Conservation Reserve Program Participation and Acreage Enrollment of Working Farms

Among Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) participants, there is a distinction between farm households using the program to ease out of farming and those using the program to augment production receipts. We find evidence that factors other than farm profitability and environmental factors may influence program participation of farmers who continue agricultural production. Program payments and farm size positively correlate with the amount of land enrolled in the CRP, and characteristics of participants in land retirement and working-lands CRP components are similar.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Short-run Birth and Death of U.S. Manufacturing Firms: 2000 - 2005

Attracting manufacturing investment remains a viable regional development policy. Previous research in the location literature has informed policymakers which factors are most important for attracting new firm investment. Far less is known about the dynamics of firm death and the possible interaction with firm birth. A conceptual model of county-level investment in the U.S. manufacturing sector is developed from location theory and subsequent literature. Specifically, we test the relative importance of location factors influencing firm investment, and if these factors influence firm birth and death differently. Local factors include labor quality, availability, and cost, market conditions, agglomeration due to localization and urbanization economies, infrastructure, and fiscal policy. This study covers the time period 2000 to 2004 for U.S. counties in the lower 48 states. Firm data are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Dynamic Firm Data Series, which links establishments across space and time. Regional adjustment models are used to show how ceteris paribus changes in location factors affect the birth and death rates in a county.location factors, manufacturing, creative destruction, Community/Rural/Urban Development, L60, R11, R12,

ANALYSIS OF GOVERNMENT FARM SUBSIDIES ON FARMLAND CASH RENTAL RATES USING A FIXED EFFECT SPATIAL DISTRIBUTED LAG MODEL AND A TRANSLOG COST MODEL

The objective of this study is to examine how factors such as government payments, soil productivity ratings, commodity selling price, corn and soybean production, and spatial attributes affect cash rental rates. Baseline estimates of the effects of government payments on cash rents are determined using a fixed effect, distributed lag model. The results of this model are compared to a distributed lag model that incorporates spatial effects. A second model estimates the impact of government subsides on farm cost structure. This is accomplished estimating a fixed effect, translog cost function that also incorporates spatial effects. The data used in the analysis is the Illinois Farm Business Farm Management (FBFM) Economic Management Analysis (EMA), containing more than five thousand Illinois FBFM clients annually from 1996 to 2001.Farm Management,

Regionalism in World Agricultural Trade: Lessons from Gravity Model Estimation

Relative to trade in non-agricultural goods, progress in achieving agricultural trade liberalization under the GATT/WTO has been slow. Agricultural trade is characterized by persistently high levels of protection on a scale that is uncommon in non-agricultural trade. Article XXIV of the GATT, 1994 permits a group of countries to form a trade union whereby trade barriers are reduced or removed on all sectors of trade. Within regional trade agreements however, agricultural trade often receives special treatment, and in some cases, agriculture is completely exempt. Typically, debates over the effects of regional trade agreements have focused on welfare. In this study we seek to answer a more fundamental question of what effect these agreements have had on agricultural trade.International Relations/Trade,

Assessing Economic Performance of Maine\u27s Lobster Fleet Under Changing Ecosystem Conditions In the Gulf of Maine

This research evaluates lobster producer efficiency and considers fleet wide economics and policy implications in support of changing marine ecosystems in the Gulf of Maine. We conducted a comprehensive lobster industry survey to assess costs and effort expended at the producer level for a representative fishing year, and establish a series of production function performance baselines for future comparison. The demographic data, attitudes and valuations collected allow us to characterize the fishing effort and regional dependency on the resource. We look at the Maine Lobster limited entry licensing system, to understand how the future participation in the fishery might change, and how Maine’s communities might be affected. We examine the influences of ex-vessel price in the Maine lobster fleet, as a primary driver of profitability and economic value of the fishery. We apply multiple disciplines, and present four separate essays, with appendices containing the tabulated results of our three surveys. First, we evaluate and model a stochastic frontier production analysis to assess lobster producer efficiency and create a vessel-level profitability model. We then evaluate willingness to pay for a Maine Lobster license model with a censored regression Tobit model, and general linear regressions to evaluate desired number of traps, as stated by existing and potential new entrants. We explore the variety of influences of ex-vessel price through a multiple linear regression, building on previous studies that demonstrated an inverse demand price response in the Maine fleet; we consider how changes in monthly landings have created excessive inventory holdings and examine this has on ex-vessel price. We then conclude by applying a retrospective analysis to evaluate future profitability and economic performance in the fishery, under potential changing conditions facing the coupled natural and human system. In aggregate these analyses identify risks of over-capitalization in the Maine Lobster fishery which are likely to confound efforts to effectively manage the resource in times of changing harvest patterns, and in light of variability in supply and market demand

