How distorting are direct payments?

Agricultural and Food Policy,

At What Rate Do Farmers Substitute Manure For Commercial Fertilizers?

Water quality has implications for the health of our ecosystem and the welfare of our population. Agriculture is one of the major contributors of non-point source pollution that contaminates our nation's water supplies. Understanding how farmers substitute manure for commercial fertilizers allows us to better understand the level of nitrogen that enters the soil and can seep into our waterways. In this paper, we explore the factors that help determine farmers' substitution rates between the two types of fertilizers. Location, crop type, and time all could play important roles. We analyze USDA farm level survey data for both crop and livestock farms covering the years 1996 to 2002 to create substitution rate estimates used on corn, soybean, and wheat fields. While the substitution rates we found did not appear to change over the time frame examined, we did find that crop type and location significantly affected the rates that farmers use. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, the substitution rates we did find did not conform to the "perfect substitution" between N coming from commercial sources and manure used in much of the literature. This means that previous studies could have underestimated the potential level of pollution of our water by our nations' farms.Farm Management,

U.S. Small Farms: Decline and Persistence?

We use two comprehensive and representative USDA databases to assess the performance of small farms in the U.S. Farm production is shifting to much larger farms, and the number of small commercial farms is declining. Most large U.S. farms remain family-owned and operated enterprises, and most remain small businesses by U.S. standards. Small commercial farms tend to focus on three commodities: beef cattle, grains and oilseeds, and poultry. On average, large farm financial returns substantially exceed those on small farms, but the range of performance among small farms is quite wide. About one quarter of the nearly 800,000 small commercial farms show very good financial returns.small farms, structural change, farm income, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q12,

A Deep learning toolkit for high dimensional sequential data

Deep learning is a more recent form of machine learning based on a set of algorithms that attempt to learn using a deep graph with multiple processing layers, where layers are composed of multiple linear and non-linear transformational nodes. While research in this area has shown to improve the predictive accuracy in a number of domains, deep learning systems are highly complex and experiments can be hard to manage. In this dissertation, we present a deep learning system, built from scratch, which enables fully configurable deep learning experiments. By configurable, we mean selecting the overall learning algorithm, the number of layers within the deep network, the nodes within network layers and the propagation functions deployed at each node. We use a range of deep network configurations together with different datasets to illustrate the potential of this system but also to highlight the difficulties in tuning the model and hyper-parameters to maximise accuracy. Our research also provides a conceptual data model to capture all aspects of deep learning experiments. By specifying a conceptual model, it provides a platform for the storage and management of experimental snapshots, a key support for experiment and parameter optimisation and analysis. In addition, we developed a toolkit which supports the management and analysis of deep learning experiments and provides a new method for pausing and calibrating experiments. It also offers possibilities for interchanging experiment setup and results between deep learning researchers. Our validation takes the form of a series of case studies built from the requirements of end users and demonstrates the effectiveness of our toolkit in building deep learning algorithms

Profits, Costs, and the Changing Structure of Dairy Farming

U.S. dairy production is consolidating into fewer but larger farms. This report uses data from several USDA surveys to detail that consolidation and to analyze the financial drivers of consolidation. Specifically, larger farms realize lower production costs. Although small dairy farms realize higher revenue per hundredweight of milk sold, the cost advantages of larger size allow large farms to be profitable, on average, even while most small farms are unable to earn enough to replace their capital. Further survey evidence, as well as the financial data, suggest that consolidation is likely to continue.Dairy farming, economies of scale, economies of size, dairy farm structure, milk costs, Farm Management, Industrial Organization, Livestock Production/Industries,

Prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus carriage among dogs and their owners

Author name used in this publication: M. V. BoostAuthor name used in this publication: M. M. O'Donoghue2007-2008 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe