposals relative to the 17.5 million acre baseline over the period 1996-2030. A 5 million acre WRP targeted to bottomland capable of supporting hardwood tree growth is run in conjunction with the baseline CRP and the results are compared with those obtained under the baseline alone. Among the impacts presented are changes in U.S. agricultural production, consumption, acres, yields, producer and consumer prices, government program costs, and net farm income for crop and livestock production. Impacts on producers, consumers, and government expenditures are presented in the summary table. Overall, the results are as one would expect. In the CRP scenarios, acreage planted and production of major crops is lower under the larger programs and producer prices are concomitantly higher. Feed grains are most significantly affected, causing feed prices to be higher under the larger CRP scenarios. Livestock production is generally lower under the larger programs, reflecting higher feed costs. Per capita consumption of most commodities changes only slightly, although consumption of grain products and most meat fall by 1 to 2.5 percent after the programs have been fully implemented. Producer net returns increase for crop producers, but are significantly lower for livestock producers. Government price support payments to crop producers fall by more than the cost of the programs. The programs lower overall net farm income and make consumers generally worse off with slightly lower consumption and higher retail prices. Similar but less dramatic results are obtained when the WRP scenario is added to the CRP baseline. The decline in overall economic welfare due to these programs will have to be balanced against the benefits of carbon emission reductions from them

Net Returns of Alternative Crops on Flood-Prone Land: Louisa County, Iowa, and Saline County, Missouri

Researchers evaluate the profitability of planting flood-tolerant crops in flood plains relative to traditional row crops under different assumptions concerning flood frequency and the level of government crop subsidy. Short rotation woody crops and herbaceous energy crops are evaluated for two growing environments. Results suggest that row crops dominate the flood-tolerant crops until flood frequency approaches 50 percent

Joint U.S. Agricultural Run-Off Program: Poland Agriculture and Water Quality Protection Project

As Poland\u27s economic transformation progresses, its agricultural sector must adopt new technologies in order to operate safely and efficiently, to remain competitive in the world marketplace, and to meet basic standards of environmental protection. This paper reports on the Poland Agriculture and Water Quality Protection Project (PAWQP), developed under a cooperative agreement between the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region VII. The paper discusses the innovative approach of encouraging sustainable management practices, through farm and watershed demonstrations, baseline surveys and environmental monitoring, education, and institutional strengthening, Initial results from all aspects of the project are presented