A Reinterpretation and Extension of McNemar’s Test

The McNemar test is extended to multiple groups based on a latent class model incorporating classes representing consistent responders and a single latent error rate. The method is illustrated with data from a CDC survey of immunizations for flu and pneumonia for which a part-heterogeneous model is selected for interpretation

Exploring Farm Business and Household Expenditure Patterns and Community Linkages

Farm operators are an integral part of some rural economies. The businesses they operate often hire seasonal and full-time employees and purchase goods and services from local farm implement dealers, input suppliers, and financial institutions. Farm household spending on food, furniture and appliances, trucks and automobiles, and a range of consumer goods also support local jobs and retail businesses in some communities. Based on the 2002 agricultural census and the 2004 Agricultural Resource Management Survey, this paper explores the linkages between farm household/ business expenditures and local communities.Farm business expenditures, farm household spending, employment, community linkage, Consumer/Household Economics, Farm Management, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Structural Conservation Practices in U.S. Corn Production: Evidence on Environmental Stewardship by Program Participants and Non-Participants

This study used the 2005 ERS CEAP-ARMS data for corn production to first compare key operator, field, farm, economic, and environmental characteristics of conservation program participants with non-participants, by farm-size class. We then estimate a cost-function based technology adoption model of producer decisions regarding the allocation of field-level acres between corn production and infield and perimeter-field conservation structures to examine how these conservation choices differ between program participants and non-participants, while accounting for differences in other field, farm, and environmental factors. Our null hypothesis is that the average conservation structural practice acres across U.S. corn acres supplied by growers participating in a conservation program are not different from non-participants. Infield conservation structures include terraces, grassed waterways, vegetative buffers, contour buffers, filter strips, and grade stabilization structures. Perimeter-field conservation structures include hedgerow plantings, stream-side forest and herbaceous buffers, windbreaks and herbaceous wind barriers, field borders, and critical area plantings. Because the dependent variable in this analysis is continuous, we use a Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) procedure to estimate two models. The GEE estimation procedure (Liang and Zeger, 1986) accounts for correlation between adoption decisions measured as a continuous variable while maintaining the theoretical integrity of a multinomial discrete-choice model typically used in technology adoption studies. The cost-function models estimate field-level, producer acreage allocation decisions for corn, first, as a function of normalized production input costs (prices) and structural technology class and installation time-period attributes (Model 1), and second, as a function of Model 1 variables plus socio-environmental variables reflecting the potential influence of a variety of field, farm, and environmental characteristics (Model 2). Evidence indicates significant characteristic differences exist between conservation program participants and non-participants across U.S. corn production, that non-program factors do heavily influence producer conservation practice decisions, and that farm-size matters. In addition, results suggest that program non-participants tend to adopt infield conservation structures much more intensively while program participants emphasize the adoption of perimeter-field conservation structures. Finally, these results seem to suggest that because perimeter-field structural practices can involve differential productivity/cost effects and off-site benefits, program incentives may need to play a greater role in encouraging their adoption than they do for infield structural practices.Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy,

SPATIAL REGRESSION MODELS FOR YIELD MONITOR DATA: A CASE STUDY FROM ARGENTINA

Precision agricultural technology promises to move crop production closer to a manufacturing paradigm, but analysis of yield monitor, sensor and other spatial data has proven difficult because correlation among neighboring observations often violates the assumptions of classical statistical analysis. When spatial structure is ignored variance estimates tend to be inflated and significance levels of test statistics are reduced. The gap between data analysis and site-specific recommendations has been identified as one of the key constraints on widespread adoption of precision agriculture technology. This paper compares four approaches that explicitly incorporate spatial correlation into regression models: (1) a spatial econometric approach; (2) a polynomial trend regression approach; (3) a classical nearest neighbor analysis; and (4) and a geostatistic approach. In the Argentine data studied, the spatial econometric, geostatistical approach and spatial trend analysis offered stronger statistical evidence of spatial heterogeniety of nitrogen response than the ordinary least squares or nearest neighbor analysis. All the spatial models led to the same economic conclusion, which is that variable rate nitrogen is potentially profitable. The spatial econometric analysis can be implemented on relatively small data sets that do not have enough observations for estimation of the semivariogram required by geostatistics. The spatial trend analysis can be implemented with ordinary least squares functions that are already available in some GIS software. In this study, the main benefit of using spatial regression analysis is increased confidence in the corn yield response estimates by management zone, and conclusions about the profitability of precision agriculture technologies.Crop Production/Industries,

U.S. Corn Producer’s Response to Increased Energy Prices: Evidence from Producer Surveys in 2001 and 2005

Crop Production/Industries, Risk and Uncertainty,