Animal identification has been one of the most contentious issues for the last decade in the livestock industry. More specifically, at issue is the idea of a government-sponsored identification system, although it is unclear that an identification system forced on the industry by the market...

Increased demand for corn for ethanol production has helped push grain prices to record levels. This has increased livestock production costs, and producers have responded with changes to production systems. This paper explores the degree to which costs can be mitigated with alternative feeds,...

This paper examines the impact of sex-sorted semen adoption on dairy farm level economics. Representative dairies are used to simulate the financial impacts of moving to this new technology. Key economic, financial and herd dynamics will be compared among dairies to show how the uses of...

The sensitivity of net cash farm income to changes in selected production variables, output prices, and input costs varies significantly across representative U.S. dairies. Different regions of the country were impacted differently by changes to production and prices.

Relatively low crop prices over the past two years, as well as regional weather adversity, has been the catalyst for the passage of "ad hoc" emergency relief. This paper examines the economic and financial status of 41 representative panel farms over the 1999-2002 period. When forecasting...

Arguably, since the 1930s, what farmers produced has been markedly influenced by farm programs. The 1996 farm bill affects farmers in terms of what they produce and their level of risk exposure. This paper investigates the farm level impacts of the 1996 farm bill on the South. Focus group...

Higher commodity price expectations have led to increases in cash lease rates nationwide. This study evaluates the farm level impacts of higher cash lease rates. Current levels of cash rents along with land tenure arrangements of specific farms are instrumental in determining the impacts of...

With the 2009 milk prices still fresh on everyone’s mind, there has been increased interest in ways to limit milk price volatility. Using SERF, this paper determined some dairies are willing to pay for limited milk price volatility and found a value they are willing to pay using risk premiums.