The historical behavior of farmland prices, rental rates, and rates of return are examined by treating farmland as an asset with an infinitely long life. It is found that high (low) farmland prices relative to rents have historically precededextended periods of low (high) net rates of return,...

A framework is developed to examine organic crop insurance established by the Risk ManagementAgency (RMA). Given that the RMA links organic and conventional crop prices, the modelis calibrated to reflect both markets to illustrate the impacts that pricing has on insurancecoverage. Findings...

A framework is developed to examine the 2011 pilot program established by the Risk Management Agency (RMA) to insure organic crops. Given that for insurance purposes RMA links organic crop prices to their conventional counterparts by a fixed percentage, we calibrate our model to reflect the...

Based on an econometric analysis of the data obtained from a survey of meat plants (n=53 ) in Iowa in summer 2007, this paper identifies the factors impacting the meat plants’ voluntary adoption of forward and backward traceability activities. The results suggest that the ownership type...

This paper suggests four models that could link US and Chinese investment and yield productive new avenues for commercial collaboration. All four models focus on animal protein supply chain technologies. That is because agricultural innovation in this realm is of particular importance to...

This article reports tests of aggregation over elementary ground beef products and estimates composite demand elasticities. Results suggest that we obtain reliable information on consumers’ actual ground beef purchases by grouping data according to either lean percentage or brand type....

Consumers rely on experience and credence attributes when purchasing beef from retailers. It is essential for all beef industry sectors to recognize the complexity of consumer buying behavior. A hedonic model is estimated to determine if there are incentives to brand beef steaks, the types of...

Price differences among fed cattle prices in Canada and the United States (referred to here as fed cattle basis) are important for Canadian cattle feeders, but changing government regulations in Canada and the United States have made basis more variable. This article uses transaction data from...

While modern swine production systems rely on confinement production, there are calls to reduce or eliminate the use of gestation stalls. To understand the economic aspects of this debate, this article reviews the structural evolution of the industry, the underlying legal framework in animal...