THE ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF ALTERNATIVE MANURE MANAGEMENT REGULATIONS ON HOG FARMS IN THE HEARTLAND: AN INDIVIDUAL-FARM ANALYSIS

A whole-farm modeling approach applied to survey data was used to assess the economic impacts on Heartland hog farms of alternative manure management regulations on manure application. Results showed differential economic impacts on the hog operations. Many large farms (over 2,500 hogs) had to lease additional land to meet restrictions on manure phosphorous application, with reductions in net crop returns exceeding those of medium size operations (750-2,500 hogs). Feeding hogs a phytase diet to lessen phosphorous in manure reduced the additional land needed and moderated the increase in manure application costs, but net crop returns still dropped for most operations.Livestock Production/Industries,

USDA Research On Impacts of Predation

This research by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, was done at the direct request of Congress, and with special funding in fiscal years 1974 and 1975. Basic questions guiding the research were: 1. How sizable are predation losses? How many producers are effected? 2. What effect has predation had on the decline of the sheep industry? 3. What are benefits and cost of predator control programs

The Possible Competitive Position of Utah Milk Concentrate on Selected Western Markets

During the last two decades, Utah\u27s market milk industry has changed from one of local processing and distribution by small-scale plants to one of state-wide distribution by large-scale dairies. At present, four large producer cooperatives control most of the state\u27s market milk and six large processing plants accounts for more than 80 percent of the state\u27s fluid milk sales. Along with centralized processing and distribution has also come some centralization of production. Statistics recently published by Utah State University show that in 1957, 56 percent of the market milk produced in the state came from the five counties of Cache, Utah, Weber, Salt Lake, and Summit (13, p. 8)*. These same five counties accounted for over 50 percent of the increase in total production of market milk between 1948 and 1957 (13, p.9)

Financing Direct Democracy: Revisiting the Research on Campaign Spending and Citizen Initiatives

The conventional view in the direct democracy literature is that spending against a measure is more effective than spending in favor of a measure, but the empirical results underlying this conclusion have been questioned by recent research. We argue that the conventional finding is driven by the endogenous nature of campaign spending: initiative proponents spend more when their ballot measure is likely to fail. We address this endogeneity by using an instrumental variables approach to analyze a comprehensive dataset of ballot propositions in California from 1976 to 2004. We find that both support and opposition spending on citizen initiatives have strong, statistically significant, and countervailing effects. We confirm this finding by looking at time series data from early polling on a subset of these measures. Both analyses show that spending in favor of citizen initiatives substantially increases their chances of passage, just as opposition spending decreases this likelihood

Voting Technology, Vote-by-Mail, and Residual Votes in California, 1990-2010

This paper examines how the growth in vote-by-mail and changes in voting technologies led to changes in the residual vote rate in California from 1990 to 2010. We find that in California’s presidential elections, counties that abandoned punch cards in favor of optical scanning enjoyed a significant improvement in the residual vote rate. However, these findings do not always translate to other races. For instance, find that the InkaVote system in Los Angeles has been a mixed success, performing very well in presidential and gubernatorial races, fairly well for ballot propositions, and poorly in Senate races. We also conduct the first analysis of the effects of the rise of vote-by-mail on residual votes. Regardless of the race, increased use of the mails to cast ballots is robustly associated with a rise in the residual vote rate. The effect is so strong that the rise of voting by mail in California has mostly wiped out all the reductions in residual votes that were due to improved voting technologies since the early 1990s

Sheep Losses Due to Predators and Other Causes in the Western United States, 1974: A Preliminary Report

Excerpts from the report: Coyotes are a major cause of sheep loss in the western United States. This preliminary report features data on death losses gathered as part of a USDA project funded by Congress to make a comprehensive analysis of the sheep-predator issue, including the economic, environmental, and social impacts of alternative predator control policies. The loss estimates are based upon reports from about 9,000 producers surveyed in January 1975 by the Statistical Reporting Service in cooperation with the Economic Research Service. Each surveyed producer reported his sheep inventory and lamb crop, and estimated his losses of sheep and lambs to various causes such as weather, disease, coyotes, and other predators

ECONOMIC IMPACT EVALUATION USING IMPLAN: A CASE STUDY OF THE NEBRASKA PANHANDLE PROJECT

IMPLAN, a computer-based system for developing nonsurvey input-output models, was used to analyze the impacts of Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) activity in the Nebraska Panhandle area for 1971-88. The impacts resulted from both the goods and services purchased from the local economy and through the flow of outputs from RC&D program activities. The expenditures and outputs of direct project measures included in the analysis were critical area treatment, recreation construction, irrigation construction, floodwater prevention construction, Federal and State salaries, State and local enterprise expenditures, recreation visits, and floodwater reduction benefits. This report also analyzes the impacts of two associated project measures: conservation research and the promotion of local facilities for conventions

Characteristics of Sheep Production in the Western United States

About 80 percent of the sheep in the United States are raised in the western United States where extensive private and public ranges provide the bulk of the feed requirement. Only about 41 percent of the West's sheep producers have commercial scale operations of 50 head or more sheep, but they own nearly 93 percent of the region's sheep. About one-third of these commercial producers have specialized in sheep while two-thirds have diversified livestock operations. More than two-thirds operate as sole proprietors, while the rest have formed partnerships and family corporations. Many have substantial equity positions, which indicate past profitability. About one-fifth will likely be retiring in the next 10 years, which could result in many operations going out of sheep production. About half of the feed requirement for commercial sheep comes from private range, while public range supplies about one-fifth. Over half of the commercial sheep are grazed under the care of herders, usually on open (unfenced) range. Most lambing occurs in late winter and early spring. More commercial producers practice shed-lambing than range-lambing, but the number of sheep involved is less. The principal marketing problem is the few numbers of buyers bidding on lambs