This paper examines the impact of food safety standards imposed on suppliers of ground beef to the National School Lunch Program by the Agricultural Marketing Service. Probit regression results show that plants approved by AMS that bid on contracts to supply the NSLP had a higher level of food...

This report examines the impact of process regulations mandated under the Pathogen Reduction/Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (PR/HACCP) rule by the Food Safety and Inspection Service of USDA on food safety process control. The current level of food safety found in U.S. meat and...

This paper uses probit regressions and data from the Food Safety Inspection Service to empirically examine the food safety performance of establishments supplying raw chicken to the National School Lunch Program. Results provide some support that plant supplying the National School Lunch Program...

This paper uses plant-level micro-data covering the 1987-2002 and a translog cost function to estimate long-run costs in the meat and poultry industry in order to evaluate the impact of the Pathogen Reduction Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Rule on cattle, hog and chicken slaughter and...

The USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) farm typology was originally developed to classify farms into relatively homogeneous groups based on their gross farm sales, the primary occupation of their operators, and whether the farms are family farms. Nearly 15 years have passed since ERS first...

The industrialization of the food system is proceeding at a rapid rate and contracting is a key element in that industrialization. The purposes of this paper are to summarize contract terms in agricultural contracts for major commodities and to assess the determinants of variations in contract...

Presented to USDA Economists Group, Washington, DC