A Typology for U.S. Farms from National Survey Data

Consumer/Household Economics, Farm Management,

Marketing Assistance Loans, Loan Deficiency Payments and Marketing Loan Gains for Minor Oilseed and Pulse Crops

Marketing assistance loans are available to Montana producers of minor oilseed and pulse crops. The USDA differentiates county-level loan rates from national rates for minor oilseeds and dry peas . County-level lentil and small chickpea loan rates for all pertinent counties throughout the United States are differentiated at the multi-state, regional level from the national loan rates. Montana county-level rates for the 2003 crop year are shown in Appendix A: Figures 1 through 7 for canola, crambe, flaxseed, mustard, rapeseed, safflower, and sunflower. For each of the pulse cropsdry peas, lentils, and small chickpeas the county-level loan rates are the same in all Montana counties, as reported in Table 1. Loan deficiency payments are available on all or a portion of harvested production when posted-county prices for a loan commodity are below county-level loan rates. Similarly, marketing loan gains are available when posted-county prices are less than county loan rates at the time marketing assistance loans are settled. Mechanisms for determining loan deficiency payments and marketing loan gains are described. Mechanisms for determining posted-county prices are described including the use of differentials for each commodity. Differentials specified by the USDA, generally considered some depiction of commodity transportation and elevation costs, are shown for the 2003 crop year for all Montana counties in Appendix B, Figures 8 through 14 for canola, crambe, flaxseed, mustard, rapeseed, safflower, and sunflower.Marketing,

A Request for Actuarial Change

Financial Economics,

Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program

Risk and Uncertainty,

Procedures for a New Producer to Establish Actual Production History for Crop Insurance Coverage

Risk and Uncertainty,

Dirichlet Posterior Sampling with Truncated Multinomial Likelihoods

We consider the problem of drawing samples from posterior distributions formed under a Dirichlet prior and a truncated multinomial likelihood, by which we mean a Multinomial likelihood function where we condition on one or more counts being zero a priori. Sampling this posterior distribution is of interest in inference algorithms for hierarchical Bayesian models based on the Dirichlet distribution or the Dirichlet process, particularly Gibbs sampling algorithms for the Hierarchical Dirichlet Process Hidden Semi-Markov Model. We provide a data augmentation sampling algorithm that is easy to implement, fast both to mix and to execute, and easily scalable to many dimensions. We demonstrate the algorithm's advantages over a generic Metropolis-Hastings sampling algorithm in several numerical experiments

Surface Erosion and Sedimentation Associated with Forest Land Use in Interior Alaska

Completion reportThe magnitude of sheet-rill erosion associated with various landscape manipulations is presented. The Universal Soil Loss Equation's usefulness for predicting annual sheet-rill erosion within interior Alaska is confirmed. Investigations of sheet-rill erosion indicate that removing the trees from forested areas with only minor ground cover disturbance did not increase erosion. Removing the ground cover, however, increased erosion 18 times above that on forested areas. Erosion is substantially reduced when disturbed areas are covered with straw mulch and fertilizer. Comparison of the actual erosion and the quantity of erosion predicted with the Universal Soil Loss Equation indicates that the equation overestimates annual erosion by an average of 21 percent. It overestimates individual storm erosion by an average of 174 percent. Data are also presented concerning sheet-rill erosion in a permafrost trail, distribution of the rainfall erosion index, and suggested cover and management factor values.This work was supported by the Institute of Northern Forestry, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, USDA. The Institute of Water Resources, University of Alaska, provided facilities for this research

The Mecoptera of Michigan

(excerpt) To date, no one has published on the Mecoptera of Michigan. A comprehensive taxonomic paper on the Mecoptera of Illinois, by Donald W. Webb, Illinois Natural History Survey, and Norman D. Penny, University of Kansas, is in preparation and will include keys to and descriptions of the midwestern species of Mecoptera. It is hoped that the present paper will supplement the publication by Webb and Penny and enable interested persons in Michigan to easily identify adult Mecoptera