How would a possible food safety scare influence food consumption? Using techniques from experimental psychology, a study of 103 lunchtime participants suggests that a food scare--avian influenza--would decrease consumption of the affected food by 17% if the subjects believed it was naturally...

Rabobankâs offer to purchase Farm Credit Services of America (FCSA) for $600 million was a surprise because few people ever envisioned 1) fragmentation of the Farm Credit System and/or 2) a foreign lender gaining large market share of U.S. agricultural financial markets. Although FCSA has...

Rabobankâs offer to purchase Farm Credit Services of America (FCSA) for $600 million was a surprise because few people ever envisioned 1) fragmentation of the Farm Credit System and/or 2) a foreign lender gaining large market share of U.S. agricultural financial markets. Although FCSA has...

An analysis of default by racial and ethnic minorities is estimated for direct farm loans made by USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) in fiscal 2005. Logit model results indicated that when controlling for creditworthiness, Blacks who received FSA direct loans had higher default rates suggesting...

Demand for federally subsidized farm credit varies regionally, with farm borrowers in some regions very dependent on USDA credit programs. Counties are grouped based on their level of demand for Farm Service Agency (FSA) direct farm ownership (FO) and farm operating loans (OL). Ordinal probit...

Crude oil price speculation during 2000s could have increased installed capacity in corn ethanol plants beyond what was warranted by the market factors. We use Muth’s commodity pricing model and Flood and Garber’s tests to test for speculative investment in US corn ethanol industry. The...

This paper employs mean-variance and mean-skewness optimization to investigate farmers’ crop choices under Gross Revenue Insurance (GRIP), Whole Farm Income Insurance, the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program, and its modified 2008 program AgrInvest. To our knowledge this paper...

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...