This paper examined the relationship between overall inefficiency and farm characteristics such as farm size, years of farm experience, percent of time devoted to farming, educational level, record keeping system, percent acres owned, organizational structure, and farm type. Overall inefficiency...

Variable precipitation, more importantly drought, impacts profitability for livestock management. Financial outcomes from management decisions related to forage shortages can be exacerbated by price variability. This research examines alternative management strategies to determine the potential...

This paper examines the relationship between three expense ratios: total expense ratio; adjusted total expense ratio; and economic total expense ratio; and discusses economies of size for a sample of Kansas farms. The total expense ratio and the adjusted total expense ratios, though commonly...

The 2008 Farm Bill provided an option for receiving commodity program payments through existing programs or a new revenue-based alternative – the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program. ACRE is a state-level revenue program which, if elected, replaces the price-based countercyclical...

Farmers must earn revenues that both cover costs and provide adequate returns. The goal of this research was to understand how diversified farmers measure their cost of production and determine prices. We conducted in-depth interviews of diversified Vermont farmers and used the constant...

A ten-year linear programming model of a representative dryland crop farm in North Central Kansas is used to develop and illustrate procedures for analyzing economic impacts of the elimination of one or more pesticides on an individual farm. Atrazine is used as an example pesticide because of...

The last few years have seen big increases in land values. Cash rents have also increased but perhaps at a slower rate than land values. This paper examines the ratio of land values to cash rents to determine how cash rents have changed in relation to land value changes. This ratio is important...

Foreign labor has become increasingly important component of U.S. agriculture. Disruption in the supply of agricultural labor has been argued to significantly affect agricultural production. This study analyzes the impacts of foreign labor shortages on the dairy industry using national survey...

Farm enterprise analysis is a term that has traditionally been used to describe the process of determining costs associated with farm business enterprises and enterprise profitability. A key challenge to those who would know their costs has been the lack of guidance on cost accounting principles...

A two-year study of early vs. normal weaning of steer calves was conducted in the western Dakotas in 2003-04. The analysis concludes that early weaning improves feedlot production efficiency and reduces per-day and per-pound feedlot production costs. However, early weaned steers are lighter at...