Food cooperatives play an important role in local food networks as business organizations that use innovative business strategies to market local foods to their members and consumers. We utilize data from a national study of the members of eight food cooperatives in the U.S. The objective of...

This study provides a framework for describing the profiles of consumers who are more likely to use nutrition labels and to pay attention to serving-size information. Inan online survey, food consumers were asked about the importance of nutrition labels and how often they read the serving-size...

This study considers the issue of the transition of new farmers into U.S. agriculture, by examining land ownership and leasing trends. Our approach is to characterize the entire distribution by farmer age and farmer experience rather than using young versus old and beginning versus established...

Agribusinesses represent a fundamental link in connecting farmers with retailers and consumers, yet little research has been done to examine the historical financial performance of these food processing firms. Our research examines how publicly-traded agribusinesses perform financially compared...

Employing a logit model and farm-level data for Illinois from 1995 to 2004, this study explores the importance of farm-type differences in the development of credit scoring models. Apart from the conclusion that regional credit scoring models specific to each farm type are needed, the following...

The increasing use of agricultural contracts and processor concentration raises concerns that processors may offer lower contract prices in absence of competition from other local contractors and spot markets. This study examines the price competitiveness of marketing and production contracts...

Economic theory implies that firms in a competitive market will adjust to long-run equilibrium levels of profitability, resulting in mean reversion of profitability. Partial adjustment models are applied to farm-level data from Illinois to test for mean reversion and autocorrelation in...

This paper examines the contract design problem of microfinance institutions seeking to maximize outreach to the poor while remaining financially sustainable. A dynamic model of group lending is developed that shows how optimal interest rates depend on information regarding moral hazard and...