One of the major trade policy problems identified by U.S. interests, including grower groups, traders, and policymakers, is that of pricing transparency. This has been a gnawing issue generally related to the pricing practices of competitor exporting countries with state trading enterprises...

Export subsidies and price transparency will be areas of critical importance in the forthcoming round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. This paper provides a review and discussion of issues relating to export subsidies and transparency in international wheat trade. Among other...

StarLink corn, a biotech variety not approved for human food use, disrupted the marketing system in 2000 because of inadvertent commingling. Testing protocols have since been established for detection of StarLink in corn shipments to Japan. Domestic food manufacturers, anxious to avoid risks of...

A stochastic optimization model was developed to determine optimal testing strategies, costs, and risks for dual marketing of genetically modified (GM) and non-GM wheat in an export supply chain. The optimal testing strategy is derived that minimizes disutility of additional system costs due to...

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...

The presence of multiple sources of uncertainty complicates hedging decisions. One of these is the output price and its correlation with input prices. The other is how far forward a firm covers its positions. This study analyzes hedging strategies for grain importers as processors. The...

Auctions are common mechanisms for identifying prices and suppliers of commodities and are particularly important in agricultural marketing. Information asymmetries among bidders may be ameliorated over time through some form of learning. In this study, we incorporate prior decisions to...

Price risk management problems confronting grain processors differ somewhat from conventional motives for hedging. There are two components of this problem that are addressed in this study. One is the competitive characteristics of the processing sector, the structure and conduct of which...

The prospective commercialization of GM traits leads to several strategic questions for agbiotechnology and seed firms. Important issues addressed in this study include the method of trait commercialization by agbiotechnology firms and variety production decisions by seed firms. Specifically,...

Consistency of functional characteristics in hard red spring (HRS) wheat is a concern confronting sellers and buyers. This research analyzes contract incentives for importers with respect to cost and potential risk of acceptance. A principal-agent framework is utilized to examine contract...