Using data from a survey of Pennsylvania food processors, we investigate what firm-level characteristics make a processor more or less likely to buy agricultural inputs and ingredients though contracts. We find that over 20 percent of Pennsylvania processors use contracts, and over 44 percent of...

Traditional measures of productivity growth may not fully account for all sources of growth during the transition from conventional to alternative cropping systems. This paper treats soil quality as part of the production process and incorporates it directly into rotational measures of...