The U. S. biodiesel industry is rapidly expanding due to energy production concerns, environmental concerns, and recent legislation. The most common type of biodiesel in the United States is derived from soybean oil. Soybeans are a major crop in North Dakota and could easily supply a 5 million...

Malt barley is an important specialty crop in the Northern Plains and growers mitigate risk with federally subsidized crop insurance and production contracts. However, growers face considerable risk due to "“coverage gaps"” in crop insurance that result in uncertain indemnity payments due to...

As farms increase in size, operators often face the difficult decision of remaining loyal to local merchants or obtaining volume discounts from more distant input suppliers. When farmers bypass local merchants and buy inputs in volume from a wholesaler, they often realize a price discount but...

The 1998 Survey of Small Business Finances provides robust information on the financing of small businesses including an overview of their firm's organization, financial characteristics, and credit use. Information from the survey is used in this study to compare the financial characteristics of...

The 1998 Survey of Small Business Finances provides robust information on the financing of small businesses including an overview of their firm's organization, financial characteristics, and credit use. Information from the survey is used in this study to compare the financial characteristics of...

The U. S. biodiesel industry is rapidly expanding due to energy production concerns, environmental concerns, and recent legislation. The most common type of biodiesel in the United States is derived from soybean oil. Soybeans are a major crop in North Dakota and could easily supply a 5 million...

This article utilizes the Survey of Small Business Finances to compare and contrast trade credit practices of rural small business firms. The results show that these firms borrow money and then re-lend it to others in the form of trade credit. There is a strong direct relationship between...

Literature reports that small and medium firms face greater difficulty in obtaining the necessary export market information and in obtaining financing than do larger firms. Accordingly, the United States has many export promotion and enhancement services, but there is little documentation on the...

New Generation Cooperatives (NGCs) or value-added agricultural cooperatives are undergoing several structural changes with the acceptance of outside (non-farmer) investor equity and demutualization or transformation into investor-oriented ownership firms (e.g., Limited Liabilities Cooperatives...

This study examines the financial feasibility of producing ethanol biofuel from sugar beets in central North Dakota. Under the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007, biofuel from sugar beets uniquely qualifies as an “advanced biofuel”. EISA mandates production of 15 billion...