The major sources of variability in net farm income on New York dairy farms over the past 10 years are identified using Dairy Farm Business Summary records. The most important source of income variability is the fluctuation in milk prices, followed closely by year-to-year variation in the...

Since both release resources from agricultural production, it is not surprising that decisions to work off the farm and to participate in the U. S. Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) are correlated. By incorporating these decisions into a heteroskedastic specification of a farm household income...

Using data from a national survey of farm households in the United States, this paper examines the effects of farm households’ decisions to participate in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and to work off the farm on the technical efficiency of farm household production. After controlling...

A mathematical programming model of a representative New York dairy farm is developed to identify optimal management adjustments to increased availability of corn distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS). While at current prices DDGS feeding is limited to dry cows and young stock, as prices...

An understanding of the diversity of community water systems (CWS) in the United States is essential when evaluating the financial implications of the 1986 and subsequent amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). This diversity, in terms of size, primary water source, ownership, and...

A hedonic cost function is used to isolate the O&M costs for water treatments. For small systems, costs are substantial for some technologies, but not for others. Financial burdens may still be substantial for small systems; rural systems have some cost advantage given input costs relative to...

This paper outlines a method to determine the tradeoff between economies of size in water treatment and diseconomies of distribution. Empirical results for New York are used to identify the implications for the rehabilitation and consolidation of rural water systems. -