This study is concerned with technological choice under uncertain demand conditions. It begins with an overview of the California wild rice market. The wild rice product is described, the wild rice industry is review and wild rice market conditions are explored. The overview is followed by a...

Commodity levies are used increasingly to fund producer collective goods such as research and promotion. In the present paper we examine theoretical relationships between producer and national benefits from levy-funded research, and consider the implications for the appropriate rates of matching...

We investigate natural resource-based poverty traps using a simulation model of smallholder farms in highland Kenya. Simulation modeling allows for detailed examination of the complex interactions and feedback between farm-household economic decision-making and long-term soil dynamics, which may...

Some small-holders are able to generate reliable and substantial income flows through small-scale dairy production for the local market; for others, a set of unique transactions costs hinders participation. Cooperative selling institutions are potential catalysts for mitigating these costs,...

The US dairy industry is shaped by a patchwork of regulations accumulated over a long history of intervention to achieve various, sometimes conflicting, policy goals. Price supports have long been a central feature of dairy markets, but were largely withdrawn beginning in 1988. Since that time,...

Acceleration of economic, technological, social, and environmental change challenge decision-makers of various kinds to learn at increasing rates, and at the same time, the complexity of the dynamic systems in which we live is growing (Sterman 2000). In agriculture and international development...

Agricultural research has transformed agriculture and in doing so contributed to the transformation of economies. Economic issues arise because agricultural research is subject to various market failures, because the resulting innovations and technological changes have important economic...

Despite the significant rise in obesity in the U.S., economic research on obesity is still in its infancy. This paper employs a microeconomic approach to investigate the effects of price and income changes on weight in an effort to determine how a high-calorie food tax, a low-calorie food...

Agro-ecosystem functions support not only the production of food and fiber but a variety of non-market goods and services that are socially valuable. Examples of those non-market goods and services include aesthetic experiences, wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration, and recreation to name a...