The grain handling sector in Canada and the United States is vital to agriculture and trade. In a typical year on the Canadian prairies, about 140,000 producers deliver some 20 to 30 mmt of grain for export to primary elevators. In the United States, about 2.1 million producers deliver about 300...

This study provides a framework to value investment strategies to mitigate possible agro-terrorism occurrences in the food supply chain and to determine where these investments would reduce the most risk. This framework is applied to two food sectors that could be at risk: milk and green onions....

A principal-agent problem was specified to define the equilibrium solution of a contracting strategy for a U.S. supplier exporting wheat to meet EU traceability requirements. The buyer (principal) offers a contract, the supplier (agent) accepts the contract, and then the supplier decides whether...

This study suggests that confidence intervals for WASDE forecasts of corn, soybean, and wheat prices may be improved if they are estimated using an empirical approach. Empirical confidence intervals are calculated following Williams and Goodman's (1971) method and use historical forecast errors...

Variety development and release decisions involve tradeoffs between yields and characteristics valued by end-users, as well as uncertainties about agronomic, quality, and economic variables. In this study, methods are developed to determine the value of varieties to growers and end-users...

Consistency of functional characteristics in wheat is a concern confronting buyers and sellers. This research analyzes the cost and risk of different procurement strategies for importers. A stochastic simulation model is used to determine the probability of functional characteristics being...

The Canadian grain handling and transportation system has undergone substantial change in recent years, particularly since the elimination of rail subsidies in 1995. Competitive pressures and branch line abandonment have forced many primary elevators to close, while scores of new high-throughput...

Grain hauling railroads began offering shipping alternatives in the late 1980s that have made transportation decisions more strategic. Shippers now confront alternatives ranging from nearby and unguaranteed ordering to various durations of forward and guaranteed shipment. A dynamic stochastic...