The three articles in this invited paper session investigate challenges andopportunities for agricultural producers in the southeastern United States.Two of the articles focus on the increasing demand for locally produced foodand offer insight into potential marketing opportunities that this growingdemand may provide for beginning or young farmers. The third article centerson financing options that are available to beginning farmers and evaluatesthe use of Aggie Bonds as a financing source for beginning farmers.

Agriculture's significant global contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions has spurred consumer and retailer interest in GHG mitigation andmay lead to incentive programs for producers to lessen GHG emissions. Alongthose lines, a producer choice is the use of embedded seed technologydesigned to enhance the marketable portion of yield through improveddisease, weed, and pest management with the same or lower use of inputs.This article examines commonalities and differences across three recentstudies on rice, sweet corn, and cotton, which addressed the impacts ofembedded seed technology on yield, input use, and GHG emissions. Embeddedseed technology can be any method of improving the physical or geneticcharacteristics of a seed. These seed enhancements can include physiologicalquality, vigor, and synchronicity (consistency across seedlings in time ofemergence and size) through traditional breeding, hybrid breeding, orbiotechnology.

Historically, market situation and outlook has often included some form ofprice forecast. Recent volatility in agricultural commodity markets ismaking price forecasts challenging and at times less reliable. In addressingthis price volatility, changes in agricultural markets are highlighted alongwith price forecasts: pre- and postincreased market volatility. Given theserecent challenges, the future of Extension agricultural commodity marketingis discussed.

Natural causes (such as droughts), non-natural causes (such as competinguses), and government policies limit the supply of water for agriculture ingeneral and irrigating crops in particular. Under such reduced water supplyscenarios, existing physical models reduce irrigation proportionally amongcrops in the farmer's portfolio, disregarding temporal changes in economicand/or institutional conditions. Hence, changes in crop mix resulting fromexpectations about risks and returns are ignored. A method is developed thatconsiders those changes and accounts for economic substitution and expansioneffects. Forecasting studies based on this method with surface water inGeorgia and Alabama demonstrate the relative strength of econometricmodeling vis-à-vis physical methods. Results from a study using this methodfor ground water in Mississippi verify the robustness of those findings.Results from policy-induced simulation scenarios indicate water savings of12% to 27% using the innovative method developed. Although better irrigationwater demand forecasting in crop production was the key objective of thispilot project, conservation of a valuable natural resource (water) hasturned out to be a key consequence.

The new Farm Bill could lead to significant changes for commodity producers.The potential impact of these changes on cotton producers is examined. Inparticular, the difference between the existing Direct and Counter-CyclicalPayment Program and the new Stacked Income Protection Plan (STAX) for cottonproducers is discussed. An illustrative example is provided to show howpayments to cotton producers could potentially differ for a specific yearunder various programs. Detailed information on STAX calculations and a STAXpayment calculator is included to assist with the development of Extensionprograms targeted to cotton producers, landowners, and bankers.