Consumer demand for food that is locally produced,marketed, and consumed is generating increased interest in local food throughout the United States. As interest grows, so do questions about what constitutes local food and what characterizes local food systems. What Is the Issue? This study...

Advances in genetic engineering involve more than scientific breakthroughs. Potential economic effects - some possibly undesirable - also need to be considered.

This case study reviews the economic, social, and environmental benefits associated with organic agriculture in the U.S. These benefits include measurable impacts and unmeasurable impacts that affect both agricultural and consumer systems in fundamental ways. Both are discussed in this study....

Even if governments agree on equivalency of organic standards across countries, consumers may still believe domestically produced organic foods are superior to imports. We simulated a partial equilibrium model of trade in organic wheat between the United States and Germany to illustrate the...

A stochastic frontier model is used to explain the performance evaluation of U.S. university extension providers by organic producers. The model makes explicit the nonmanagerial factors that influence both performance ratings and performance efficiency, defined as achieving a rating as close to...

Given that existing food eco-labels are still not well defined in consumers' experience, there is potential for new labels to generate more confusion. Consumers incur fixed costs to learn about a label's meaning. Market shares for existing certifications may be eroded by perceptions that new...

Organic farmers have traditionally relied on a variety of marketing channels, suggesting that earned organic income will depend on the farmer's experience in producing and selling organic products and their comparative advantage in bargaining and marketing skills. A discrete choice model of the...

The primary purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence earned income of organic farmers explicitly incorporating farmer decisions to engage in local selling. The stochastic frontier model identifies role model producers who are the most technically efficient in achieving the...