University faculty have numerous responsibilities, but development of our own and our students’ human capital is our primary job. To effectively develop human capital of others requires investing heavily in our own capital. This includes being actively involved in discovering knowledge....

Increasingly, interdisciplinary research is being touted as a way to solve real-life problems of interest to the taxpayers who support research at public universities. The purpose of this paper is to examine the benefits of interdisciplinary agricultural research involving economists and natural...

This study identifies and analyzes factors that contribute to the success of small farms. Particular attention is given to the effect of participation in marketing and supply cooperatives on the success of small farms. Using modified net farm income per dollar of assets and operator’s...

The elimination of the quota program in 2002 reduced the barrier to entry into the peanut shelling industry. Peanut producers have expressed interest in integrating up to peanut shelling and marketing their own peanuts to peanut manufacturers. The peanut shelling and manufacturing sectors are...

Public debate about the relationships among research, technology, and farm size is often fueled by a particular hypothesis, that public sector research supports the development of scale-biased technologies that lead to fewer and larger farms. The evidence suggests that it is the private sector...

A new paradigm is needed in extension marketing programs. Attempts to help producers time the market, either through cask sales or futures trading, appear to be of little benefit. Marketing extension programs need to place less emphasis on outlook and futures trading and more emphasis on simple...

The land grant college of food, agriculture and natural resources constitutes a major historical innovation. Land grant colleges need to continue to do cutting edge science and education as well as maintain the outreach function to maintain state appropriations. Moreover, fund raising is going...

Agricultural cooperatives have been restructuring, by way of mergers, acquisitions, joint-ventures, and strategic alliances, to increase efficiencies to remain competitive in a changing business environment. The research evaluating the reorganization of cooperatives has revealed that less than...