Potential Economic Effects of Post-CRP Land Management in Southwest North Dakota

The uncertain future of the Conservation Reserve Program has created substantial interest for agricultural producers, rural businesses, community leaders, sportsmen, and wildlife organizations. Many regions of the upper Great Plains have participated heavily in the CRP as evidenced by program acreage reaching land enrollment limits; however, current enrollment and re-enrollment criterion are expected to substantially reduce CRP acreage in many parts of the Great Plains. The divergence of interests between pursing post-CRP lands for agricultural production versus retaining the wildlife habitat and wildlife populations supported on CRP lands presents land owners and agricultural producers with important land management decisions over the next several years. This research examines the regional economic implications of post-CRP land use among traditional agricultural uses, wildlife production, and multiple-use practices. Of particular interest is whether multiple-use management on post-CRP lands can produce similar returns to landowners and producers as traditional land uses, and determine the effects of multiple-use management on post-CRP lands on regional economic output. A multiple-use system implemented on post-CRP lands based primarily on beef grazing while producing corn and barley for forage and retaining a portion of acreage in dedicated wildlife habitat would not compete economically with other conventional land uses. The net change in gross receipts within the regional economy from agricultural uses of post-CRP lands exceeded lost recreational expenditures in all scenarios evaluated.North Dakota, Conservation Reserve Program, Recreation, Agriculture, Land Management, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Northern Great Plains Beef Production: Production and Marketing Practices of Cow-Calf Producers

Ruminant livestock production in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming is critical to the region's economy. Because of the economic significance of ruminant livestock production, producers in the four-state area are continually looking for opportunities to increase income and improve the viability of their farm and ranch operation. Accordingly, the Four-state Ruminant Consortium, an integrated research and extension program, was created to specifically address issues related to ruminant livestock production. One of the more widely applicable possibilities for adding value through the regions's ruminant livestock sector appears to be backgrounding feeder calves. However, while economic analysis has indicated that stockgrowers in the study area could typically increase their net returns by backgrounding feeder calves, anecdotal evidence suggests relatively few producers are presently backgrounding feeder calves. To identify the socioeconomic impediments inhibiting producers from backgrounding feeder cattle, this study sought to identify managerial, social, and institutional factors that influence and perhaps constrain producers' ability or willingness to background feeder cattle. Study objectives were to identify and document producers' current production and marketing practices as well as identify stock growers' perception of opportunities for and impediments to expansion of the ruminant livestock industry in the study area. A mail questionnaire was delivered to 5,270 livestock producers in 37 counties in the 4-state study area of southwestern North Dakota, northwestern South Dakota, southwestern Montana and northwestern Wyoming. The questionnaire was designed to solicit a wide variety of information about operators' current production practices, including marketing, backgrounding, retained ownership, herd management, and feed and forage practices. The questionnaire also solicited operators attitudes on a wide variety of issues related to opportunities for and impediments to the expansion of the ruminant livestock industry in the study area as well asking respondents to identify what types of information would be of most interest to them and in what form they would prefer that information be delivered. The questionnaire also collected basic demographic data. Findings from the mail questionnaire are detailed in this report.Backgrounding, Feeder calves, Beef cattle producer characteristics, Feeder cattle production practices, Beef cattle marketing, Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing,

LegalBench: A Collaboratively Built Benchmark for Measuring Legal Reasoning in Large Language Models

The advent of large language models (LLMs) and their adoption by the legal community has given rise to the question: what types of legal reasoning can LLMs perform? To enable greater study of this question, we present LegalBench: a collaboratively constructed legal reasoning benchmark consisting of 162 tasks covering six different types of legal reasoning. LegalBench was built through an interdisciplinary process, in which we collected tasks designed and hand-crafted by legal professionals. Because these subject matter experts took a leading role in construction, tasks either measure legal reasoning capabilities that are practically useful, or measure reasoning skills that lawyers find interesting. To enable cross-disciplinary conversations about LLMs in the law, we additionally show how popular legal frameworks for describing legal reasoning -- which distinguish between its many forms -- correspond to LegalBench tasks, thus giving lawyers and LLM developers a common vocabulary. This paper describes LegalBench, presents an empirical evaluation of 20 open-source and commercial LLMs, and illustrates the types of research explorations LegalBench enables.Comment: 143 pages, 79 tables, 4 figure

