Financial Conditions on U.S. Cotton Farms

For the last three years, U.S. cotton producers have been heavily dependent on ad hoc emergency disaster and market loss assistance to cash flow their operations. They have not been alone. Wheat, feed grains, oilseeds and rice producers have also been faced with low commodity prices, adverse weather and the need for substantial government assistance. Price support and direct payments by CCC for fiscal years 1998-2000 averaged $17.5 billion per year (USDA Ag Outlook). Has U.S. program crop agriculture turned the corner or will additional government payments likely be needed to sustain a vulnerable sector? This paper will focus on the outlook for the Agricultural and Food Policy Center’s (AFPC’s) representative cotton farms over the period 2001-2005. The results reported herein are drawn from AFPC Working Paper 00-4 which goes into greater depth on all 82 representative farms and ranches modeled by AFPC.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries,

Approximate Bias Correction in Econometrics

This paper discusses ways to reduce the bias of consistent estimators that are biased in finite samples. It is necessary that the bias function, which relates parameter values to bias, should be estimable by computer simulation or by some other method. If so, bias can be reduced or, in some cases that may not be unrealistic, even eliminated. In general, several evaluations of the bias function will be required to do this. Unfortunately, reducing bias may increase the variance, or even the mean squared error, of an estimator. Whether or not it does so depends on the shape of the bias functions. The techniques of the paper are illustrated by applying them to two problems: estimating the autoregressive parameter in an AR(1) model with a constant term, and estimation of a logit model.bias function, mean squared error, simulation, finite samples

Re-evaporation nuclei and evaporation in a Wilson cloud chamber

Experimental techniques are developed for observing droplet evaporation in the submicroscopic size range. An expansion-compression cloud chamber with an atmosphere of tank helium saturated with water vapor is employed. This work was undertaken with the aim of examining submicroscopic droplet behavior and the existence of re-evaporation nuclei, a form of memory effect. The theories of evaporation and nucleation on submicroscopic drop residues were re-examined, and alterations which appear to be consistent with the results of this work were incorporated into the evaporation theory. The observed continually decreasing evaporation rate with diminishing droplet size confirms the existence of re-evaporation nuclei, but these observed terminal evaporation rates appear to be too small to be compatible with existing theory. The results do support the viewpoint that surface effects predominate in controlling the terminal rate of evaporation. When the critical supersaturations required for renucleation on the residues were analyzed with Fletcher\u27s heterogeneous nucleation theory by assuming a value for m, the experimental points agreed well with theory which postulated that the evaporation coefficient varied directly as the area of the drop after the drop reached a certain size. It appears that this work could lead to a verification of Fletcher\u27s heterogeneous nucleation theory, providing that the drop contaminant(s) can be determined and an independent measurement of size can be made. An independent mobility measurement was attempted, but yielded null results. These results are consistent with the existence of an insoluble surface layer on the drop. Such a layer is consistent with sizes determined by using Fletcher\u27s heterogeneous nucleation theory for values of m less than 0.95. Calculations which assumed the drops to be pure water predicted complete evaporation in 0.37 seconds after the beginning of the cloud chamber compression. The experimental results indicate that the drops approach a stable size. Determination of radii with the Kelvin equation for pure water yielded mean radii of 112 Å and 91 Å for respective times of 0.57 and 0.88 seconds after the beginning of the compression. Evaporation theory, assuming the presence of a solute in the drop, predicts a stable size for the drop in 0.38 seconds. Experimental results disagree by showing a finite evaporation rate much later in the compression. The Kelvin equation, amended for solute content, predicts mean drop radii of about 70 Å and 60 Å for the respective times 0.57 and 0.88 seconds. Corresponding radii determination using Fletcher\u27s heterogeneous nucleation theory for an assumed m = 0.95 yielded radii of 80 Å and 218 Å respectively. These latter values are consistent with the null result of the mobility experiment --Abstract, pages ii-iv

Before King Came: The Foundations of Civil Rights Movement Resistance and St. Augustine, Florida, 1900-1960

In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called St. Augustine, Florida, the most racist city in America. The resulting demonstrations and violence in the summer of 1964 only confirmed King’s characterization of the city. Yet, St. Augustine’s black history has its origins with the Spanish who founded the city in 1565. With little racial disturbance until the modern civil rights movement, why did St. Augustine erupt in the way it did? With the beginnings of Jim Crow in Florida around the turn of the century in 1900, St. Augustine’s black community began to resist the growing marginalization of their community. Within the confines of the predominantly black neighborhood known as Lincolnville, the black community carved out their own space with a culture, society and economy of its own. This paper explores how the African American community within St. Augustine developed a racial solidarity and identity facing a number of events within the state and nation. Two world wars placed the community’s sons on the front lines of battle but taught them to value of fighting for equality. The Great Depression forced African Americans across the South to rely upon one another in the face of rising racial violence. Florida’s racial violence cast a dark shadow over the history of the state and remained a formidable obstacle to overcome for African Americans in the fight for equal rights in the state. Although faced with few instances of violence against them, African Americans in St. Augustine remained fully aware of the violence others faced in Florida communities like Rosewood, Ocoee and Marianna. St. Augustine’s African American community faced these obstacles and learned to look inward for support and empowerment rather than outside. This paper examines the factors that vii encouraged this empowerment that translates into activism during the local civil rights movement of the 1960s

Evaluation of Alternative Base Periods for a National Rice Counter Cyclical Payment Program Including Added AMTA

The analysis was completed for one year, namely, 2001 using the FAPRI baseline rice price of $6.29/cwt. as the mean price for 2001. Risk for price and yields was incorporated into the analysis to appropriately replicate the historical variability for these variables. The counter cyclical payment (CCP) payments were calculated based on a national revenue. CCP payments were assumed to be triggered if total planted acre market receipts for rice (national planted acre yield times national season average price) was less than the average national planted acre receipts for a particular base period.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Can We Save the Traditional Family Farm?

What is a traditional family farm? Is it a family of four living on a farm and supplying all of the labor, capital and management or is it a family corporation with four families supplying all of the capital and management? These types of questions continue to arise in policy debates, as they have for many years. While subject to heated debate and the core of many people’s positions on farm programs the answer is more sociological as it is becoming less and less economically relevant. Whether these types of farms or any other farm sizes should survive is not a question that can be answered by a policy analyst. The job of an analyst is to determine if and under what conditions family farms can survive. To this end, this paper reviews the various definitions of family farms and draws inferences as to the economic and financial survival of these different size farms using the results generated from simulating representative farms.Agricultural and Food Policy,