A dynamic programming algorithm is proposed for a class of nonpoint source pollution control problems. The inherently combinatorial nature of these problems--stemming from the discrete nature of the decision variables, which are production and conservation practices--gives them a special...

We introduce a world fertilizers model that is capable of producing fertilizer demand projections by crop, by country, by macronutrients, and by year. For each crop, the most relevant countries in terms of production, consumption, or trade are explicitly modeled. The remaining countries are...

We compute the fertilizer use in corn, cotton, soybeans, and rapeseed in the period from 1990 to 2010 for a set of selected countries. In each case, we present the consumption of nitrogen, phosphate, and potash by crop and by year, reporting both the fertilizer application rates (in kilograms...

Economic impacts of agricultural carbon sequestration involve direct costs of sequestration management adoption as well as a variety of indirect costs and benefits. The nature and significance of these impacts are discussed. Spatial and temporal heterogeneity in agriculture is identified as an...

The West Liberty Foods turkey cooperative was formed in 1996 to purchase the assets and assume operations of Louis Rich Foods (an investor-owned processing firm), which, at the time, announced the imminent shutdown of its West Liberty, Iowa, processing facility. We study the creation and...

A wide variety of insurance products is available to agricultural producers to insure against yield or price risks in the markets for the raw commodities they produce. Value-added enterprises, such as ethanol production, have been expanding over the last decade. This paper outlines the...

This paper discusses the implications of using genetically modified crops to biomanufacture pharmaceuticals and industrial compounds from the perspective of their co-existence with conventional agriculture. Such plant-made pharmaceuticals and plant-made industrial products rely on exciting...

This study examines the impact of macroeconomic shocks on the efficiency of small farmers. We estimate single- and multiple-factor efficiency measures for Indonesian rice farmers in years before, during, and after the country's macroeconomic crisis. We find that productive efficiency declined by...

The paper lays out the economic arguments in favor of the establishment of farmer-owned brands in midwestern agriculture and presents four case studies based on successful efforts in this area in the United States and European Union. The case studies involve Parma Ham, Brunello di Montalcino...

Participants in the beef supply chain have, at best, imperfect information about some quality attributes of the product (e.g., live animals, carcasses, or cuts) they are buying, handling, and/or processing and selling to their downstream customers. In many cases, the quality of the final...