This chapter provides an overview of the changes in nutrient content of the food supply in the United States and other countries. Core concepts used in assessment of the adequacy of (or excess in) diets and factors that affect nutrient availability in the food supply, including technology and...

We introduce a world fertilizers model that is capable of producing fertilizer demand projections by crop, by country, by macronutrients, and by year. For each crop, the most relevant countries in terms of production, consumption, or trade are explicitly modeled. The remaining countries are...

While modern swine production systems rely on confinement production, there are calls to reduce or eliminate the use of gestation stalls. To understand the economic aspects of this debate, this article reviews the structural evolution of the industry, the underlying legal framework in animal...

The Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000 recognized organic farming as a“good farming practice,†making federal crop insurance coverage available for organiccrops, and taking into account the idiosyncrasies of the organic production system. Inaddition to the production risks...

Several empirical analyses of data from fed cattle markets have found a negative correlation between a region's weekly delivery volume of captive supply cattle and contemporaneous price in the local cash market. This negative correlation has been cited as evidence of a causal relationship...

Consumers rely on experience and credence attributes when purchasing beef from retailers. It is essential for all beef industry sectors to recognize the complexity of consumer buying behavior. A hedonic model is estimated to determine if there are incentives to brand beef steaks, the types of...

The potential of biomass for alternative energy production has attracted considerable attention because of associated implications for energy security, food supply, and climate change. This paper considers the economic impacts of spatial variation and landowner behavior on potential biomass...

We develop a long-run cost model for cellulosic biofuel production that accounts for locational differences in biomass production conditions.  The cost model minimizes the per-gallon cost of biofuel when feedstock costs vary within local biomass-producing regions and plant size is determined by...