First, please permit me the latitude to use a bit of poetic license in coining the term, “ethanolization,” which attempts to describe the upheaval and chaos witnessed across the agricultural sector attributed to the booming corn-based ethanol industry. Ethanolization has focused its impact on agriculture and, in particular, the U.S. agricultural sector as a combination of market-induced and policy-induced factors have created a “perfect storm” that is causing dramatic shocks to virtually every crop and livestock producer and agribusiness. Coining the term ethanolization also borrows from past eras in agriculture described as the “mechanization” of agriculture in the 1940s and 1950s and the “industrialization” of agriculture in the 1990s. Mechanization described a period when widespread adoption of farm machinery occurred across the United States. Then, industrialization, accredited to a body of writings by Draben-stott and Barkema, portrayed a “quiet revolution” of ever-increasing size and specialization of U.S. farms, ranches, and agribusinesses. Now, ethanolization attempts to characterize a similar revolution that is affecting essentially every facet of American agriculture.

A multinomial logit is utilized to model the choice of whether to purchase yield or revenue insurance using subjectively elicited survey data. Our results indicate that the demand for crop insurance is inelastic (−0.40), consistent with most earlier yield elasticity estimates, but the elasticity for choices between yield and revenue insurance is found to be relatively more elastic (−0.88).

This research uses data from the 2004 Agricultural Resource Management Survey and probit regression to examine the determinants of poverty among U.S. farm households. The findings reveal, among others, the importance of a livelihood strategy that combines participation in government programs and off-farm work in lowering poverty rates. Findings also show the importance of educational attainment of the farm operator in mitigating poverty, but only when poverty is measured on a relative rather than an absolute basis. Policy recommendations are provided in the context of these findings.

Stochastic Efficiency with Respect to a Function (SERF) is used to rank transgenic cotton technology groups and place an upper and lower bound on their value. Yield and production data from replicated plot experiments are used to build cumulative distribution functions of returns for nontransgenic, Roundup Ready, Bollgard, and stacked gene cotton cultivars. Analysis of Arkansas data indicated that the stacked gene and Roundup Ready technologies would be preferred by a large number of risk neutral and risk averse producers as long as the costs of the technology and seed are below the lower bounds calculated in this manuscript.

We review the implications of the 2007 Farm Bill for the risk management dimensions of U.S. agriculture and policy. Legislative proposals suggest significant changes in risk management policy, including the introduction of state or national revenue insurance. We also pursue an empirical analysis of the interrelationships of crop insurance, disaster relief, and farm profitability. We find an inverse relationship between disaster assistance and insurance purchases. Our analysis also suggests that farmers that buy insurance and that receive disaster payments tend to have higher returns to farming.

This article considers interaction among participation in the Food Stamp Program (FSP), food security status, and the composition of food expenditures. A quadratic almost ideal demand system with a bootstrapping two-step method of estimation is applied to data from the Current Population Survey–Food Security Supplement data and used to estimate the model and account for endogeneity between the FSP participation and food insecurity. The results show that FSP participation is endogenously related with food security status and significantly affects total food expenditure and food-away-from-home expenditures.

A revealed-preference–based approach is proposed for valuation of the environmental and human impacts of pesticides. It is assumed that farmers reveal their willingness to pay for improved pesticide safety by selecting a specific product out of the set of available alternatives based on their costs, effectiveness, and safety. The approach is applied to estimate the welfare impact of changed patterns of herbicide use on Roundup Ready soybeans. The results indicate that farmers associate positive values with safety improvements. The aggregate welfare impact of the reduced risk for the U.S. soybean farmers was estimated to be $90.3 million in 2001.

Introductions of nonindigenous organisms into the United States have been linked to international trade. The individual contributions of imports, immigration, and international travel, however, are poorly understood because introduction dates are unavailable. We examine relationships between economic trends and discoveries of nonindegenous insects and use these relationships to infer the timing and determinants of introductions. We find that a few variables can explain much variation in species introductions and identifications. The most significant contributor to the introduction appears to be agricultural imports. Currently available proxies for academic effort are weak determinants of the probability that introduced species are identified.

Moving from price-triggered to area revenue–triggered programs was perhaps the most common theme among 2007 farm bill proposals. Area revenue–triggered commodity programs may make farm-level revenue insurance products seem redundant, raising questions about why the federal government should continue both programs. Area revenue–triggered programs would remove much of the systemic risk faced by producers. As a result, private sector insurers may be able to insure the residual risk without federal involvement. This paper examines the effects of moving to area revenue–triggered commodity programs with a focus on public policy issues that would likely arise.

Personal interviews were conducted with beef cattle producers in Louisiana to determine their preferences and purchase decisions for livestock price insurance. Conjoint analysis was utilized to determine the importance of selected attributes of insurance policies for these producers. The characteristics of producers who prefer given attributes were also identified. Producers rated products given four economic situations to evaluate. A two-limit tobit model was used to estimate the part worth utility values for each attribute. Univariate probit models were estimated to evaluate the influence of producer characteristics on purchase decisions.

