The opportunity to present a presidential address provides a rare and unique opportunity. It is perhaps the only time one gets to speak to the profession without your material either being reviewed and corrected before its presentation, or reviewed and corrected by a discussant after your presentation. Indeed the freedom that a presidential address offers takes a little getting used to, but it provides a wonderful opportunity to express one's biases. To you, the members of the profession who took the risk to allow me this opportunity, let me say thank you. I have chosen to use this opportunity to address a topic that I think provides one of the most exciting and potentially productive challenges our profession will face in our lifetimes, that is “The Dawning of the Age of Dynamic Theory.”

During the past few decades, U. S. agriculture has experienced remarkable gains in productivity and efficiency. While the number of farms has declined, the economic activities supporting production agriculture continue to comprise a major sector of the U. S. economy. The value-added food and fiber complex serves as an important link between production agriculture and the larger U. S. economy. Value-added products from agriculture have a retail value of more than $700 billion annually and engage about 20 percent of the U. S. labor force (ESCOP).

At least 22 states have established agricultural value-added programs to provide new employment opportunities in rural areas and to create additional demand for agricultural products (Greene, p. 15). These value-added programs are a subset of a broader range of state-sponsored economic development programs that attempt to alter the rate of regional economic growth by identifying and assisting local entrepreneurs, by establishing institutions for the commercialization of new technologies, and by creating non-traditional sources of business finance.

For decades this society has underinvested in the social sciences relative to the biological and physical sciences. In partial consequence, today the changing agenda of problems of the society falls increasingly into the domain of the social sciences. Ironically the cumulative effect of this underinvestment is now creating a unique window of opportunity for the social sciences.

I very much appreciate the invitation to participate in the meetings on this special occasion, the twentieth anniversary of the Association's founding. It is always a pleasure to return to the South and especially to participate in the work of the SAEA, for which I have strong interest and affinity.

A sequential decision-making model was developed, and data from farm-raised catfish production were used to demonstrate its use. Outcomes of sequences of decisions which satisfied chance constraints on ending cash balances were traced through a specified time period. Discrete choice variables were specified due to the fixed nature of pond facilities. Recourse actions specified were sale of production in excess of endogenously determined transfer levels or purchase of inputs to supplement needs of the next production stage. Production activities cannot be changed during the planning period. Only yield variability was considered due to its impact on relative competitiveness among growth stages. Deviations were calculated from endogenously determined target levels based on goal and probability limits.

Economic feasibility of Texas Blacklands corn production in relation to sorghum, wheat, and cotton is studied. Biophysical simulation generated yield data are integrated with an economic decision model using quadratic programming. Given the various scenarios analyzed, corn is economically feasible for the Blacklands. A crop mix of half corn and half cotton production is selected under risk neutrality with wheat entering if risk aversion is present. Corn and grain sorghum production are highly substitutable. Profit effects attributed to changing corn planting dates are more pronounced than profit changes resulting from altering corn population or maturity class.

The purpose of the study was to ascertain the competitive and complementary potential of fresh vegetable production relative to traditional row crop production using a regional partial equilibrium model. It seems clear from the analysis that vegetable crops are not destined in the near future to replace row crops in terms of land utilization. Nevertheless, vegetable crops appear to compete with and complement row crops well as evidenced by substantial increases in production as market share was assumed to increase. However, fresh vegetables cannot be considered as residual enterprises to which producers move when the demand for row crops declines. Even with a simulated 20 percent decrease in the demand for row crops, the acreage of fresh vegetables did not increase.

Price equations incorporating USDA October crop forecasts and June pecan stocks provided reasonable formulations for pecan price explanation and forecasting. USDA crop forecasts exceeded final reported production in 12 of the 18 seasons from 1970 to 1987, probably resulting in slightly lower prices and crop values. Large crop forecast errors in both direction and level in 1986 and 1987 confounded the price determination process. Nevertheless, producer prices may have been lower absent the October crop forecasts, which somewhat reduce buyers' uncertainty regarding supply. Early crop estimates provided a better explanation of price behavior than postseason revised production data.

The objective of this study was to identify factors which contributed to the financial performance of 81 selected dairy farms in Tennessee. The study analyzes several measures of financial performance including cash farm income, net farm income, and returns to operator labor and management. Regressions with ten explanatory variables were used to determine factors that explained the variation in the measures of financial performance. Production per cow, number of cows, price received for milk, forage costs, and level of debt use appeared to influence financial performance.

Variation in annual soybean plantings contributes to uncertainty in supplies of and demand for soybean seed in the southeastern U.S. This study used an expenditure valuation approach in an hedonic analysis framework to estimate returns to soybean seed quality differentiation. Analysis of pooled cross-sectional and time series observations narrowed important quality characteristics to yield and disease resistance attributes. In general, unexpected environmental factors affect seed crops over time, and the demand for other performance attributes is less predictable than for expected yield attributes. The results also suggest that geographical location is not significantly related to sales of varietal soybean seed in the study area.

This study reports results from a nation-wide survey of public attitudes toward agriculture. The study focuses on attitudes toward government involvement in agriculture across regions of the county and residential categories.

Interviews of customers at direct produce markets were conducted to determine why expenditure patterns vary. Frequency of shopping at outlets, income, uses of produce, household composition, and distance to the outlet are important determinants of expenditures at direct product outlets.

The Market Risk Game is a computerized simulation game available for IBM PC and Apple II microcomputers that is designed to give realistic practice in making decisions in a risky market environment. It illustrates the use of hedging and put options to reduce risk in livestock and grain markets. It is best suited for individuals who have a basic understanding of commodity trading, but who need experience to solidify their knowledge to a functional level. Through the game, this is done without facing the risk of an actual investment or requiring the time involved in watching a market over an extended period.

Poor management of the southeastern vegetable marketing cooperatives has been linked to poor record keeping practices. The VEGMARC II© Record Keeping Program is part of a comprehensive multi-agency effort to provide solutions to the problems of south-eastern vegetable marketing cooperatives. This computer program has been refined and expanded during four years of field testing. VEGMARC II© features include pool price calculations, deduction of packing fees, calculation of grower net returns, and the printing of reports, checks, and mailing labels. Eighty percent of cooperatives responding to user surveys indicated the program was meeting the needs of their cooperative.

“Finding Your Agricultural Advantage” is a collection of four programs—one to generate case studies, one to do “trial-and-error” solutions, one to display linear programming solutions, and one to maintain case study data files. The four programs can be used together or individually as instructor preferences dictate in teaching farm planning. A step-by-step method for teaching with the software is presented as an example of its use.