The Conversion of Diamond Walnut Growers

Three aspects of property rights theory are particularly relevant to the conversion of the walnut-marketing cooperative, Diamond Walnut Growers (DWG), into a publicly traded stockholder-owned corporation. The horizon problem became apparent when DWG began investing heavily in branded, value-added products. The resulting need for additional member capital raised the free rider problem. The principal-agent problem was also relevant, given the increasing complexity of DWG’s financing and marketing activities. An additional economic issue surrounding the conversion was the monopsonistic situation created when members signed long-term marketing agreements with the new firm that was maximizing shareholder value, rather than grower returns.Agribusiness, Crop Production/Industries,

Cooperatives as Marketers of Branded Products

Few agricultural marketing cooperatives have nationally prominent brand names. Instead, they tend to concentrate in commodity-oriented markets, which can be attributed to the cooperative principles—user-benefit, user-financed and user-control. However, these structural disadvantages can be overcome. Due to the user-benefit principle, cooperatives often have seasonal product availability and/or limited product lines; they also suffer from the horizon problem, lacking the structure to provide long-term returns to members who invest in brand building. The user-benefit principle can be converted into an advantage by using the cooperative identity as a marketing strategy, and the horizon problem can be remedied by implementing a delivery-rights system. Cooperatives’' limited access to capital is attributable to the user-financed principle. Joint ventures, legislative reforms to expand cooperatives'’ sources of equity capital and preferred stock offerings can be used to overcome this constraint. The homogeneous nature of cooperative boards is attributable to the user-control principle; it gives rise to the principal-agent problem. Forming subsidiaries or joint ventures to market branded products can remedy this situation, with the boards composed of individuals with expertise in branded products.Agribusiness, Marketing,

Do Government Policies Grow Local Food?

local food, food policy, direct marketing, food safety, Know Your Farmer, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Low-temperture electrostatic silicon-to-silicon seals using sputtered borosilicate glass

Silicon members are hermetically sealed to each other. Process produces no measurable deformation of silicon surfaces and is compatible with package designs of tight tolerance. Seals have been made with glass coatings in 10-mm to 20-mm thickness range without any prior annealing of coated silicon substrates

New Cooperative Development Issues

This article briefly reviews the increased interest in new cooperative development, factors for successful cooperative development, and strategies to improve the performance of new and emerging cooperatives. The article highlights issues identified by a panel of cooperative leaders, USDA specialists and academic expertsCooperatives, New Cooperatives, Developing Cooperatives, Agribusiness, P13, L22, L43,

Analysis of testbed airborne multispectral scanner data from Superflux II

A test bed aircraft multispectral scanner (TBAMS) was flown during the James Shelf, Plume Scan, and Chesapeake Bay missions as part of the Superflux 2 experiment. Excellent correlations were obtained between water sample measurements of chlorophyll and sediment and TBAMS radiance data. The three-band algorithms used were insensitive to aircraft altitude and varying atmospheric conditions. This was particularly fortunate due to the hazy conditions during most of the experiments. A contour map of sediment, and also chlorophyll, was derived for the Chesapeake Bay plume along the southern Virginia-Carolina coastline. A sediment maximum occurs about 5 nautical miles off the Virginia Beach coast with a chlorophyll maximum slightly shoreward of this. During the James Shelf mission, a thermal anomaly (or front) was encountered about 50 miles from the coast. There was a minor variation in chlorophyll and sediment across the boundary. During the Chesapeake Bay mission, the Sun elevation increased from 50 degrees to over 70 degrees, interfering with the generation of data products

Calculations with graded perverse-coherent sheaves

In this paper, we carry out several computations involving graded (or $\mathbb{G}_{\mathrm{m}}$-equivariant) perverse-coherent sheaves on the nilpotent cone of a reductive group in good characteristic. In the first part of the paper, we compute the weight of the $\mathbb{G}_{\mathrm{m}}$-action on certain normalized (or "canonical") simple objects, confirming an old prediction of Ostrik. In the second part of the paper, we explicitly describe all simple perverse coherent sheaves for $G = PGL_3$, in every characteristic other than 2 or 3. Applications include an explicit description of the cohomology of tilting modules for the corresponding quantum group, as well as a proof that $\mathsf{PCoh}^{\mathbb{G}_{\mathrm{m}}}(\mathcal{N})$ never admits a positive grading when the characteristic of the field is greater than 3.Comment: 23 pages. v2: minor correction