As one of the instrument to enhance the microfinance institution's self-sustainability, credit scoring models that have been widely used in formal financial institutions can be used in the practice of microfinance. The statistic model will be established and tested to realize that goal.

Agricultural policy objectives provide green payment incentives for farmers to initiate practices with environmental benefits. Velvet beans planted as a cover crop offer an alternative for southeastern peanut farmers to control nematodes without chemicals, while increasing soil fertility....

A brief review of the beef and cattle market following the diagnosis of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in Canada and U.S. in 2003 is conducted. The focus is on the recent changes in the beef market experienced by major exporting and importing countries with special emphasis on the beef...

We estimated the environmental Kuznets curve for point (mercury) and nonpoint (nitrogen, phosphorus, and dissolved oxygen) source water pollutants as a function of income in parametric and semiparametric functional forms of the Panel data model. Seemingly unrelated panel formulation did not...

Applying baled litter from northwest Arkansas shipped by truck with backhauls, supplemented with chemical fertilizers provided the most cost-efficient method to supply nutrients to crops in eastern Arkansas, according to a GAMS optimization. Shipping raw litter by truck and barge is the optimal...

This paper estimates the value of carbon from soil sequestration and emission reductions from setting aside highly erodible land. Increases in soil carbon are estimated using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change soil organic carbon inventory method and NRI data. Emission reductions are...

Two competing hypotheses on market structure and performance of firms are the traditional structure-conduct-performance (SCP) paradigm and the efficiency structure hypothesis. This paper reveals the profits made by firms in the trucking industry were because of greater efficiencies than their...

Study of profitability and risk of agricultural banks is very important in assessing the ability to adequately finance agricultural production and rural development. A recursive system of profitability and risk equations is estimated to compare the performance of agricultural with...

Peanut production efficiency in the Southeast is analyzed for assessing farm-level impacts of the 2002 Farm Act. Stochastic frontier analysis utilizes data from 2001 Peanut Farm Survey. Results show that production efficiency cannot be attributed to quota ownership. Certain other farm...

A comparison of decision rules has been made for case studies of corn production using subsurface drip irrigation under three agricultural management practices (no irrigation, uniform irrigation, and variable rate irrigation). The uniform irrigation strategy appeared to perform the best than the...