This paper investigates rural residents' perceptions of the risk to water quality from large confinement facilities and their willingness to pay to delay nitrate contamination from these facilities. Rural residents are concerned about the environmental impact of confinement facilities and are willing to pay as much as $82 annually to delay nitrate contamination in their water for 20 years. These contingent valuation results are consistent with the result obtained in similar studies that used hedonic valuation methods.

The farm level economic implications of the political turmoil surrounding tobacco are examined. Tobacco ranks first in crop receipts in the Southeastern United States. Free market advocates typically want to eliminate the tobacco program because of its cartellike nature. Health advocates want to maintain the program because it limits tobacco production. Cigarette manufacturers tolerate the program because of the political support they receive from program stakeholders. The effects of cigarette price increases with and without a program are examined. Whether or not the program is maintained in the face of declining tobacco demand has significant implications for Southern agriculture.

This paper discusses the context within which educational programs tailored to tobacco producers and related rural communities have developed. Discussion is expanded by examining current program approaches employed by various organizations. Many of these organizations have a mutual stake in helping producers in tobacco communities develop their management capacity. A range of initiatives aimed at facilitating economic adjustment is compared, including the major issues addressed and expected outcomes. Many of the initiatives have made useful contributions; however, gaps and limitations remain. These are considered as future educational efforts and issues are discussed.

The objective of this study was to identify factors which contribute to the earnings' success of cash grain farms in the United States. The study analyzes three measures of success including net farm income per dollar of asset, operators' returns to labor and management, and operators' management income. Logit regression analysis shows that controlling variable costs, ownership, management ability, technology adoption, and diversification are important factors that influence success.

This paper is a discussion of the Brown, Snell, and Tiller article. The economic accuracy, conciseness, and organization is noteworthy with the major strength being the analysis of the tobacco system with the absence of a Federal program. The base paper discusses economic consequences of the U.S. tobacco program, within-industry structural differences, and recent/potential future changes such as the buy-out, industry uncertainty, and the possibility of program elimination.

As with most agricultural industries, the U.S. dairy industry has evolved into a structure including fewer yet larger firms. In Louisiana, total milk production has declined along with dairy farm numbers since 1972. This study addresses the impact of alternative policies, macroeconomic factors, and technology on the structure of the Louisiana dairy industry using a micro-data non-stationary Markov chain analysis. Results indicate that a number of factors have affected the structure of the industry in Louisiana, including but not limited to prices, milk supply reduction programs, technology and interest rates.

Conventional wisdom and earlier research have concluded that cattle feeding profitability is more determined by feeder and fed cattle prices than by animal performance. This study examined cross-sectional and time-series data from over 1600 pens of cattle in more than 220 feedlots in the upper Midwest where weather and lot conditions are thought to influence feedlot profitability. In addition to input and output prices and animal performance, other factors found to significantly impact cattle feeding profitability were sex, placement weight, facility design, and to a lesser extent placement season.

This paper examines the price discovery function for three U.S. wheat futures markets: the Chicago Board of Trade, Kansas City Board of Trade, and Minneapolis Grain Exchange. The maintained hypothesis is that futures markets search more for information than cash markets to find an equilibrium price, thus greatly improving the price discovery function. The tests reveal the existence of one equilibrium price across the three futures markets in the long run, but no cointegration among prices in the three representative cash markets.

As part of its strategy to attract new businesses, in 1994 the State of Alabama won the Mercedes Benz bid to establish an automobile assembly plant in Vance, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama at the cost of $222 to $253 million worth of incentives. The study assessed the economic impact of the Mercedes Benz investment using IMPLAN. The IMPLAN industry code 49, industrial construction, and industry code 384, motor vehicle, were used to project the impact of the investment for the construction and production phases respectively. The results from four scenarios indicated that the investment would generate sizable direct and indirect employment, income, output, and tax revenue for the state economy. From the estimated revenue, the pay-out period for the cost of the incentive would be from four to seven years. The scenarios also indicated that the increase in the volume of locally purchased automobile parts will increase the multiplier effects for the state economy. Currently, the direct benefits from suppliers accrue to other states with established suppliers networks. The finding also suggested a heavy concentration of the impact of Mercedes Benz plant in the north and northeast part of the state. These counties were also the beneficiaries of past agglomeration economies in terms of critical physical infrastructure and human resource development.