As farm income from tobacco production has declined in recent years, there has been increasing interest in identifying alternative sources of income for tobacco farmers in the southern United States The recent termination of the tobacco quota program has accelerated the exit of tobacco farmers and has heightened concern regarding the availability of substitutes for tobacco production. In this study, we examine factors influencing tobacco farmers' attempts to identify profitable alternatives to tobacco, their off-farm employment behavior, and changes in acres of tobacco cultivated using survey data collected from a panel of North Carolina tobacco farmers combined with market data.

Government farm support programs such as Loan Deficiency Payments (LDP) and Counter-Cyclical Payments (CCP) have payoff structures that effectively make them costless price insurance instruments. A combination of these payments with yield insurance may provide a viable alternative to revenue insurance. This paper finds that, contrary to expectations, the revenue product analyzed is uniformly superior to yield insurance under both current (2002) and proposed (2008) Farm Bill structures of government payments. Given minor adjustments, however, yield insurance combined with government payments can provide more effective risk management than revenue insurance in production areas with low yield–price correlation.

We reassess the effect of new information in the Hogs and Pigs Reports (HPR) focusing on announcements' rationality and alternative surprises. HPR announcements are irrational estimates of final estimates, and market expectations are irrational estimates of HPR numbers. Using the market's best forecast and incorporating final estimates, we modify conventional information measures. Despite differences as large as 33 cents/cwt in price response, findings suggest there is little to differentiate among surprise measures. Regardless, the message that HPR provides new information to the market is strongly supported. On balance, marketing (breeding) information has a larger effect on short-term (long-term) price changes.

The crop insurance program has grown significantly since passage of the 2002 Farm Bill. Total premiums more than doubled from $2.9 billion in 2002 to $6.6 billion in 2007. This growth in the crop insurance program is due to a combination of greater participation by growers at higher levels of coverage, an increased number of crops with coverage available, and a general rise in commodity prices. Not unexpectedly, there has been a corresponding increase in the cost of program delivery. The total amount of expense subsidy and underwriting gains paid to crop insurance companies increased from around $1 billion in 2001 to over $2.5 billion in 2007.

Signaling is an important element in the lender-borrower relationship that influences the cost and availability of debt capital to agricultural borrowers. This paper analyzes the effects of signaling on farm capital structure in conjunction with the pecking order and trade-off theories. The aggregate estimation indicates that signaling does affect agricultural credit relationships through measures of past cash flow and profitability. High-quality borrowers achieve greater credit capacity by providing lenders with valid signals of their financial status, while adjusting toward target debt levels over time and following the pecking order relationship in the short run.

A Censored Incomplete Demand System is applied to household expenditures for edible oil in India. The results show that edible peanut oil is still a luxury good in India, whereas expenditure elasticities for other edible oils are relatively low. The food habit, location, education of household heads, and other demographic variables have significant effects on the choice of edible oils.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of situation and outlook information from World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) in corn and soybean futures markets over the period 1985 to 2006. Results indicate that WASDE reports containing National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) crop production estimates and other domestic and international situation and outlook information have the largest impact; causing return variance on report sessions to be 7.38 times greater than normal return variance in corn futures and 6.87 times greater than normal return variance in soybean futures. WASDE reports limited to international situation information and domestic and international outlook information have a smaller impact. The results show that the impact of WASDE reports has increased over time.

Agricultural water use is becoming an issue in much of the South due to population growth. Results of projects evaluating the impacts of conservation strategies aimed at reallocating or extending the life of water supplies are being met with great skepticism by stakeholder groups. In order to gain acceptance of results, it is essential that stakeholder groups be involved from the beginning in the identification of potential water conservation strategies and be kept informed throughout the project. The objective of this paper is to review previous attempts at involving stakeholders and the methodology currently being employed in the Ogallala Aquifer Project.

The United States and Mexico recently resolved a decade-old water dispute that required Mexico to repay the accumulated water debt within one year. A Coasian analysis estimates the social welfare gains attainable to each country under an alternative debt repayment scheme that allows repayment over a longer time horizon and in a combination of dollars and water, instead of solely in water. Assuming average water supply conditions, under the agreed 1-year repayment contract, U.S. compensation value is 534% greater and Mexico's compensation cost is 60% less relative to when compensation is paid exclusively in water.

This paper describes the programming required for online homework, evaluates its use, and presents methods for student identification and for processing student input. Online homework applications were evaluated in a real class setting. Generally, online homework is cost effective for large classes that have numerous assignments and repeated usage. Online homework appears to increase learning through increased student study-time allocations. Students felt that online homework made course website interaction more productive. They also indicated that online homework increased their perception of the value of lectures and that its use in other courses would be welcome. All findings were highly statistically significant.