A Hedonic Analysis of Community Supported Agriculture Share Prices in Midwestern United States

As concerns mount over the consequences of conventional food production for health, the environment, and animal welfare, consumers are increasingly demanding what they perceive as more nutritious, safer, and ethically produced food. Local food in general and community supported agriculture in particular have emerged as promising alternatives that could allay those concerns and, judging by recent growth, the share of local food in total food sales will most likely continue to grow. This represents an opportunity and a challenge for both incumbent farms serving the local food market as well entrants who are looking to capitalize on the growth in demand for local food. Under-standing the drivers of that demand is crucial not only for effective private strategies for production, marketing, and entry decisions; but also for public policies for promoting local food. This thesis sheds light on what drives demand for local food by developing a hedonic model that estimates the consumer valuations of attributes of produce supplied by community supported agriculture farms (CSAs). Data from the LocalHarvest.org website were used to estimate the hedonic model that relates CSA share prices to several attributes of 466 CSAs located in seven Midwestern states: Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Findings reveal that the most statistically valued CSA attributes are home delivery commanding a premium of about $18, and belonging to the fifth quintile of CSA membership size ($15.00). Next are increased vegetable variety (between $0.80 and$1.20), and USDA organic certification (worth about $10 but sensitive to model specification). Farming practices, such as integrated pest management, and distance to the nearest metropolitan area were not statistically significant as would have been expected, given the stereotypical attributes of locavores (preference for sustainable production practices and shorter food miles). An implication for CSA private strategies is for farms is to adopt home-delivery marketing strategy, move up the membership scale, offer more vegetable variety, and to a lesser extent seek USDA organic certification. Such strategies come at a cost, however, and their adoption depends on the costs and benefits (premiums) of investing in those attributes. Concerning public policy, since home delivery is the attribute with the most sizable premium, a public policy for subsidizing home delivery to low income families (mostly families without vehicles and with low paid jobs) may be one instrument that would by far not only improve the bottom line of CSAs but also provide the families access to fresh vegetables. Advisor: Professor Azzeddine Azza

Evaluation of Phytochemical, Antioxidant and Antibacterial Activities of Selected Medicinal Plants

Medicinal plants are important reservoirs of bioactive compounds that need to be explored systematically. Because of their chemical diversity, natural products provide limitless possibilities for new drug discovery. This study aimed to investigate the biochemical properties of crude extracts from fifteen Nepalese medicinal plants. The total phenolic contents (TPC), total flavonoid contents (TFC), and antioxidant activity were evaluated through a colorimetric approach while the antibacterial activities were studied through the measurement of the zone of inhibition (ZoI) by agar well diffusion method along with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) by broth dilution method. The methanolic extracts of Acacia catechu and Eupoterium adenophorum showed the highest TPC (55.21 ± 11.09 mg GAE/gm) and TFC (10.23 ± 1.07 mg QE/gm) among the studied plant extracts. Acacia catechu showed effective antioxidant properties with an IC50 value of 1.3 μg/mL, followed by extracts of Myrica esculenta, Syzygium cumini, and Mangifera indica. Morus australis exhibited antibacterial activity against Klebsiella pneumoniae (ZoI: 25mm, MIC: 0.012 mg/mL), Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923 (ZoI: 22 mm, MIC: 0.012 mg/mL), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ZoI; 20 mm, MIC: 0.05 mg/mL), and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (ZoI: 19 mm, MIC: 0.19 mg/mL). Morus australis extract showed a broad-spectrum antibacterial activity, followed by Eclipta prostrata, and Hypericum cordifolium. Future study is recommended to explore secondary metabolites of those medicinal plants to uncover further clinical efficacy

Testing Local Bias in Food Consumption: The Case of Fluid Milk

This article provides the first set of estimates of the degree of local bias in food consumption, by adapting the international trade notion of home bias, which describes the tendency of consumers to favour domestic over imported goods, to local bias, which describes the tendency of consumers to favour local over nonlocal food. Using state boundaries to define local and household data on milk purchases from 2007 until 2016 in the New England region, estimates from the Armington model confirm bias for locally produced milk