INCREASES IN COSTS AND RETURNS DUE TO INTENSIFYING RANGE FORAGE PRODUCTION SURVEYS: AN INFORMATION ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

The U.S. Congress and courts have directed federal natural resource agencies to use better information for management decisions than they have used in the past. It is also important for these agencies to improve the efficiency of resource use where possible. This information economics study estimates increased costs and revenues which can be directly imputed to improving the accuracy of range forage production surveys. It suggests that a high level of survey accuracy may often be justifiable.Crop Production/Industries, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Analysis and Location of a Forestland in Western Massachusetts for a Direct Input to the Resource Analysis Procedure

LANDSAT computer compatible tapes (CCTs) were processed on the Bendix Multispectral Data Analysis System (MDAS) to produce digital files of forest resources in the western Massachusetts counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Hampden, and Franklin. Data within the files have a north-south grid orientation, and are resampled to a 45 second by 60 second angular grid using nearest neighbor technique. Each file is keyed to a 7½ minute quadrangle and is directly compatible with the Resource Analysis Procedure (RAP). RAP is a system designed to identify resource production levels, allocate available resources, and geographically locate and simulate the impact of resource exploitation. It is designed to produce maps and graphs at a cost low enough for everyday use by a variety of potential users. The linking of LANDSAT with RAP is an advance in analytical capabilities to include direct use of satellite data for resource analysis. Processing of LANDSAT data included nonlinear geometric control of portions of two LANDSAT scenes that include 63 7-½ min quadrangles, and identification of 5 Level I and 10 Level 2 categories of land cover. Ground truth for categorization consisted of 1:24,000 scale land cover maps produced by Massachusetts Map Down. The maps show 104 land cover/ land use types that were manually interpreted from 1:12,000 scale photography taken in 1972. The two major problems encountered in the project were severe banding in the raw data, and difficulty in deftly separating hardwood from mixed wood. Sixty Cycle banding is common in the more recent LANDSAT I imagery, and is especially Pronounced in forested areas. Separating hardwood and mixed proved to be unreliable because the variation in radiance resulting from uneven illumination of the hilly terrain was greater than the variation in radiance between hardwood and mixed wood stands. Separation of softwood from hardwood and mixed wood was made with confidence

INCREASES IN COSTS AND RETURNS DUE TO INTENSIFYING RANGE FORAGE PRODUCTION SURVEYS: AN INFORMATION ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

The U.S. Congress and courts have directed federal natural resource agencies to use better information for management decisions than they have used in the past. It is also important for these agencies to improve the efficiency of resource use where possible. This information economics study estimates increased costs and revenues which can be directly imputed to improving the accuracy of range forage production surveys. It suggests that a high level of survey accuracy may often be justifiable

Rational Mean-Variance Decisions for Subsistence Farmers

This paper explores the issue of approximating expected utility in applying portfolio theory. It has been demonstrated that expected utility is very closely approximated by an appropriate quadratic function. Recent studies have again questioned the empirical validity of mean-variance analysis. These efforts disregard the importance of the differences among various approximations, and historically, have focused on domestic financial securities. We re-examine the problem in the context of determining risk-efficient portfolios of production activities for subsistence farmers. The risks faced by these farmers are large and probably actuarially nonneutral. Thus, recommendations based on an inappropriate quadratic approximation could result in substantial losses in welfare.mean-variance efficiency, subsistence farmers