This paper briefly reviews the current food situation and provides some historical perspectives on its evolution over time. It documents the important effects of agricultural productivity. It also evaluates the role of externalities, uncertainty and policy in the agricultural sector. The...

This paper presents an assessment of the linkages between crop genetic diversity, farm productivity and risk management. A flexible moment-based approach is used to analyse the impact of crop genetic diversity on the mean, variance and skewness of yield. Using farm-level data from Sicily...

The paper investigates the nature of arbitrage price dynamics and expectations formation in the US broiler market. The analysis provides evidence of heterogeneous expectations among market participants. A significant part of broiler pricing is found to be consistent with quasi-rational...

A nonparametric analysis of technical change under profit maximization and a "generalized augmentation" hypothesis is proposed. It allows for Hicks neutral as well as biased technical change. An empirical application to U.S. agriculture is presented in the context of input-output translating...

Risk and risk aversion are introduced in a Ricardian model of the pricing and allocation of land. The rental price of land and agricultural production decisions are analysed in a market equilibrium context. It is shown how uncertainty influences the Ricardian rent, farm output, the average...