LegalBench: A Collaboratively Built Benchmark for Measuring Legal Reasoning in Large Language Models

The advent of large language models (LLMs) and their adoption by the legal community has given rise to the question: what types of legal reasoning can LLMs perform? To enable greater study of this question, we present LegalBench: a collaboratively constructed legal reasoning benchmark consisting of 162 tasks covering six different types of legal reasoning. LegalBench was built through an interdisciplinary process, in which we collected tasks designed and hand-crafted by legal professionals. Because these subject matter experts took a leading role in construction, tasks either measure legal reasoning capabilities that are practically useful, or measure reasoning skills that lawyers find interesting. To enable cross-disciplinary conversations about LLMs in the law, we additionally show how popular legal frameworks for describing legal reasoning—which distinguish between its many forms—correspond to LegalBench tasks, thus giving lawyers and LLM developers a common vocabulary. This paper describes LegalBench, presents an empirical evaluation of 20 open-source and commercial LLMs, and illustrates the types of research explorations LegalBench enables

Potential Economic Effects of Post-CRP Land Management in Southwest North Dakota

The uncertain future of the Conservation Reserve Program has created substantial interest for agricultural producers, rural businesses, community leaders, sportsmen, and wildlife organizations. Many regions of the upper Great Plains have participated heavily in the CRP as evidenced by program acreage reaching land enrollment limits; however, current enrollment and re-enrollment criterion are expected to substantially reduce CRP acreage in many parts of the Great Plains. The divergence of interests between pursing post-CRP lands for agricultural production versus retaining the wildlife habitat and wildlife populations supported on CRP lands presents land owners and agricultural producers with important land management decisions over the next several years. This research examines the regional economic implications of post-CRP land use among traditional agricultural uses, wildlife production, and multiple-use practices. Of particular interest is whether multiple-use management on post-CRP lands can produce similar returns to landowners and producers as traditional land uses, and determine the effects of multiple-use management on post-CRP lands on regional economic output. A multiple-use system implemented on post-CRP lands based primarily on beef grazing while producing corn and barley for forage and retaining a portion of acreage in dedicated wildlife habitat would not compete economically with other conventional land uses. The net change in gross receipts within the regional economy from agricultural uses of post-CRP lands exceeded lost recreational expenditures in all scenarios evaluated

Opportunities and Constraints to Expanding Value-added Beef Production in the Northern Great Plains

Ruminant livestock production in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming is critical to the region's economy. Because of the economic significance of ruminant livestock production, producers in the four-state area are continually looking for opportunities to increase income and improve the viability of their farm and ranch operation. Accordingly, the Four-state Ruminant Consortium, an integrated research and extension program, was created to specifically address issues related to ruminant livestock production. The purpose of the Four-State Ruminant Consortium is to enhance economic development in the target study area of southwestern North Dakota, northwestern South Dakota, southeastern Montana, and northeastern Wyoming by strengthening and capturing value from the ruminant livestock industry. This study sought to identify opportunities for and constraints to expanding value-added enterprises within the beef cow-calf sector. A number of sources were utilized in assessing opportunities and impediments to adopting value-added beef enterprises. A mail questionnaire was delivered to 5,270 livestock producers in 37 counties in the 4-state study area of southwestern North Dakota, northwestern South Dakota, southwestern Montana and northwestern Wyoming. The questionnaire was designed to solicit a wide variety of information about operators' current production practices, including marketing, backgrounding, retained ownership, herd management and feed and forage practices. Following the survey, focus group interviews were conducted with groups of producers in each of the four states. Other individuals knowledgeable about other aspects of the region's livestock industry such as auction manager, banker, feed dealers were also interviewed. The results detailed in this report are a combination of a summary of key findings from the written questionnaire and findings from the focus group meetings. Findings from the focus group meetings are detailed in terms of opportunities and constraints and key themes articulated by focus group and interview participants