The marginal benefit and cost of diversification for Florida orange producers is studied using certainty equivalents. The primary contribution of this study is the application of the mean-variance model to farm management decisions. Results indicate that for moderate and high levels of risk...

A mathematical programming model with estimated nonlinear water response functions is used to explore the allocation of limited ground water to flood irrigated corn, flood-irrigated grain sorghum, and dryland sorghum in western Kansas. Results suggest that as ground water availability decreases,...

The present study uses local maximum likelihood (LML) methods recently proposed by Kumbhakar et al. (2007) to assess the technical efficiency of arable crop Kansas farms. LML techniques overcome the most relevant limitations associated to mainstream parametric stochastic frontier models. Results...

A target MOTAD model is used to investigate incorporation of early maturing soybeans by a crop farm in southeastern Kansas. Weather (WGEN) and crop simulation (SOYGRO) models are used to generate a long-term series of soybean yields. Results indicate that early maturing soybeans offer a...

Firms producing ethanol may find management of the price risk associated with production of this leading alternative fuel a key factor to continued success. As with other agricultural commodities, the influence and ability of futures contracts to serve as a risk management tool deserves attention.

A farm’s physical investment is affected by its fundamental q and by its financial situation, with the later comprising both the firm’s liquidity and its possibility of facing capital market imperfections. This study determines the effects of government payments, depreciation, and inflation...

Coffee production in Puerto Rico is labor intensive since harvest is done by hand for quality and topography conditions. Färe's nonparametric approach was used to estimate technical, allocative, scale and overall efficiency measures for coffee farms in Puerto Rico during the 2000 to 2004...