Reports on prospective plantings are designed to aid farmers in deciding among alternative crops before the planting season. In this connection, they are a useful guide only insofar as they assist the farmer in forecasting probable levels of, or changes in, relative prices. Prices during the...

As part of its research program during the last 4 years, the Agricultural Estimates Division, AMS, has conducted extensive studies on objective yield forecasting methods for several important field crops. Some results of these studies on cotton in the South and on soybeans in the North Central...

Much has been written concerning the importance of risk and uncertainty on decision making. However, research results employing static theory are seldom modified by risk and uncertainty considerations to provide more realistic recommendations to farmers and others making decisions under...

As part of the cotton forecasting research reported by Hendricks and Huddleston elsewhere in this issue, intensive studies are conducted in an attempt to make more accurate predictions of the quantity of immature fruit on the plants, as of a given date, which will develop to maturity and...

The United States Department of Agriculture is cooperating in an interagency study to plan for the future development and control of the water resources of the Potomac River Basin.' One assignment undertaken by the Farm Economics Research Division, Agricultural Research Service, is that of...

Fruit and nut production in Oregon and other important producing areas is highly commercialized. Sales of many of these commodities are controlled by Federal marketing agreements to provide for orderly marketing of each year's crop. Officers of grower and processor organizations who are charged...

Preharvest production forecasts can be combined with contemporaneous price quotations for futures contracts to estimate demand equations, but the methodology has limitations for estimating structural coefficients An application using data for corn highlights the difficulties The methodology,...

A shift to worldwide free trade would improve prospects for U.S. livestock and grain producers. Both production and prices would be higher for meat animals and poultry, but but milk prices would be lower. Producers of peanuts, sugar, and some fruits and vegetables would face lower price and...

As a means of forecasting probable maturity dates of standard Elberta peaches, the growers in Mesa County, Colo., in past seasons have had only the 126-day average elapsed time from full bloom to the date of shipment of the first car. Methods for forecasting maturity dates more accurately than...

A model is developed to forecast the food price component of the consumer price index published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The'model relates retail food prices to prices received by farmers and to wage rates in food marketing industries. The farm value and farm-retail spread of the...