PRICE RISK MANAGEMENT IN WHITE CORN PRODUCTION

White corn garners a premium over commodity corn, but suffers from additional price risk and yield drag. Using a simple bootstrap procedure, this research considers whether white corn premiums compensate for yield drag and evaluates the relative merits of various pre-harvest marketing alternatives including contracts, cross hedges, and cash sales.Crop Production/Industries, Risk and Uncertainty,

MODELING PRICE IMPACTS OF BACKWARD VERTICAL INTEGRATION IN THE US PORK INDUSTRY

The U.S. pork sector is evolving from an industry of small, independent firms vertically linked by spot markets to one of substantially larger firms vertically connected through contractual agreements and integration. Potential benefits to this tighter vertical arrangement include lower consumer pork prices, although the true nature of this benefit is still under debate. At the same time, there is concern of market foreclosure because highly vertically integrated industry may prevent independent hog producers from having access to open markets in which to sell their output. The objective of this paper is to develop an econometric model to estimate the extent of backward integration by pork processing firms into the upstream hog production stage, taking into account the oligopsonistic nature of the processors, and to simulate the effect of vertical integration on consumer and producer prices and welfare.backward vertical integration, oligopsony, pork, Industrial Organization, Livestock Production/Industries,

Retail Meat Feature Pricing: Enhancing Meat-Case Revenues?

Retail meat managers have many pricing tools to encourage product purchase, including the feature price, syndicate price, and the percent discount. Given seasonal demands and a large, diverse set of meat cuts, meat managers may form strategic pricing groups when choosing the feature-price, syndicate-price, and percent-discount levels. This research inductively determines these groups using a principal-components method and examines the role feature pricing plays in determining the volume sold and syndicate price. Seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) models are used to simultaneously estimate the impacts of featuring strategy decisions among cluster groups.Demand and Price Analysis,

Description of agriculture production and water transfers in the Colorado River Basin

January 2011.Includes bibliographical references

Ammonia Emission BMP’s for Livestock Feeding: Identifying Benefits and Barriers to Adoption

Farm Management, Health Economics and Policy,

Water Leasing: Opportunities and Challenges for Colorado's South Platte Basin

Agricultural water is a preferred source for meeting growing demands, but permanent transfers often require formerly irrigated land to be fallowed, removing a key industry from the regional economy. One alternative allows farmers to lease water to cities by fallowing their land on a rotational basis or limiting irrigation to reduce the consumptive use of their cropping operations. A survey of irrigators in Colorado’s South Platte Basin examines the remuneration needed for a farmer to enter into a lease agreement; the amount of water the farmer will release; the provisions desired in a lease agreement; and the characteristics shared by farmers who are willing to lease.water leases, alternatives to permanent water transfers, economic health of rural communities, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Animal Disease Economic Impacts: A Survey of Literature and Typology of Research Approaches

Animal diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) are a threat to the animal product marketing sector and the broader economy. Policy makers and industry stakeholders seek a means of assessing a disease threat's economic impacts when evaluating prevention and mitigation measures. But, differences in the focus of the impact analysis (production level, market prices, welfare), level of analysis (geographically, marketing phase) and proposed policy alternatives all influence the analytical approach. This paper surveys previous research, focusing on methodological approaches and results. Drawing from past research and future economic data needs, a typology is developed to guide researchers when defining the scope and policy alternatives of various research approaches.Animal disease economics, Literature review, Marketing channel, Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing,

Economic performance of exotic dairy cattle under smallholder conditions in the marginal zones of Kenya using three analytical approaches

Smallholder exotic dairy cattle have been adopted in the dry marginal zones of Kenya from the high potential areas over the last two decades contrary to the opinion of experts. The objective of this study therefore was to evaluate the economic performance of this dairy establishment in the marginal zones. Three approaches were used for the evaluation: the stochastic cost frontier to determine inefficiencies and the causative institutional and socio-economic factors; cost-factor demand systems; and the supply response analyses to determine the elasticity estimates of policy variables. The results from these approaches are supplementary and seem to support the need for government interventions in institutional and socio-economic factors that have a high public good component in order to expand dairy establishment in the marginal zones.Marginal zones, stochastic frontier, systems analysis, institutional and socio-economic factors, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Minnesota Agricultural Economist 689

Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing,

Welfare Impacts of Rural to Urban Water Transfers: An Equilibrium Displacement Approach

Food Security and Poverty,